By Shamecca Brown-Granite State News Collaborative
I watched a movie on Netflix called “Eleanor the Great,” and I didn’t expect it to sit with me the way it did. It’s a film about an older Jewish woman whose life has been shaped by history in ways most of us will never fully understand. I’m not Jewish. I didn’t grow up with Holocaust stories in my family. But something in me connected. Something in me listened differently. Something in me felt the weight of what she carried.
Sometimes a movie isn’t just entertainment – it’s a lesson, a reminder, a mirror. Watching “Eleanor the Great” made me realize how important it is not only to learn history, but to feel it, to respect it, and to understand that survivors don’t need to scream for their stories to matter. Trauma can live quietly and still be loud.
The Holocaust was one of the darkest things this world has ever seen. Six million Jewish people murdered. Children separated from their parents. Families destroyed. Entire cultures and languages targeted for erasure. There were concentration camps, sadistic experiments, starvation, humiliation and cruelty that goes beyond what the mind wants to picture.
People like Eleanor lived through the aftermath of that. They carried memories that didn’t always make it to the dinner table or the classroom. Silence became protection. Silence became survival. And sitting on my couch, watching her story unfold, I found myself grateful to be learning about that time through someone who lived it, even if she didn’t say everything out loud.
I think about how the world is now, how cold it feels at times, how hateful people can be, how divided we are. People will tell you “that was the past,” as if hatred expires, as if genocide can’t happen again, as if ignorance doesn’t grow back when it’s watered. But watching Eleanor made me realize history doesn’t just repeat, it warns.
Even though I’m not Jewish, I felt a connection through my ancestors in a different way. My ancestors were enslaved. They were beaten, sold, raped and treated as property. They survived systems that were designed to erase them. They were told they were less. Their bodies were controlled. Their names were taken. And just like Jewish survivors, they made it anyway, and because they made it, I’m here.
Survival is a legacy
I would never compare pain in a disrespectful way. The Holocaust and slavery are not the same. But what connects them is how evil tries to operate: by stripping humanity, by spreading dehumanizing language, by creating an “us versus them,” and by convincing regular people to look away or go silent.
That’s why this film meant something to me. It reminded me that survival is more than breathing. It’s culture, language, memory. It’s babies growing up free. It’s faith, art, laughter and old age. Seeing Eleanor at that point in her life was powerful because it was proof that love still outlives hate.
While watching, I felt grateful because I was learning something schools barely teach and society barely honors. Grateful that we have films that open our minds instead of numbing them. Grateful that survivors shared their stories so the world cannot say it didn’t know.
I also felt sad thinking about how the world has changed. Hate didn’t disappear – it just found new languages, new targets and new platforms. People are bold with cruelty now – genocide denial, racism, antisemitism, homophobia. People are louder about violence and quieter about empathy, and that scares me.
What gave me hope in the movie was the quiet strength, the dignity. Eleanor didn’t have to be loud to be great. She didn’t have to perform her trauma for the world to validate it. She just lived. She remembered. She honored. And that alone carried history forward.
As a Black woman, as a mother, as someone who teaches her kids about where they come from every day – not just in February, and not just when it’s convenient – I appreciated that. I appreciated that witnessing someone else’s history does not take away from mine. It expands it. It humbles it. It connects it..
“Eleanor the Great” reminded me that when we honor other people’s trauma, we become better humans. And I truly believe the world needs more of that right now.
Shamecca Brown is a New Hampshire-based columnist who is family-oriented and passionate about serving underserved communities. These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.