Watermarks

Watermarks is a 2004 documentary directed by Yaron Zilberman that features women from the Viennese Hakoah swim team during the rise of fascism in 1930s Austria. The film describes the women's success as athletes leading up to the Anschluss of 1938 when the swimmers fled Austria to disparate locations in Palestine, England, and the United States. The documentary ends with some of the women from the swim team returning to Vienna sixty-five years la... more

Watermarks is a 2004 documentary directed by Yaron Zilberman that features women from the Viennese Hakoah swim team during the rise of fascism in 1930s Austria. The film describes the women's success as athletes leading up to the Anschluss of 1938 when the swimmers fled Austria to disparate locations in Palestine, England, and the United States. The documentary ends with some of the women from the swim team returning to Vienna sixty-five years later for a reunion at their old swimming pool. One of the women featured in the film, Judith Haspel, was a record-setting swimmer who was selected to represent Austria in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. She refused to go and was stripped of her records and banned from competition. Her records were reinstated in 1995. less