Tovarisch, I Am Not Dead

Synopsis

Garri Urban was a survivor – not a victim – of both the Holocaust and Gulag. Born in the shtetl (a Jewish rural community) in 1916, he overcame adversity through a mixture of charm, aggression, and chutzpah. His 1980 autobiographical account of his adventures took its title from the time when he was shot during his attempt to swim across an icy river from Soviet territory to Romania. He told the snipers who stooped to lift his apparently lifeless body; “no, tovarisch (comrade), I’m not dead” before striking their officer.

In 1992 his son, film-maker Stuart Urban, followed Garri into the former Soviet Union shortly after its disintegration, to investigate Garri’s KGB records and the fate of his family in the Holocaust. Accompanied by extensive 16mm Kodachrome home movies from the 1950s onwards, Stuart Urban builds a fascinating portrait of a unique man. What he uncovers, in an investigation that continued after Garri’s death, is a remarkable life, often lived in the harshest of circumstances, which highlighted the tenacity and remarkable ability of one person to survive in even the harshest of circumstances.

“A fascinating portrait of a charismatic personality; it also poses the question of how much we know about the people we call family. In Garri Urban’s case, the answer is tantalisingly evasive.” — – Wendy Ide, The Times

“Here is a gripping documentary, intriguing for the questions it asks and for those that it coolly leaves unanswered: questions about loyalty, the second world war, survivor guilt and whether we ever truly know our parents.” — Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian