Original subtitles

There are no rational explanations for miracles

but here we are.

Still, the question remains:

Why?

Why us?

My uncle Alfons wrote those words

50 years after immigrating to America,

on this ship, the S.S. Marine Flasher.

Without their parents, he accompanied my Aunt Ruth,

Aunt Senta, Aunt Gertrude, Aunt Renee,

Aunt Judith, and this little girl:

My mom, Bela.

They are the only family of seven Jewish siblings

known to have survived together.

Oh my god, an old photograph.

Okay. Then there's this.

- That's, that's on the end. - Yeah, oh, I... make it smaller.

- I mean, I remember this picture. - Yeah.

So, okay.

Did we know that the S.S. searched

the farmhouse where we lived in Worin?

- Yes. - What about it?

After their rescue, my mom was adopted

and didn't see her siblings for 40 years.

Hello, Tante.

Beth! How are you!

So growing up,

I would imagine who they were and what they looked like.

Show Ruth.

- This is in front of the train. - Oh my god, it's 1,000 years ago.

Now, the two eldest,

Senta and Alfons have already passed away.

You�re awakening the dead!

He had a lot of chutzpah, dying on us.

- Yes, he did. - Yeah.

And what memories my remaining aunts have

are fading.

There I am, there you are.

- That�s me. Judy. - We weren't that bad looking then.

- Ruth, do you still smoke? - She better not.

E-cigarettes!

Well, I gotta have one habit. I can't have sex anymore.

- Says who? - I don't have a boyfriend anymore!

So, I gotta have something!

You recording this crap?

I never thought they would tell me their story.

But one fragment at a time,

full of holes and often conflicting.

- That's not mama. - That's Mama!

I don't believe it.

They give me something to hold on to.

With Uncle Alfons's letters as my road map...

So tell me about Worin.

And each of their voices ringing in my ears,

I go back in time to Germany.

To understand how my family survived,

yet remained unbroken.

It's a very... it's a very poetic story,

um, in the first place, how the story begins.

How Alexander, their father, met Lina, their mother.

Alexander coming to Hungary

and seeing this girl carrying water from the fountain.

It's a Biblical story, you know?

He saw her, he fell in love with her,

and he fought to get her, and he did get her.

You see, my father, he was Catholic.

But my mother, she was very Jewish.

She came from a very Orthodox background.

Listen, if you dropped a piece of bread,

you better pick it up and kiss it.

It was a sin to ever desecrate any kind of food.

My grandfather was a cantor.

When my father asked him that he want to marry her,

he told him, "You gotta become a Jew,

otherwise you can't marry her."

And he did!

My father became a Jew!

Papa was born into a strict Catholic family

in Paderborn, Germany.

Conversion from Christianity, and especially Catholicism,

was practically unheard of.

But Papa studied the precepts of Judaism,

underwent circumcision, and they were married

on September 12, 1926.

His family did not approve of him because of it.

Because he changed.

Because of the row this caused,

Mama and Papa moved to Berlin.

I�m grasping for shadows, places they played,

places they disappeared,

and I�m searching for their building, which doesn�t even exist anymore.

So what we're looking for is 31 Grenedierstrasse,

So which one do you think it is?

- Probably the left side of this. - This one.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

- You live in this building? - Yes.

- Can you open this door for us? - Yeah.

- Really? - Yeah.

My first recollections go back to this small apartment.

Just two simple rooms forming an L-shaped area.

The old building may be gone.

But the courtyard remains.

A world all its own,

with scattered shards from the past.

What was it that enabled my family to defy the odds

when so many others couldn�t?

And my parents,

they wound up in the poorest section of Berlin

which is called the Scheunenviertel.

It was very mixed.

A lot of Jewish people.

We had a few shuls on our street.

On the corner we had a kush-tow.

A cow stall on the corner at the end of our block.

I mean, we lived really,

a shoe store on one side, a cow shed on the other.

What about a blacksmith?

Blacksmith in the back, yeah.

- There you go. - Yeah.

- We had it all. Uh-huh. - Yeah.

The Grenadierstrasse was a beehive of Jewish activity

and Mama had a legitimate business repairing clients' stockings.

What do you remember about your mother?

She was small.

She was a chain smoker.

She had a lot of friends in the Roma community.

She and a gypsy woman, who lived in the next building,

decided that her son and I should get married.

Oh, my God. You know?

I think maybe 10, 11 years old.

He taught me how to tap dance!

Oh, it was funny.

He thought it was great!

There was always a lot of excitement, especially on Fridays.

Mama lit the Shabbos candles

and thus welcomed the Sabbath into our home.

We were very fortunate.

