'Walt Disney of Israeli animation' was Mossad agent, who forged docs for Eli Cohen

(JNS) — Before discovering the story of Joseph and Rebecca Bau, who married secretly in the Plaszow concentration camp during the Holocaust, Deborah Smerecnik never imagined that she would make a film.

“It was the love story that drew me in and the fact that there were so many miracles,” she told JNS. “I’m very much a believer in miracles, and I wanted to tell a redemptive story that encourages people to hold on and persevere.”

Smerecnik, who wrote the 2024 film “Bau: Artist at War,” devoted some 15 years to the project, which she admits she nearly abandoned multiple times. The dream “and the...