Tzvi Simchon ’24, a filmmaker, created a 50-minute documentary titled “Can These Bones Live Again?” as his final project at Empire State University. The film follows a 10-day trip to Poland by high school students from an Orthodox Jewish school in Brooklyn, exploring Holocaust sites including concentration camps, mass gravesites, and memorials. Holocaust survivor Dov Landau accompanied the group at times.
“That whole generation is soon going to die away, which is very scary, especially with the rise of antisemitism,” Simchon says, explaining his motivation to preserve this legacy and bridge generational understanding.
The documentary was organized by Names Not Numbers, a nonprofit focused on Holocaust education. Simchon was originally scheduled to participate as a student in 2020, but the trip was cancelled due to COVID-19. When it resumed in 2023, he returned not as a student, but as a professional filmmaker.
The film captures students’ emotional reactions at the camps alongside footage of Jewish music and dance celebrating contemporary Jewish culture. Simchon says the answer to the film’s own title question is “yes, they can… We are the bones come back to life.”
Learning the Craft at Home
Simchon developed his passion for filmmaking as a child, learning animation and editing from his father. He graduated from SUNY Empire in 2024 with a degree in interdisciplinary studies, and credits professor Ruth Goldberg for his education in Holocaust filmmaking specifically. The documentary was featured at the Miami Jewish Film Festival earlier in 2025.