I just know there�s a lot of things I�d rather not think about.

In school you had to wear a Jewish star.

When we�d leave the school we would take it off,

otherwise kids would pick on us. So...

There was trouble developing.

I recall seeing an open truck

loaded with brown shirts flying the swastika flag

driving through the Grenadierstrasse,

with the men shouting in unison.

I ran from a lot of that stuff because it was so painful.

And why it would affect me more than it would the others I don�t know.

Alfons knew what was going on.

Senta knew what was going...

Me, I was like a blind bat.

Ruth used to drag me to the movie theater

and pluck me, plop me down in a seat in the movie theater.

Oh, god, I loved movies. I stole money to go to the movies.

The last movie I saw in Berlin was "My Grosse Liebe"

"My Great Love."

Zarah Leander. The movie star.

When you were in the public eye,

you had to please Hitler.

So, she was a lover of Hitler.

But at the time I didn't know that and didn't care.

Long as it wasn't me.

Alfons wrote that he had no idea what was going on around them.

This �idyllic childhood� is what he called it.

Even though they were surrounded by a rising Third Reich.

Only four of the seven Weber children had been born

when Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933.

One month later, their father was arrested,

and sent to a concentration camp.

Okay. Let's see, number eight.

Here's Number 8.

- Uh-huh. - We just entered here.

It says in the Oranienburg Concentration Camp,

over 3,000 prisoners,

mostly political opponents of the National Socialists,

were humiliated and maltreated.

Some of them were even murdered.

My father became incarcerated

for about eight months or 10 months or something.

He was not the same person when he came out.

He had lost part of his teeth. He was always fearful.

- Why was he arrested? - Who knows!

You didn't have to do much to be arrested.

I really honestly can't tell you.

I think it's because he was married to a Jewish woman.

And they told him if he'd divorce her,

he'd be fine.

And I guess he refused.

When he came home, he said he was lucky.

I said, "You were lucky?"

He said, "Yeah, because I was put to work in the laundry,

and I was busy every day."

So that's how men are going crazy.

They had to sit for hours in one spot.

He said, "After a while you go meshuga!"

So he considered himself lucky.

Mama had a lot of chutzpah.

Apparently, the court that tried Papa

sent a letter to our apartment that exonerated him,

but kept him imprisoned just the same.

Mama marched down to the courthouse with the letter in her hand

and used the Nazis' own bureaucracy against them

and got Papa out of that living hell.

Upon release, prisoners had to sign a pledge of secrecy

swearing that they had not been harmed.

So, um, this is the file of Alexander Weber.

Oh, my god.

So he says, "I was arrested in '33,

and came into the concentration camp for nine months."

- That's the original picture. - Uh-huh.

No. No.

I didn't.

I guess there's just something about

seeing original source documents

- that's so, um... - Yeah. Yeah.

Emotional.

For lack of a better word.

I mean, I've seen his picture before, but this is the original.

So this means that this is,

this room, this piece of...

this picture was in the same room as my grandfather.

Yeah.

You don't go through what he did in a camp

and walk away emotionally whole.

You're broken.

And you spend the rest of your life

trying to put yourself back together.

So, this is what Aunt Judith sent me.

I never saw that before.

I've seen that. Sure.

Wow!

Never seen him look so good.

Here he's just casual, but here he looks old!

Yeah, doesn't it? I know.

God, scary.

Listen, he had a hard life!

A lot of guys in his position would have taken off.

He didn't.

Not bothered with the kids. Just taken off.

After he was released,

Papa was placed under police surveillance.

And in view of his concentration camp record,

it was very difficult for him to get a job.

But this was just a preamble for things to come.

The Nuremberg laws of 1935 revoked citizenship

of German Jews.

In 1938 alone, 19 restrictive laws were passed.

When World War II started

the Nazis� persecution of Jews took on its violent, murderous character.

And then, the deportations from Berlin began in 1941.

And many individuals tried to go underground and into hiding.

For those unfortunates on the run from the Gestapo,

Mama provided shelter.

There were people that would come and stay

in a room next to our apartment

one night,

and then the next day they'd be gone.

And then somebody else moved in,

and the next day they'd be gone.

People would come to the house,

and they would maybe bring a fur coat

and my mother would send me two blocks over

to a woman that was a seamstress,

and I would take it there,

and she sort of would appraise what it was worth,

and then I would bring it back again.

She put us into danger by doing what she was doing.

And that became rather stressful, I would say.

My father was very much against it.

Very much so.

Because he kept thinking,

"If she gets hurt or gets caught,

so would the children."

He kept telling her not to do it.

Because he said, "You're gonna get caught."

And she said, "It's all right.

These people need to get out."

