MOVIE OF THE WEEK February 21, 2024: UNBROKEN
The strength of family ties reaches across generations in director Beth Lane’s powerful, personal documentary UnBroken. As she chronicles the incredible story of her mother’s, aunts’, and uncle’s odds-defying escape from the Holocaust in 1940s Nazi Germany and revisits the locations that shaped their fate, Lane helps fills in essential gaps in her own personal history, strengthening connections with a network of relatives who came close to being lost to her forever.
Lane’s mother, Ginger (born Bela in 1939), is the youngest of the seven Jewish Weber siblings, who miraculously managed to survive all of World War II in Germany, thanks in large part to the courage of a farmer who helped hide them in a shed on his property. The Webers fought fiercely to stay together all the way through the war and their subsequent immigration to the United States in 1951, saying they were orphans even though their father was still alive (their mother died at Auschwitz) so that they wouldn’t have to be separated.
It wasn’t until they ended up in Chicago that the siblings were finally parted from one another, each placed in a separate foster home. The older six were able to stay in contact, but 6-year-old Bela, who was adopted by a well-meaning couple and renamed Ginger, and lost contact with her birth family. They wouldn’t reunite for 40 years. But that reunion, which led to Ginger/Bela and her family, including Lane, (re)learning the Weber family’s remarkable story, ultimately inspired Lane to capture it all on film.
The result is a compelling blend of footage of her aunts, now elderly, remembering their harrowing experiences in the 1940s and early ’50s, combined with sequences in which Lane tracks down people and places that played key roles in the Webers’ survival and eventual escape. Her enthusiasm for the legacy that their perseverance and determination created is as clear as the bond that has kept the Webers’ connection alive for so long.– Betsy Bozdech
Team #MOTW’s comments:
Loren King A daughter’s extraordinary and empathetic look at the lives of her elderly mother and aunts, Unbroken is so many things: a historical portrait, a daughter’s examination of how her family members survived Nazi Germany and a reckoning with Jewish history itself. Director Beth Lane brings all these strands together in a way that’s thoughtful, thorough and, of course, serious but also, remarkably, gentle and even funny at times — how could it not be with the boisterous, often bawdy Weber sisters talking, laughing, arguing and contradicting one other? The Webers were seven siblings that, against the odds, escaped Nazi Germany together and arrived in the US where they were separated and sent to different foster homes. Now elderly, the surviving siblings share, not always willingly, stories of their lives with Beth, daughter, niece and archivist of their pasts and of her own history. Lane allows her mother and aunts to recall and reflect as she takes the physical journey back to Germany to visit the places in their memories. Lane manages to make a deeply personal, often harrowing family history relatable and universal. Unbroken is unforgettable.
Sandie Angulo Chen: Unbroken is a remarkably touching and powerful documentary about the Weber family, the only known group of seven German Jewish siblings to survive the Holocaust together. The director, Beth Lane, is the daughter of the youngest Weber, Bela, who was eventually separated from her siblings and adopted by a Chicago couple, not reuniting with her siblings for 40 years. The story of how the Webers survived the war in various parts of Germany is both harrowing and heartfelt. Their Catholic father Alexander, who had converted to Judaism to marry their mother Lina, was arrested but survived, while Lina was arrested, tortured, and killed by the Nazis. The family’s survival was made possible by the courageous Arthur and Paula Schmid (deemed Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem), farmers who sheltered all seven children for years in Worin, just one hour outside Berlin. Beyond telling this extraordinary story of survival, the film serves as a genealogical and historical chronicle as Lane traces her family’s history through archival records and personal interviews.
Leslie Combemale Though without a doubt a beautiful story of resilience and familial bond, UnBroken, with its question of “would you hide me?,” really brings history into the now. With all that’s happening in the world in the present moment, that question couldn’t be more urgent and timely. So many Germans, much like contemporaries who surround us today, saw themselves as rescuers, yet chose to look the other way. UnBroken shows so many examples of bravery and courage, in both big and small ways. And, as the film demonstrates, one small act of bravery can impact dozens of people in the future. It would always be an important story, but this documentary has come along at the perfect time. People who must be reminded of what’s at stake need to see it.
