World War II documentary seeks to preserve memories

By Gregory R.C. Hasman
Rocket Miner
Via Wyoming News Exchange
 
ROCK SPRINGS — For a local filmmaker, putting together a documentary is more than paying a tribute to a loved one, it’s about trying to bridge a generation gap between millennials and what journalist Tom Brokaw called “The Greatest Generation.”
Mark Pedri, who splits his time in Rock Springs and Los Angeles, is working on a film about his grandfather.
In 1944, Sgt. Silvio Pedri, serving with the 95th Infantry Division, was sent on a mission to cross the Moselle River just north of Metz, France. His objective was to create a diversion so a larger unit could build a bridge to bring in heavy artillery and take Metz from the Germans. Instead, after losing most of his close friends in a battle with the Germans, Pedri was captured and sent to a prisoner of war camp where he remained for several months, according to the Wyoming WWII film website.
Mark has been searching for more about his grandfather during the war.
Mark Pedri visited and helped Silvio at his place at the Country Club Mobile Home Park in Rock Springs when Mark was 11 until he left for college.
“He was probably the most influential person in my life,” he said. “He really had a huge impact on how I saw the world.”
Silvio came to Rock Springs when he was younger and lived with his uncle  Condido Pedri after getting a job at a Reliance coal mine. Nine years ago, Silvio passed away, and at the time Mark said he did not know much about his grandfather’s experiences in World War II.
Any time people would try to get him to talk about the war, “He’d close off and never want to talk about it, unless it was a teaching moment,” Mark said.
There continues to be a generational gap between Silvio’s generation and the millennials, Mark said.
One way to close the gap is to chase personal stories, something that can’t be found on Google, Pedri said.
“We feel that bridging the generational gap is so important to preserving history because it’s the key to connecting with those who have firsthand accounts, but for whatever reason, these stories haven’t made it to the history books,” he said. “History tends to focus on the longer stories. We’re saying what about the small heroes who have had huge impacts on each of us?
“The act of passing down folk history through oral storytelling is as ancient as language itself. With the advent of modern technology, we’re able to document stories very effectively by means of daily updates on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. There is an entire generation that is not as versed in this technology. So much communication is happening virtually, and a large number of people are missing out on this because they aren’t online. Therefore their stories are not being passed on like in years past.
“It takes effort to have the conversations and preserve the story in whatever form. A big part of what we’re doing is putting forth the effort to tell a story that is at risk of being lost because that 
generation of people is getting smaller and smaller each day.”
Modern technology has enabled Mark and fiancee and film producer Carrie McCarthy to connect with people around the world and put the pieces of the story together, Pedri said.
On Thanksgiving 2017, Pedri and McCarthy found Silvo’s archives and photographs from World War II.
“Man, I felt like I was meeting the most influential man in my life for the first time,” Mark said.
One of the things they found was a large file full of documents that were submitted as a claim against Germany in the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission’s Holocaust Survivors Claims Program.
“No one in my family knew that he submitted this claim, or about the documents it entailed,” he said. “This is when we really started to question what exactly happened to him during his time as a POW.”
Some of the documents were written by Silvio and they detail his time as a POW from his perspective. such as how locals treated him, how a German officer saved his life after a train accident he was involved in, and how a medical officer tried to amputate his infected foot, but he resisted.
“Prior to finding this archive, we had no idea what his time was like as a POW, aside from the brief instances when he would describe crushing cans or digging trenches. The Holocaust Survivors Claim was very intriguing because this raised the question of what camps he was in. 
Were any of them concentration camps? This is a question we’re still trying to explore.”
Mark Pedri and McCarthy also found photos of Silvio with his friends during training.
“Throughout the research process, we developed an emotional connection to the people in the photos as we ready Silvio’s letters that document the 2.5 years of their camaraderie,” Mark said. “In addition to Silvio, we’ve followed these men through the war. It has been emotional seeing 
how the war played out differently, for each of these men even though, for us, are strangers that well never meet.”
McCarthy said during the research she developed a connection with Silvio that she didn’t see coming.
“As I put the pieces together, it’s almost like he’s telling me a story that he hasn’t told anyone else before, at least, not to the extent that we are exploring,” she said. “I’m getting to know his best friends and the girl he fell in love with and eventually married. I’m feeling the nerves and worries of being on a ship that’s headed to war and the surrealness of making it to the front line. I’m feeling his devastation in losing all of his best friends overnight, and his desperation in 
being captured as a prisoner. in all, its been an incredible experience to have known the man whose story we are searching through history to find, and I feel honored to have this opportunity.”
McCarthy said “It started with digitizing all of the photos and documents we found in Sgt. Pedri’s house, and decoding the dates of the materials and the people in the photos.”
From there McCarthy reached out to a number of researchers to build a team, including people at the National Archives, French and German historians and Western Wyoming Community College.
“Our team has been able to track a lot of crucial materials relating to the story, including daily journals from Silvio’s unit, radio messages to and from his unit on the front line, after action reports and rosters from German POW camps with Silvio’s name listed and the dates when he 
was moved into and out of the map,” she said. “I didn’t understand how powerful it can be to dig into history, searching for a single person’s experience. By researching such a specific story from the past, I’ve gained so much more understanding of the broader U.S. and world history 
during WWII.”
Pedri and McCarthy will be going to Europe in January to film the documentary. The filming, which is scheduled to take four weeks, will be done on bicycle. It will begin near Imeldange, France, where Sgt. Silvio Pedri was captured, and will finish in Bremen, Germany, where he was liberated with places he stopped in between.
The film, which will be around 90 minutes, will be shot with a camera on an electronic gimbal placed on the bicycle.
“Think of it as GoPro on steroids,” he said.
The documentary will be about capturing the small things, the visuals, the isolation of being separated from his unit when he was in the prison camp, Mark said.
“You never know when that day would come,” he said. “You’re constantly faced with your own mortality. It’s also a reflection on what does it mean for us? The last thing we want to do is make it look like Carrie and I’s vacation.”
There is a Kickstarter campaign to help fund their trip to Europe. The amount needed is $12,000, which would cover travel costs and other expenses. About $9,800 has already been donated.
“It blew our minds to see how many people are willing to donate,” he said.
After filming is completed, Pedri said he would to have a screening in Rock Springs with Western Wyoming Community College and the Broadway Theater as the potential sites.
Mark Pedri said he hopes the film inspires people to chase down their stories.
When something impacts someone they should write it down. Flip through photos, write down the names of people in the pictures. One never knows who is going to look at those pictures in the future. For better or for worse, it is the obligation of citizens to know and strive to understand the stories of the people who came before, he said.
“It’s these stories that make up the bigger picture of our history,” he said. “There’s accountability on both ends. The previous generation must be open to share, and the current generation must be open to listen. This idea is universal.”