"The buildings we documented are crumbling," says Kathy Hersh, script writer, "but they are important bookmarks in a chapter of history still painful to many. Yet the markers are there, symbols of a culture which left its trace and moved on to survive elsewhere."

THE HISTORY
For 400 years prior to World War II, the Jews of rural Eastern Europe built wooden synagogues, perhaps 1,000 in all, cut from abundant forests. These marvels of indigenous craftsmanship and artistic expression were destroyed, along with ancient manuscripts, village records, and religious and cultural artifacts, during the war, all casualties of Hitler's campaign to obliterate Jewish life and culture.