I remember her one time leaving Berlin

and going to Kron.

And the reason she went there

was to try to bring back a couple of people.

She made off like she was one of the... part of the Gestapo.

She pretended like she was in charge.

And she did, she brought them back to Berlin.

She had beautiful black hair,

and it was long.

Well, to get back home, she didn't have the money.

So she sold her hair to a wig maker,

and she had the money then to come back to Berlin.

To her, it was the right thing to do,

to help other people.

She believed that you help others, you help yourself.

But things didn't work out that way.

Because of her underground dealings,

Mama must have been under police surveillance,

and they arrested her several times.

I remember one time somebody came to the house

to pick her up.

They forced, they actually came in,

and my mother was very scared,

and she said to me, "What should I do?"

What should she do? We were alone.

I was there with my mother and she said, "What should I do?"

And I told her to pray to God.

Now did they pick her up at that time?

She got picked up more than once, I know that.

They'd pick her up and then they would release her.

They didn't come with a truckful of soldiers.

It usually was two or three guys that would show up,

and they would say, "You have to come with us."

There was no arguing.

You just, "You have to come with us," and that was it.

My memory, you know, my memory of her

is when she was taken away.

I was home with her, alone.

And there was a knock at the door.

And there's a part of me

that thinks I was hiding behind a door.

And I remember that there were, I think, two men there.

And they took her downstairs

and I crawled up on the windowsill, or like a window ledge,

and looked down,

and saw her being put into a car

and being driven off.

And I was there by myself.

It's hard for me to actually believe

that they didn't know that I was there,

and that they took her and left me.

I mean, it doesn't make sense.

But that's what I remember.

So what's actual fact, and what's my imagination?

I don't know.

When we came home in the evening

and discovered Bela alone,

Papa marched down to the police station

to find out about Mama.

They arrested him

and threw him in jail.

The next morning, a man from the Jewish community came

and told us that we were to go with him.

We were all arrested

and incarcerated, actually

- in the hospital, - Mm-hm.

Which they kinda turned into an incarceration point.

Can you read to me what it says here?

We were in a basement.

I remember hearing people screaming.

I remember being very scared.

So...

We were left alone much of the first afternoon.

So I snuck out and went back to our apartment,

which was under Gestapo seal by then.

I climbed through the transom, hid some papers

and jewelry in the attic and returned to the hospital.

As soon as I rejoined my sisters,

a male medical orderly put an iron grip on my left arm

and I was locked up.

At first we weren't under lock and key.

But then they put us all under lock and key.

And at one time, from what I heard,

that my mother, peace be with her, came,

and Senta and Ruth saw her.

Do you know what? She didn't come by herself.

Somebody brought her.

A couple of guys. Mm-hm.

I'm sure it must have been from the Gestapo.

Maybe they were trying to prove to her that we were alive,

I don't know.

Yeah, I'm sure they tortured her plenty.

Yeah.

After that, she probably got shipped off.

Remarkably, Papa was only kept prisoner for about a month,

but we were still under lock and key.

We had a neighbor, Arthur Schmidt,

a wholesaler dealing with fruits and vegetables

that he grew on his estate in Worin,

60 kilometers east of Berlin.

He had a store underneath the apartment,

and he was very friendly.

He used to get all the boys to come out to the orchards.

And he got to know Papa.

He went out of his way really,

and how many Germans did that for other people? I don�t know.

Arthur Schmidt was very familiar with our circumstances

and knew that Papa was desperate about our safety.

Two weeks later, we children were released.

We went back to the apartment.

But we were already registered

to be shipped off to Auschwitz.

We were put in the back of Schimdt's truck,

because he had heard they were going to come for us.

I was terrified.

Everybody was terrified.

He took us in the middle of the night out to the farm.

He was one of very few, but he really went out of his way.

I mean, c'mon, getting us in the middle of the night.

We were on a truck!

All it was, was a tarp on the outside.

Don't raise that tarp.

- Good morning! - Hi.

Good to see you.

Thank you. I'm sorry we're late.

- My wife - Hello.

- Hello. - Good morning!

How are you this morning?

- Good. - Good! Good.

We were hiding out on the farm.

And if it wasn't for Schmidt,

I don't know where we would have wound up.

He and his wife opened their farm to us.

They had a laundry house where we kids slept.

This was our home.

This is the plan from...

- From 1948. - Yes.

- Wow! - It's a small sink.

I think it's only three to four meters here,

- on the front side. - That's really not...

Three to four... 35 is not big

That's a bit bigger than a king size bed.

- Wow! Yes. - You know, that's not much.

No, it's not.

Now, what we had,

this room that we were in didn't have a stove.

