Project History

Research for this project first began in 1982, when husband and wife team, Alan Teller and Jerri Zbiral, began interviewing Jerri's mother Anna for a proposed book. From 1987 to 1992 they recorded some 18 hours of audio tape interviews with survivors in Czechoslovakia and collected hundreds of photographs, documents, and historical footage from American and European archives.

In 1992, the 50th anniversary provided the impetus to return to Lidice. Alan and Jerri, director Jacky Comforty, and cameraman Ned Miller, working with a Czech film crew, recorded 20 hours of remarkable material. The next six years were spent developing the best way to tell the story. In the Shadow of Memory evolved from a book to a creative documentary film. It eventually focused not only on the events, but on their ongoing effects. This film opens the door to understanding the impact of tragedies by focusing on how a disaster that took place before she was born affected Jerri. Whether it is child abuse or AIDS, ethnic conflict in so many countries or racial conflict in Chicago, the things that happen to one generation affect the next. In the Shadow of Memory explores this, using Lidice as the vehicle.