Open Call

My grandfather, Irving Sarot, was an Army surgeon in Europe during WWII. He directed a front line hospital for three years and in that time oversaw the treatment of tens of thousands of soldiers (allied and axis) and even had his hospital captured by the Nazis twice. He was chief surgeon at the fall of the Remagen bridge and the freeing of Buchnewald and the following experience happened around the time of the Battle of the Bulge in the Black Forest in Germany.

His hospital had been receiving wounded steadily for days and were treating both allied troops and some locals injured in shelling. A German officer showed up at the hospital, surrendering, with an injured young girl in his arms. He asked to see the head of the hospital and when my Grandfather appeared he explained that this was his daughter, he was a surrendering German officer - also a surgeon, she was injured and would the hospital please treat her. My grandfather, who maintained a strict policy of treating the most injured first, evaluated her and agreed to take her in for surgery right away. The German thanked him profusely and as he went to introduce himself my grandfather interrupted and said: "No, I know who you are. I was a medical student in Germany ten years ago and you were the doctor that supervised my rounds." After surgery, while the daughter recovered, my grandfather and this German officer sat outside during a lull and talked about what had happened in each of their lives during the past 10 years that led to them being on opposite sides of such a brutal war.

I would like to tell the story using the enormous number of original photographs my grandfather has of his hospital during the war, digitally manipulated to create a sense of motion and lyricism. This piece should be like a poem.