I don't know how we ever cooked.

We never washed clothes. We never took a bath.

Oh! We were full of lice, no!

We didn't do that.

We worked there on the farm, you know.

Alfons had to dig up, you know,

the garbage from the latrines,

and that's how they fed the fields.

And once I asked him, "It didn't bother you?"

He said, "No, this is what you gotta do!"

We were always afraid of strangers,

always hungry.

I remember being out in the field digging for potatoes

and always, um... Maybe the word is "suspicious,"

not knowing who those people were,

and whether they were going to report us

or tell on us.

Let's go take a look at this shed,

or what was the Schmidt's house.

Yes.

The Schmidts was not there very often,

maybe like once a week or every third week.

I don't know.

He probably came for the produce

and took it back into Berlin.

I think I remember his wife.

She was there, but I didn't have much to do with her.

I think Frau Schmidt was not thrilled that we were there.

You know, she was afraid.

His wife was a little standoffish,

but she went along with whatever he said or did.

There was never an argument there.

She made sure

that we needed sheets or a blanket or stuff,

she was there to provide it.

And that was very, very important to us.

As the de facto town historian,

Marlis Schuler had learned that Paula and Arthur Schmidt's actions

were a closely held secret.

Arthur Schmidt had two sons,

and even though years went by after the war

he took his heroism to the grave,

never telling them what he had done.

The mayor Rudi Fehrmann,

knew that we were seven Jewish children

living in hiding,

and he did not tell the rest of the village who we were.

He protected us.

Oh! Rudi Fehrmann's grandson!

Yay!

- Hello! - Hello.

- My name is Beth. - Rudi.

- Rudolf. - You're Rudolf?

Rudolf the Third?

It�s wonderful to meet you.

Did you know about this story before this week?

- I did, a little bit. - Mm-hm.

My biggest question would be

why did Rudi Fehrmann

and Arthur and Paula Schmidt decide to shelter us?

Putting their lives at risk

because had they been discovered,

they would surely have been killed.

Yeah.

You listening to Marlon Craft?

Which two?

- That's him? - Yup.

Do you live here?

Yeah.

So you just come to hang out here?

Oh, that's nice!

Sure!

So my mother is the youngest of seven Jewish children.

They first lived a block over, at 31 Grenadierstrasse.

And then they moved here to 48 Dragonerstrasse

and these two Christian farmers hid them for two years,

outside of Berlin during World War II.

I think about what these farmers did for my mother,

and her siblings, and I think, well, my gosh,

you know, if this were to happen again,

would you hide me?

I would like to say yes,

and I hope that I would make that decision in the moment,

but you never know.

I think I would do it. You know?

Because...

I have a family here now.

And I'm so grateful for that because, you know,

it could also happen to me.

As the war continued, Papa stayed in Berlin

while we were at our hideaway on the farm.

Surrendering to Nazi pressure,

he had resigned from the Jewish community.

So, not only was he able to get a job,

but as a non-Jew, he could more easily acquire food,

which he would sometimes bring to us in Worin.

One day, our local police station in Berlin gave Papa a letter.

They had the guts to send a telegram saying

that she died of a heart attack,

if you can believe that. I...

Who were we to dispute it?

She might have died of a heart attack!

I mean, the conditions in the concentration camps,

horrible, just horrible.

She died in Auschwitz.

I was three years old.

Well, I remember being alone

and playing out in the farm,

the farmland, on the field by myself.

And even saying to my sister Gertrude,

"Why am I always so alone?"

She would always say...

Even though I was there, she felt alone.

I think part of that aloneness

was missing my mother.

She should have lived,

'cause she helped so many people.

I felt guilty, so guilty.

And I think even to this day, I still feel guilty.

I'm alive, I'm almost 90 years old,

and she's long gone.

Oh.

It's here!

Moabit Freight Station

was the biggest deportation station in Berlin.

About 30,000 people were deported from

platforms 69, 81, and 82.

Only a few survived.

All that remains today are fragments of platform 69.

After she was killed,

my father said we had to go be baptized.

So, one night, we came back to Berlin.

Alexander took all the children to Berlin,

even the small one.

That would have been extremely dangerous.

It seemed strange at the time,

but we didn't mind goin' back and forth.

It was fun riding in the back of a truck.

I kept wishing that something would happen,

so that this should not take place

'cause I knew that my mother would have been totally against it.

Papa told me that the Gestapo had released us from the hospital

under the condition that we would be baptized.

So like it or not, this had to be done.

The nuns made us our clothes, the white dresses and all that.

Senta was enamored of it.

Me?

I went through the motions. I thought it was a big joke.

How it came about, I don't know.

I don't know if they used that as a threat.

