Washington, DC’s National Museum of American Jewish Military History

WASHINGTON, DC – The National Museum of American Jewish Military History (1811 R St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20009) will present a free screening of the feature documentary, And Now, Love, Thursday, May 11, at 6 p.m.

A courageous story of love, loss, resilience and spirituality in the face of war, the film chronicles the story of Dr. Bernard W. Bail, a highly decorated Jewish WWII Veteran who was captured by the Nazis and saved by the secret love of his German nurse.

Bail became a doctor and psychoanalyst who continued where Freud stopped – pioneering the “mother’s imprint,” a theory that advocates for the equality of women and pinpoints the origins of mental illness.

Following the screening, there will be a Q&A with Cynthia Marks, Dr. Bail’s widow, who was featured in the film. She also oversees the Holistic Psychoanalytic Foundation, whose mission is to continue to provide access to information regarding Dr. Bail’s discovery as the key to unlocking change and healing the planet through finding love in ourselves, one person at a time.

To reserve tickets, visit www.eventbrite.com/e/film-screening-and-now-love-tickets-605039438247.

More About the Movie & Dr. Bail
Produced by Emmy-nominated producer, writer, and director Jill Demby Guest and narrated by Emmy award winning actor Peter Coyote, the film chronicles Dr. Bail’s personal journey as he courageously fights his way out of Philadelphia’s immigrant ghetto, across war-torn Europe through psychoanalytic institutes resistant to his new ideas on ending mental suffering.

In the film, Dr. Bail himself, who was 96 at the time of the filming and died in 2021 at the age of 100, relays the stories of his amazing life: How he took refuge from the tough ghetto streets of Philadelphia and followed an internal calling to enroll in Sunday school at the local synagogue. How during World War II, Bail was one of five men chosen to be a US Air Force lead radar navigator and trained to operate the newest radar technology. Dedicated to defeating the tyranny of evil, Bail would lead his crew on 24 successful missions.

By his 25th, he was shot down over Nazi Germany and imprisoned in a German hospital where he began a clandestine affair with his German nurse, who introduced him to a spiritual love unlike any he had experienced which became the guiding light for his life and career.

Determined to understand why pure love is so often unattainable, he became a doctor and then a psychoanalyst who revolutionized the psychoanalytic process with a new theory called “the mother’s imprint,” an idea that strikes at the root of all mental illness. Bail posits that we all live impressed by this imprint, the unresolved negative feelings a mother has about herself that are unconsciously passed down in utero from generation to generation.

For his military service during World War II, Dr. Bail received the Distinguished Service Cross, three Distinguished Flying Crosses, five Air Medals, five Battle Stars in the European Theater of Operations, a Purple Heart, a Prisoner of War Medal, and the 44th Bomb Group Presidential Citation. In addition, in 2006, the French government awarded Dr. Bail the French Legion of Honor, the highest military honor bestowed by France.

A highlight of the film is the love story between Dr. Bail and Cynthia, who was over 30 years his junior when she met him when he was 92, married him two years later, and became his caregiver in his final year till his death at 100 in 2021.

Said Demby Guest. “First as a lead radar navigator fighting the Nazis in WWII, to anti-Semitism at home, to fighting for freedom of thought in psychoanalysis, the lifelong goal of Dr. Bail was to heal the human mind from suffering, to promote love, and for women to have a place at the table in order to finally achieve world peace.”

“What I felt with and learned from Bernard in the few years we shared together might have taken me a lifetime to come to on my own. I am so grateful for the gift he gave to me,” said Marks.

The official trailer: AND NOW, LOVE official trailer

Images from the film: AND NOW, LOVE images