Proud Jewish Boy

<p><img alt="Laurel icon denoting the film is in competition for a Jury Prize." border="0" src="https://data.ajff.org/sites/default/files/2025-12/laurels_Jury%20Award%20Nominee%20Blue_01_0.png" style="width:20%; max-width:20%; margin-left:10px; float:right;" />This methodically researched, little-known story uncovers how a teenage Jewish refugee shooting a Nazi diplomat ignited the prewar pogrom widely seen as prelude to the Holocaust. When 17-year-old Herschel Grynszpan fires on German official Ernst vom Rath in 1938 Paris, propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels seizes the act as pretext for Kristallnacht—burned synagogues, looted businesses, and thousands of Jews arrested or killed. New findings unearth a maze of interrogations, propaganda schemes, and vanished records as the young assassin fights to shape his legal defense. Through rare archives, family testimony, and striking black-and-white illustrations, this Haifa Film Festival Best Documentary winner charts a high-stakes battle between a defiant teen and the Reich’s most ruthless manipulators.</p>