That if we didn't, or just who did it.

But I have to believe that it did help us, you know.

Oh, my.

Can you hold it? From this side?

- Yeah, just... - Oh, look, here!

- Oh, my gosh! Here's more. - Yes, yes, yes!

- Here's the family! - It's the register.

Alfons, Senta, Ruth, Gertrude, Renee, Judith, and Bela!

And here you see the numbers?

And those numbers refer to the other book

- with further information. - Oh!

- Oh, my gosh. - Weber!

Mm-hm.

Veronika!

My mother, when she was adopted, they named her Virginia.

I have a memory of when I was a young girl,

my mother told me that she didn't like the name Virginia.

- She never liked that name, - Uh-huh.

And she always wished that her name was something like "Veronika."

Maybe we'll call her and tell her.

Should we call her? I can call her right now.

Hi!

I want to introduce you to Matthias.

This is my mother, Ginger.

- Hello. - Hello.

We are in the office of the Catholic Church

where you were baptized.

Okay.

This is the ledger

that has all of your names written.

Okay. Uh-huh.

And so here's Alfons...

- and Senta - Uh-huh.

- And Ruth. - Oh, my God.

Yeah?

And Gertrude?

Yeah.

Renee?

Oh!

Oh, my God, Judith.

Yup.

Oh!

How in the world did you ever find...

Veronika!

I always knew my name was Veronika!

Oh, my God.

Can you believe it?

Your middle name is Veronika!

I always knew it was!

That's amazing!

Can you describe how you feel right now?

A little overwhelmed.

Yeah.

I love you.

- Bye. - Bye.

After our baptism, Arthur Schmidt returned us

to his fruit orchard in Worin, where we continued to hide.

But while we were staying out at the farm,

we received no news about the war.

Towards the very end we could hear the Russians.

You could hear, boy, when they would drop those bombs.

You could actually hear that from Worin?

Oh, yeah.

You hear it, the planes going overhead.

They kept coming and coming and coming, endlessly.

You hear this constant drone of airplanes.

The Battle of Seelow Heights was the biggest battle on German ground

at the end of World War II.

When the Red Army started their attack,

their attacks, their so-called Operation Berlin,

on the first day, they shot 1.2 million shells

in one day.

The 16th of April, 1945.

When they heard in Worin,

that never-stopping "Boom, boom, boom,"

of these 30,000 guns,

they realized, "Oh, now it is time to go."

"Now it's time to go."

I was out in the field

and talking to farmers and they told me,

and they told me, "Get home. The Russians are coming.

They'll rape anything in sight!"

Which they did, by the way.

So I got back to the farm and there was nobody there,

nobody.

My brother and sisters, the Schmidts, they were gone.

He had put them in the truck

and they were racing towards Berlin.

So, I was there all alone!

There was a bike there.

I broke the lock on the bike

and whatever food I had scrounged up,

I put behind me on the bike and I started pedaling.

We were 60 kilometers outside of Berlin.

And, you know, the strangest thing happened on the way.

The planes flew overhead,

they were dropping bombs.

There was one bomb that went off in back of me!

I remember flying through the air into the ditch

and the bike landed on top of me.

But I was fine.

I was absolutely fine.

I kept thinking that God took his hand

and pushed me into that ditch!

I got back on the bike and I started pedaling again.

When I got to Berlin,

I'm walking down the street to Dragonerstrasse,

pushing the bike because the tires were shot from all the glass.

My father and my brother

and sisters were all lined up across the street,

and my father said to me, "You're supposed to be dead!

Why are you not dead?"

I just looked at him. I stuttered...

"I'm not dead."

I think he was in shock.

You know, how much can a man take?

So...

After we got back to Berlin, the air raids became more severe.

Papa was skilled with radios,

and he found out that Germany's main radio station went off the air

before an air raid took place.

This gave us warning well before the sirens actually sounded the alarm.

We would take shelter in the cellar of our house,

Dragonerstrasse No. 48,

until one day a single small Russian plane

dropped a bomb into our house.

It was a direct hit.

We were trapped in the basement from the bomb.

Papa woke us up to move the rubble

to get us out of there.

I don't think we would have made it.

But Schmidt, with somebody else,

was digging on the other side.

And that's how they got us out.

And so Schmidt said, "Come in our basement."

Everybody in the building stayed there.

At first they didn't want us because we were Jews.

They were afraid.

But he then said, "I don't care if they're Jews,

they're coming in my basement."

Civilians had not so much information.

All of the Soviet troops were going to Berlin

and fighting there was very, very cruel

and very, very dangerous.

The war became more desperate.

House-to-house fighting raged,

getting even closer to our section, the Scheunenviertel.