Jennifer Merin UnBroken is a compelling documentary that tells the story of the Weber siblings — six sisters and one brother — who, as a family, survived the holocaust by miraculously evading transport to Auschwitz, where their mother was incarcerated and murdered. The Weber children are the only set of seven Jewish siblings known to have escaped Nazi Germany as a family and to have arrived in the United States together. After the siblings reached America, they were sent by train to Chicago, where they were, for the first time in their lives, separated from each other and placed one by one in different foster homes. They’d been taught by their parents to always stay together. They tried to follow this teaching, but that was difficult. They were children, and obedient. The youngest of the Weber siblings, Bela, little more than a toddler at the time, was quickly adopted and her new parents raised her as their own child, and xhanged her name to Ginger. Bela/Ginger lost touch with her siblings and the story of their escape from Germany was something of the deeply buried past. Only recently was Bela/Ginger told of her past and reintroduced to her family. Filmmaker Beth Lane, UnBroken‘s creator, is Bela’s daughter. Lane’s beautifully crafted film is deeply personal. Read full review.
Pam Grady: In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, the seven Weber siblings created a splash when they arrived on American shores. While their mother died in Auschwitz, the children were, with the help of Gentile neighbors, kept hidden throughout the war. Filmmaker Beth Lane is the daughter of Ginger, the youngest of the siblings. With memories contributed by her surviving aunts and her mother and papers left behind by her late Uncle Alfons, Lane embarks on a journey piecing together their lives and that of their parents before, after, and during the war. Her elderly relatives’ memories alternate with Lane’s detective work in Germany as she builds an extraordinary portrait of survival against daunting odds. Clearly cathartic for the director, her hunt for her family’s truth is as dramatic as it is moving.
Nell Minow: Beth Lane gracefully weaves together the very personal stories of her family with archival footage, some gentle animation, and family interviews and photographs, There is frank discussion of deprivation and loss but the focus is on the heroic courage and integrity of the “righteous gentiles” who risked everything to save seven young siblings, and their resilience in living lives that reunited them decades later and that produced the ultimate defeat of those who tried to wipe them out, new generations that increased their number tenfold.
Liz Whittemore Beth Lane’s captivating documentary, UnBroken, tells the story of seven siblings who survived Nazi Germany. Following the arrest of their hero mother and previously imprisoned Catholic father, marked for a concentration camp, Lane’s mother and siblings were smuggled to safety in the back of a truck in the dead of night by their farmer neighbor. A journey of unbelievable resiliency, Lane retraces their steps from Berlin to America and into the pages of history. The similarities to the systematic dismantling of the United States democracy should serve as a stark warning, but UnBroken also shines a light on the goodness of the human heart. One phrase from the film perfectly captures the message. “When you’re faced with adversity, who do you become?” Read full review.
Cate Marquis In this beautifully-made, sometimes harrowing yet inspiring documentary, filmmaker Beth Lane recounts her family’s history, starting before the war and how her German grandfather converted to Judaism to marry her Hungarian-Jewish grandmother and then their move to Berlin. Using on-camera interviews with the now-elderly Weber siblings, family photos and archival footage, together with some wonderful, creative animation, Lane’s Unbroken both recreates the Webers’ past and connects their survivors’ tale to the present. Read full review.
FILM DETAILS:
Title: UnBroken
Director: Beth Lane
Release Date: February 21, 2024
Running Time: 97 minutes
Language: English, German with English subtitles
Screenwriters: Beth Lane, Aaron Soffin (Documentary)
Distribution Company: Greenwich Entertainment
AWFJ Movie of the Week Panel Members: Sandie Angulo Chen, Betsy Bozdech, Leslie Combemale, Pam Grady, Loren King, Cate Marquis, Jennifer Merin, Nell Minow, Sherin Nicole, Liz Whittemore
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Edited by Jennifer Merin
