SF Jewish Film Festival Pick: ‘My Underground Mother’

Nothing about My Underground Mother is easy to watch. Violence is ever-present in journalist Marisa Fox’s investigation into her Jewish mother’s concealed life during and after World War II. And over the course of the film, Fox’s mother Hela Hocherman emerges as both a victim and a perpetrator of that violence.

The majority of the film reveals the harrowing fates of thousands of Jewish girls who spent World War II imprisoned in forced-labor camps. Viewing the Holocaust from the perspectives of teen girls feels starkly revelatory, as Fox depicts how sexual violence is weaponized during war.

The final 15 minutes of My Underground Mother is an examination of Hocherman’s postwar life. She became a militant Zionist operating in Palestine with Haganah, a paramilitary organization that at