03 April 2012

Film society to show documentary again

There was a full house at Sunday’s showing of “Lost Airmen of Buchenwald” at the W. C. O’Neill Arena Theatre and some people had to be turned away so there will be a second showing Wednesday April 4 at 7:30 p.m.

The documentary is about the 168 Allied airmen who were sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp. One of them was Hawker Typhoon fighter pilot Jim Stewart of Saint Andrews who was in attendance at Sunday night’s showing and received a standing ovation from the audience afterwards when he came forward to answer questions.

An RAF fighter pilot, he was shot down near Rouen, France, May 13, 1944 and managed to evade capture for several months with the help of members of the French resistance movement.

War, said Stewart, is so often a case of ordinary people doing extraordinary things and spoke of his own personal hero from those days in the concentration camp, New Zealander Phil Lamason, the senior officer in the group who is also featured in the documentary. He said he has been back a couple of times and attended the 65th and last liberation of Buchenwald celebration in 2010 but there are not many of them left.

SOURCE: The Saint Croix Courier (St. Stephen, NB) - April 3, 2012.