Filmmaker and author Steven Pressman will discuss his documentary film and book, both of which tell the previously unknown story about an American couple who traveled into Nazi Germany in order to bring a group of Jewish children back to the safety of the United States.

Steven Pressman was born and raised in Los Angeles and received an undergraduate degree in political science at the University of California, Berkeley. He worked as a newspaper and magazine journalist for many years, both as a reporter and editor at a variety of publications in Los Angeles, Washington DC and San Francisco.

As a filmmaker, Steve directed and produced 50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus, which premiered on HBO in 2013 and received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Historical Programming. His next film, Holy Silence, premiered on PBS in 2020. Steve’s third film, The Levys of Monticello, has won numerous awards while screening at more than 100 film festivals around the country since its release in 2022.  His latest film, Moses Ezekiel: Portrait of a Lost Artist, began playing at film festivals in 2024.  Steve is currently in production on his next film Dust Bowls and Jewish Souls: Another Side of Woody Guthrie.

Pressman’s Athenaeum lecture is co-sponsored by the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights at Claremont McKenna College.