My father said, "We're going down, underground,

to the U-Bahn, because it's not safe to be above."

And we were there maybe a day and a night,

and then the next day my father said,

"We gotta run. We gotta get out of here, now!"

Turns out the Germans had flooded the U-Bahn.

My father heard the water rushing.

He knew what had happened.

Many of the people didn't make it out.

But we ran outside and we were safe.

Berlin, the once mighty fortress of Nazi Germany,

now feels the final blows,

on every side the last ditch centers the fanatic resistance

are hemmed in, hopelessly beaten.

The end has come.

This is a solemn, but glorious hour.

"Truman Announces Total Surrender" is August 15th.

The forces of Germany have surrendered

to the United Nations.

The flags of freedom fly all over Europe.

It was in the summer, I believe,

that Americans, as well as French and British troops,

came to occupy their respective sectors.

We were in the Russian sector.

My memory of my father

was standing on the street, between his legs kind of hiding

and seeing the Russian soldiers marching down the street,

which was a very frightening time.

When the Russians came, they wanted girls.

They dragged me up the stairs

and my father told them, "Look, she doesn't even have breasts.

What do you want with her? She's just a child!"

And the head of the group that was there,

he took one look at me and he said, "Well, you're right."

Gave me a shove and I went like that back around the stairs,

so I was not taken by the Russians.

But Senta was.

They brought her back two days later,

she was hemorrhaging.

The Russians weren't much better than the Germans,

and our father wanted to get us out.

But trying to get a visa was pretty difficult.

Bela and I, I took her

and went to the Joint Distribution

and they were all Americans there.

I remember sitting there for hours, waiting.

And Ruth was very determined.

She talked to them

and she started the ball rolling about getting us out.

Ruth met with Herr Eisenberg.

He explained that to emigrate to America,

we would have to enter a displaced persons camp.

But having a living father of German nationality

would bar us from entry, so we lied.

We pretended our father was dead,

and declared ourselves as orphans.

It wasn't easy, but I think I was numb.

I mean, you learned to lie to survive.

And when we left my father,

he said, "Ruth, keep all of you together

"no matter what happens.

"You do not separate."

And that stuck with me.

After that, the Joint Distribution came

and got us late in the evening

because by then already,

the Russians wouldn't let any Jews go into the American zone.

But they came with the Jeep,

put us all in the back of the Jeep, threw a blanket over us,

and off we went!

We traveled in a truck by convoy

through the Russian zone of occupation.

When we got to the place where the Russians stop you,

the first thing they want to know is how many Jews?

And the guy, the driver said, "We don't have any Jews here."

They were still hunting Jews.

All the GIs went with the Russians in their office,

they got 'em drunk.

In the meantime, the driver told us,

"Get off the truck and walk across,

and we will pick you up on the other side."

But it was winter and cold and full of snow,

and Bela was on Alfons's shoulder

because she couldn't get through the snow!

She was too little!

Oh, God.

I don't know whether it was an hour or two hours

they finally came out.

And they did. They came and got us on the other side.

We crossed the intrazonal border at Helmstedt,

on the way to Hanover.

And from Hanover, we took a train to Munich.

Once we got into the American sector,

the wheels started spinning.

Then we get to Munich.

The DP camp was huge!

The Funkkaserne Camp held 2,952 DPs.

Only one 143 of these were Jews.

And it was not a comfortable place to be.

We were in a big DP camp and they didn't keep us there too long.

They decided it was no place for kids to be,

and they shipped us off to a nunnery.

- Good morning. - Good morning.

- How are you? - How are you?

We're back on the highway and we're driving to Indersdorf.

Oh, what are you going to do there?

Indersdorf, that sounds familiar.

Because you were living in a displaced person's camp in Indersdorf.

- Was it a nunnery? - Yes, it was a cloister.

Oh, yeah! We were there maybe a month.

This was strictly for children, this camp.

Which was great!

There must have been either 60 or 80 kids there,

refugee kids.

Here we were given good food, medical care,

clean rooms, and fresh clothing.

I mean, when we first got there,

I had a turban on me because I knew I had a lot of lice.

Well, when they removed the turban,

the woman went, "Ahh!"

And immediately, they put me in an ambulance

and sent me to an American hospital,

because I was so infested,

not just on my head, but all over my body.

I know that you were not here when my mother was here,

but hearing you sing,

I can imagine what the nuns might've sounded like

when they were singing lullabies to help my mother fall asleep.

Yeah.

The kids there were very suspicious of any newcomers,

especially any who were Germans, such as ourselves.

I had to demonstrate that I, and my sisters too, were Jewish!

