UnBroken: Seven siblings survive the Holocaust

There are millions of untold stories from the Holocaust. There are also millions of stories of survival. UnBroken is director Beth Lane’s record of the story of her family. The Weber family included seven children. Lane’s mother was the youngest. In this film, we meet her mother, three aunts, and hear the written account of her uncle, as they recall the years of hiding, and finally coming to a new country together – until they weren’t.

The first half of the film deals with their memories of life in Germany. Their father converted to Judaism to marry their mother. Because he had been Christian gave him some advantage during this time. Their mother was taken away early and died in Auschwitz. In the early years of the war, their father took them to a farm, where the seven children lived in a laundry room. The farmer and his wife were risking their lives to harbor them.

Lane takes a trip to Germany to find some of the places from her family’s memories. She meets descendants of the farmer and of the mayor of the town who was also complicit in saving them. She also visits a church where the children were baptized to keep them safe. At that church there was a priest hiding Jews and a nun hiding Jews, but neither knew of the other.

The second part of the film deals with their coming to America. That a family of seven “orphans” (they had to claim their father was dead to get into the process) was newsworthy when they made it to the US. But their time of being together was coming to an end. Each was taken to a different foster family. When Lane’s mother, Bela, was adopted, it was decided that she shouldn’t have contact with her siblings. She didn’t reconnect for forty years.

As we hear the sisters retelling their stories, we know that, as with all memories, there will be some discrepancies. That really doesn’t matter. What matters is that they are together to tell the story. Not only them, but generations of descendants. The family’s growth is a sign of life conquering the darkness of the Holocaust.

The value of this film is that in the retelling of this story, it keeps alive the memories of such events. It also reminds us that the stories are about real people, some of who are still with us. When Lane visits the German church, the archivist there is thrilled to locate the records of their baptisms, because it makes such old books and paper real for him. And for us.

UnBroken is in select theaters.