Aida’s Secrets is a documentary about an Israeli adopted man exploring his secret family history, which takes the filmmakers, who are his family, on a journey to Canada to meet his biological family and a journey back in time to explore life in concentration camps post World War II as Nazi’s victims tried to restart their lives. When filmmakers are intimately involved in the subject, the documentary is rarely clear to viewers, and sadly this documentary is emblematic of this problem.
If you decide to watch Aida’s Secrets, you will have to watch the extra features on the DVD to get a clear summary of what actually happened because the actual documentary only catalogues the journey as it is happening, which is confusing and enigmatic for those involved. It is also becomes repetitive as they ruminate over what they have discovered and extrapolate meaning from it. Then when the documentary reaches the end, it is unfinished as yet another revelation is dropped. The filmmakers should have had at least had one outsider to help them make the film so it was objectively structured to be digested by viewers although as an emotional journey exploring the psychological complexities of a family, it works.
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Here is the overall story of Aida’s Secrets told in chronological order. Aida was a Polish girl who became a child slave sent to work with a Nazi family, was raped and became pregnant with Izak. After the war ends, she is still underage and instead of returning to Poland, she goes to a refugee center at a former concentration camp. She did not have to because these camps were open to everyone, but she pretends that she is Jewish and hangs out with all the Jewish refugees. She becomes the wife of a Jewish smuggler/possible gangster, who is a complete womanizer, but it is postwar, and all the rules are a little fuzzy. Women talk about exchanging sex for goods and act like it is totally fine, but it is still rape albeit with a consensual veneer. She has a child for her husband, Shep, who is blind, and her husband acts like Izak is his child. Something happens, and they end up splitting up. Do they both or only one get new significant others? I’m not entirely sure. When it is immigration time, she is seduced by the idea of a Jewish homeland. Documents for kids isn’t rigorous so she claims Izak is a Jewish orphan so he can immigrate to Israel, but when she applies to immigrate, she can’t because she is still Jewish. Everyone else immigrates to Canada separately: the husband takes Shep and gets remarried, and Aida goes by herself. At some point, she has a third son in Canad, but we don’t have any details about him, and she gave him up for adoption too. Remember that she is still underage for the majority of this plot, which is easy to forget since she is acting grown out of necessity. At some point, Aida periodically visits Izak in Israel, tells his adopted family not to tell him that he has a brother and they don’t until he is in his 60s!
Pardon my French, but the fuck! Why would you show more loyalty and keep some Goyim chick’s secrets over your brother, whom you know and love? It is not like he does not know that he is adopted. Izak is the most touchy feeley, lovey dovey man in the world so when he is understandably upset and starts snapping at people and rapping them on the head, it is fine. His daughter eventually reveals it to him, but she is given little to no screen time. I think that his nephews are the filmmakers, but they never take a moment to delineate everyone’s relationship to each other so I could be wrong. They find out that Shep is in Canada, and Izak rushes over to meet his long lost brother.
Shep is a cool dude, but clearly bears the scars of having an implicitly abusive father and was not a fan. In old black and white photos, you see that Izak had a cat as a child. Shep has a couple of cats and a dog, a close relationship with his wife and daughter and is very independent in spite of his disability. He is very athletic. He is understandably concerned that his mother will reject him and is hesitant in his relationship with his brother whereas Izak does not miss a beat and acts like they are bosom buddies. At this point, the film stops following Izak, who seems unable to handle any more revelations and peaces out back to Israel pretending like everything is cool—he knows his brother and his deceased father and greets his mother since he is in Canada anyway. No secrets to find here!
Aida’s Secrets then becomes about Shep trying to get information out of his mom, who does greet him warmly and loves him, which phew, but clearly Aida is still cagey for unknown reasons and is not giving up anything. Because no one involved in this film seems to have practice on eliciting information from an unwilling participant, they step over her answers, fill the silence and offer answers that she readily agrees to, but anyone actually watching her physical demeanor and not emotionally involved could tell that she is lying. She acts like Shep’s father is Izak, but plot twist, genetic marker tests says no, and she plays forgetful old lady when asked whom Izak’s biological father is. Also when they eventually find out that there is a third kid, she pulls the old card again, and because she is, no one really pushes her for answers. The third kid has no interest in any of this crap and basically says no thank you. Shep visits Israel. The documentary becomes overly reliant on one particular old gossip who seemed to be in everyone’s business, but I did not completely trust her because she kept using Jewish stereotypes. Aida dies, and her stalwart unwillingness to unburden herself reminded me of Secrets & Lies. Since she seems to love her kids, she must believe that she is protecting them.
Aida’s Secrets is a frustrating documentary. It is a great story that examines post WWII life for refugees and their descendants, which is not as often explored as life during the Holocaust, and provides a psychological profile of an international family and the widespread and differing effects based on circumstance, but the filmmakers are too close to the subject to tell the story clearly.