So, my test came when I had to answer a call of nature.

Standing by the urinal, I noticed two very curious lads

giving me a lookover.

I willingly demonstrated to them

that I was just as "tipped off" as they were.

This was not a game.

I was really a Jew.

Here we are sitting at the very tables

where they were having their meals.

What the survivors, when they visit us today, always say,

"We didn't look at the ceiling.

"We looked at our food.

"Because we had been so very hungry."

So, Greta Fischer, the main chronicler of events,

she says, "The first thing was to give them plenty of food,

"and then listen to their stories, and listen and listen."

And the Mother Superior, Sister De La Rosa,

She was especially touched by the fate

of the Weber siblings.

Your mother was six years old,

but she was almost starved to death.

So she looked like a three-year-old when she was here.

Ruth, the middle girl, was in charge of everything,

of all the group.

And she says that the older Weber girl was very depressed.

The impression of the nuns here was that

she was in danger to commit suicide.

These children somehow needed to become

the masters of their experiences.

Is bravery and courage something that can be learned?

Or are you born with it?

I think if you are so certain that you will behave correctly,

then there's a big chance that you won't.

A humble attitude not to know how I would behave

is a better guarantee that you will do the right thing

in a decisive situation.

After four to six weeks,

we were instructed to get ready for departure.

And then we boarded a train for Bremerhaven.

While in transit, I sent telegrams to Papa,

telling him about our progress.

He, in turn, sent me a telegram saying

that he was ready to follow us shortly.

Papa desperately tried to emigrate,

and he explored every possibility.

But all attempts came to nought.

Papa was supposed to follow us within 10 days,

and it never happened.

So, that's why we left as orphans.

We spent another week or two in a DP camp there

and finally the day came

when we boarded the ship, the S.S. Marine Flasher.

We were lucky because they put us upstairs.

My brother was supposed to be down below deck,

but we said, "Oh, no, no, no. He can't be there; we sleep together."

So, they finally consented; let him sleep with us in the same room.

But still, the voyage was pretty rough, at times.

I know Renee was always sick.

I remember throwing up a lot.

I remember, uh, oranges.

We were eating oranges all the time.

That's when we learned to say,

"May I have an orange, please?"

So, they would laugh, and sometimes they gave us one

and sometimes they didn't.

Us? Not so much.

Bela? They would give all the oranges she came for!

I don't care if it was five minutes or 10 minutes,

she would go back and get more.

I remember dancing on the captain's table.

I remember Senta worked in the kitchen,

and so she sort of befriended the kitchen crew.

Here we were on a big ocean liner

and the rumor was that whatever clothes they had given us,

we had to pay duty on it.

This was a rumor, but we believed it.

I said to Alfons, "What are you going to do?"

He says, "I don't know.

"We don't have any money, at all."

So, Alfons and I went down in the bowels of the ship,

and we talked a sailor into giving us a duffle bag.

A duffle bag is huge!

Well, we filled the thing up.

And when it was late at night,

we heaved the thing overboard.

And when it hit the water,

the guy up on top screamed, "Man overboard!"

They stopped the ship.

The guys came running with them long poles,

where they had a hook on it,

to help whoever went in the water.

They hooked onto the duffle bag,

lifted it up and [laughs] it ripped!

Clothes went everywhere!

Alfons and I are sitting there laughing our heads off!

It was so funny!

But the captain was mad. Oh, my God, was he mad!

We probably shouldn't have, but that's what we did.

We were young and stupid.

The night before we landed, okay,

they told us we had to get up very early the next morning

because we were gonna see something we never saw.

What is it?

This thing was standing there and everyone was so excited,

but I wasn't excited. I didn't know what I was looking at!

Then I remember thinking that the ship was going to capsize.

Because we were all on one side.

And then getting off the ship

into this enormous warehouse on the dock.

It was a very exciting prospect.

We were coming to America!

We were seven Jewish children

who came over here together.

That's why we made every newspaper!

When we disembarked,

we were informed that we would be sent to Chicago.

Arriving in Chicago on June 14,

we were taken to the offices of the Jewish Children's Bureau.

We were given ice cream,

and sat for the obligatory photograph.

In my mind, we would be together

in an orphanage and kept together.

Didn't happen that way at all.

They put us in cabs.

They didn't tell us anything.

They just dropped us off at foster homes,

one by one.

We had two minutes to say goodbye.

Alfons took us to the door

and that was that.

I mean, did we cry?

No.

When they were going to drop me off, Alfons got sick.

He threw up. He was so upset.

They kept telling him, "Don't worry! She'll be fine!

"She's with a very fine family."

And I was just dropped off.

It destroyed me.

It really did.

