UnBroken: Would You Hide Me?^[1][2] is a 2023 documentary film about the daughter of a Holocaust survivor who embarks on an international quest to uncover answers about the plight of her mother and her six siblings, who, as children, escaped Nazi Germany relying solely on their youthful bravado and the kindness of German strangers.

Background

A photograph of the seven Weber siblings, Alfons, Senta, Ruth, Gertrude, Renee, Judith, and Bela, hangs in the last gallery of the permanent collection at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.. Their names, along with their parents, Alexander Weber, incarcerated at Plötzensee Prison and Oranienberg concentration camp in 1933, and Lina Banda Weber, murdered at Auschwitz concentration camp in 1943, are honored with Stolpersteine bricks in Berlin created by artist Gunter Demnig.  The benevolent farmers, Arthur & Paula Schmidt, who hid the seven Weber siblings for two years during the Holocaust in a town called Worin, are commemorated in the Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Memorial Center in Jerusalem, Israel.  Two plaques commemorate Arthur & Paula Schmidt in the town of Worin, Germany.

Synopsis

UnBroken chronicles how the seven Weber siblings, ages 6 –18, evaded certain capture and death and ultimately escaped Nazi Germany using their cunning instincts following their mother’s incarceration and murder at Auschwitz. Their lives changed forever when a benevolent farmer put them in the back of his truck and drove them to his fruit orchard 60 kilometers east of Berlin, where they were put into hiding in a laundry hut and spent two years on their own in war-torn Germany. Emboldened by their father’s mandate that they ‘always stay together,’ the children fought through hunger, loneliness, rape, bombings, and fear. Climactically separated from their father, the siblings declared themselves orphans to escape to a new life in America.

Filmmaker Beth Lane, daughter of the youngest Weber sibling, embarks on a quest to retrace their steps, seeking answers to long-held questions about her family’s survival. The film examines the journey of the Webers as told through conversations with living siblings – now in their eighties and nineties – while Beth and her crew road trip across Germany, following the courageous, tumultuous, and harrowing path taken by her family over seventy years ago.

Production

Beth Lane was born in Chicago, Illinois.  She first learned that her mother was adopted at the age of 6, the same age her mother was when she came to America from war-torn Germany as a hidden child of the Holocaust.  Beth is a lifelong actor, dancer, and singer, and she wrote her first draft of the theatrical play, The Groaning Board, at The Barrow Group theatre school in Manhattan, which explored her curiosity about her birth grandmother Lina, who was murdered at Auschwitz in 1943.  That stage play would eventually become a one-woman solo piece, Lina, which Beth presented for an evening of F.A.B. at TBG. Lina was written 72 hours after Beth returned to the U.S. after her first trip to Worin, where her mother, uncle, and five aunts were hidden on a farm during the Shoah.  The reception to Lina was overwhelmingly positive, and Beth immediately went into pre-production at the University of California, Los Angeles where she was studying for her M.F.A in theatre. Principal photography began in March 2018 at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Filming continued in the U.S. in 2018 and in Germany in 2019.  Post-production began in 2020 and was completed in August 2023.

Release

Executive producer, director, and writer Beth Lane was honored  at the 32nd Annual Heartland International Film Festival^[3] in Indianapolis, Indiana winning Best Documentary Feature Premiere.^[4][5] The West Coast and California premiere took place on October 13, 2023 at the 24th Annual Newport Beach Film Festival.^[6][7] The 14th annual DOC NYC Film Festival will hosted the NYC premiere on November 12 and 13, 2023.^[1][8][9] UnBroken is represented by Josh Braun and Ben Schwartz at Submarine. All profits from the sale of UnBroken will be allocated to The Weber Family Arts Foundation, whose mission is to combat antisemitism, bigotry, and hate through the arts by shining a light on stories of hope, courage, and bravery.^[10] 

References

External links

• UnBroken at IMDb