BELFAST – A South Portland woman’s documentary film that illustrates how her mother’s journey home to Austria helped her recover from the Holocaust will be shown at 6:45 and 8:45 p.m. Tuesday at the Colonial Theater, 163 High St.

“Angels of Austria: The Church That Reached Out to Holocaust Survivors” was produced by Judy Faust. It chronicles her mother, Trudy Faust’s, 1995 visit to her hometown, Wiener Neustadt, Austria, for a reconciliation program sponsored by a local church.

Trudy Faust, who is Jewish, was born in Austria but left when she was 18 after the Nazis took over the country, according to an article published earlier this year in a southern Maine newspaper. She and her father, Julius Duhl, stood in line outside a consulate in Vienna for six months to obtain permission to leave.

Because Duhl was born in what is now Ukraine and not Austria, he was not allowed to leave the country, according to Judy Faust. Her mother went to live with uncles in America and never saw her father again.

Trudy Faust, who now lives in Florida, kept letters from her father, who disappeared in 1942, for years but did not read them. She married another Austrian survivor of the Holocaust and settled in Hartford, Conn., where Judy Faust was raised.

“All of her adult life my mother felt guilty that she could not save her papa from the hands of the Nazis,” Judy Faust said in a press release announcing the Belfast event. “When at last she was ready to share her story with me and to reveal her papa’s letters that she had tucked away for 53 years, an unusual invitation from a church in Austria arrived in her mail, asking her to return to her hometown for a week of friendship, in hopes of seeking forgiveness for the crimes of the Holocaust.”

The film documents the two women’s visit to the Ichthys Church that had many members who were descendants of former Nazis. Church members escorted their guests to synagogues, museums and cemeteries. The moment of healing for Trudy Faust, according to her daughter, came when the older woman spoke to high school students in Austria about her experience.

Judy Faust also has written a book about her family titled, “Waltzing with Papa: Three Generations to Healing.” She owns What’s Your Story? an educational service that connects history and family stories.

For more information call 799-4715 or visit www.connectyourstories.com.

jharrison@bangordailynews.net

990-8207