Jewish Grandpa Seeks Out The Family Who Hid Him From Nazis in Documentary "The Starfish"

New York director and producer, Tyler Gildin, through his media company Gildin Media, released a documentary titled The Starfish, exploring the life story of his grandfather, Herb Gildin. Tyler isn’t new to creating Jewish-related content as his Uber satire Schlep a few years ago explored a ride share service ran by Jewish mothers, but this film is a lot more personal for him.

The Starfish is the story of Herb Gildin, whose parents sent him to live with non-Jewish families in Sweden to escape Nazi persecution at age 10, along with his older sisters Margaret (12) and Cele (14). Their journey was aided by the organization HIAS, were able to facilitate the children’s travel from Sweden across Russia and the Pacific to reunite with their parents in America 2 years later. Herb went on to build a successful business for himself and his family, leaving his childhood very much buried in his past. It took years of questions from his children to finally dig up his story, resulting in one last trip back to Sweden, to try and reunite with the remaining family members who had taken him in 60 years earlier.