Married with a Star - A Jewish Wedding in Occupied Amsterdam, 1942

This documentary film presents a Jewish wedding that took place in Nazi occupied Holland. On the 25th May 1942, Max Werkendam and Clara de Vries married in the old Jewish quarter in the center of Amsterdam. Max Werkendam was killed in Bergen Belsen. His wife Clara survived the Holocaust. Upon her return to Amsterdam in 1945, after she had been incarcerated in a number of concentration camps, Clara’s personal belongings were surprisingly returned to her, including her wedding film. Later Clara married David Dukker. She forgot about the film for 50 years until it was reconstructed for this film. The original film documents the wedding, with guests wearing yellow patches as worn by the Jews during the war. A month after the wedding, Dutch Jews were evicted and sent to Westerbork and from there to extermination camps. Only a handful of wedding guests survived the war.