About the Filmmakers

Beth Spiegel, Producer/Director

Beth comes to directing after a creative career as an editor. Editing  award winning television programs for Vulcan’s Productions, PBS, Turner Broadcasting, National  Geographic Channel, Animal Planet, and ABC. Spiegel also edits feature documentaries such as Arctic Tale ( a Paramount/ National geographic collaboration) and co-edited and consulted on Walt and El Grupo and Leimert Park: Village in South Central. She and Pauline Von Moos are currently co-editing the last special for the Oceans8 project.

You can view clips at www.bethspiegelediting.com

Always an artist, Beth loves to tell stories with pictures.  Exhibiting paintings in various museums, including the Museum of Tolerance,
LACMA and Sun Valley Center for Humanities.  She also creates and illustrates children’s books, one being First Grade Stinks, received a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly. She is  working on a book written by Eve Bunting.

You can view samples of her work at www.bethspiegel.com

“My relationship to the story of the French Gratitude Train began when I saw my first Merci Boxcar.  It was on display along with a few of its gifts at Museum of Transportation in Boise Idaho.  Standing in front of the exhibit, the words “more people NEED to know about this” echoed in my head and in my heart. So like some of the characters in our film, I became a historical Sherlock Holmes. Tracking down the gifts, translating the attached letters, searching for French people who sent gifts and the American people who received them. The research is daunting and time sensitive. But in the process, we have met many strong and generous people with heart-warming stories to share.
Bringing the neglected memories carried on the French Gratitude Train into the light is the reason for making this documentary.  And the reason to remember was perhaps best said by Mr. Andy Dolak (WWII veteran and researcher):
“The Gratitude train…reminds us of what we survived and that we are only alive now because we had each other. “

All the best,
Beth Spiegel

Pauline von Moos, Co-producer

Pauline moved to the United States from Switzerland in 2000 for graduate studies at the San Francisco Art Institute, where she started working with video and digital media. Since then she has been working in postproduction on Feature Documentaries, non-fiction programs for Network and Public Television, movie trailer and commercial companies. 

“After spending 6 years in editing rooms, I am exited to be involved in the development and research of a film production. I am very interested in the people who are trying to keep the almost forgotten story of the Gratitude Train alive. The gifts that have been sent as a thank you by the French in 1949 are very valuable and personal, but they feel removed and abandoned. I hope that 60 years after the Gratitude Trains arrived in the US, this documentary is going to close a circle and evolve from an act of gratitude to friendship.”

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