It totally, totally destroyed me.

Because I couldn't keep my word to my father.

For the first time ever, the family was broken up,

scattered over different parts of Chicago.

I was not allowed to see my sisters, except Bela.

So I would go see Bela.

She wound up with the Spiegels.

They loved Bela.

The thing is, they wanted to adopt her.

I didn't want her to be adopted.

She was my baby sister.

But they convinced me that was the best for her.

And my father wouldn't sign the papers

so I wrote him a nasty letter.

In no time at all, he wrote back

and gave the permission that she can be adopted.

They asked me if I wanted to be adopted.

They were good to me.

Why wouldn't I say, yes, I'll be adopted?

I didn't know any different.

Her case worker and the officials of the JCB

thought it best that all contacts between Bela

and the remainder of the family be terminated.

I didn't see her for years.

I finally, by accident,

I saw her standing there waiting for a bus

or a driver, I don't know.

But I walked up to her and I asked her.

I said, "Do you remember me? I'm your sister."

Well, evidently, I freaked her out,

because years had passed, you know,

and she, I think, put everything behind her.

I looked at her and I said...

No. I felt, I felt very funny

because I couldn't remember her name.

But I said something about

"I don't want to be sent back."

I had that instinctive feeling, "Oh, my God, she's coming."

I know it's part of my family.

And I don't want to be sent back to Germany.

That was our life, and I understood that.

The fear didn't go away overnight.

The fear stayed with you.

It was difficult.

So, for me, it was the right decision.

But, the fact that he gave up his rights to me,

was, of course, a profound act of selflessness

and generosity.

In 1951, regular immigration for Germans opened up.

Papa�s old dream of getting out of Germany was still very much alive.

However, despite Papa�s skill as an electrician,

he was denied entry.

In the meantime, Papa had remarried.

She was a widow with a daughter, the same age as Bela.

And there was a new child, our half-brother Harry.

In 1956, 10 years after we were separated,

Papa finally came to this country.

Judy at that time was working at the University of Chicago.

And she got him an interview.

They had gotten a piece of equipment from Germany,

so it was all in German.

And they needed someone that knew German.

So, sure enough, that was Papa.

Surviving the war,

being able to immigrate into the United States,

and starting an unbelievably good new life,

these are true miracles.

By that time already I was involved with my own child,

and he had his own life to live.

So, we saw him, but not that much.

I did not know at the time

that they lived on the South Side, Papa and his new wife.

Grandma and Grandpa Spiegel

and I had just left a Chinese restaurant

and we're walking down 71st Street,

and I see a man

and his wife and two children, a boy and a girl,

walking in the opposite direction.

And as we passed each other,

I remember looking at the man,

and then turning around and looking at him again.

And he was looking at me.

And so we stared at each other, but we never spoke.

I felt this tremendous loyalty to my American parents.

That's what kept me from reconnecting.

And then he died in 1970.

I hadn't seen him in almost 20 years.

You can come into our house.

We'd rather have you inside than outside.

In 1986, I had lunch with Mary Lawrence,

who was the director of the Jewish Children's Bureau,

and she asked me if I had contacted my birth family.

And I said, "No, I haven't talked to them in 40 years,"

and she kind of said, "Well, it's about time!"

We are all together in one room after 40 years.

Each and every... all seven of us.

I called Gertrude,

'cause that was the only phone number I had.

I said "Manya."

- Oh, Manya. - That's all I said.

- Manya. - Yeah.

When I knew it was... Well, I could've died.

Oh! I could not believe my...

I could not believe that.

Who would expect somebody after...

It's like waking up from the dead.

Her response was an inhalation of breath.

She went [gasping], and then she said, "Why now?"

Why now?

Oh, my God, isn't that terrible?

I didn't even have a chance to tell you who I was!

- Yeah? - And what shocked me,

- was that you recognized my voice. - Recognized your voice.

- Right away. Immediately! - Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, well, you were never out of my mind.

But then I never expected that to happen.

Never.

Alfons, what does this day mean to you today?

It's an unbelievable experience for me, personally.

I'm the oldest of the girls, alright?

Everybody knows.

It's 40 years ago that we landed on these shores.

This is my husband, Bob, and it's a lucky day we met.

Isn't it wonderful that we're still here, together yet?

Judy, you can speak up.

C'mon, you're one of the family, remember?

She's here all the way from Arlington, Texas.

I have nothing to say except that I am overwhelmed.

- That's it. - That's it?

Boy, you're so overwhelmed she clammed up like a shell!

I'm very very happy to be here.

I really am. I'm quite overwhelmed.

And...

Oh, yes!

I'm the oldest redhead in the family and here's the baby.

Take over.

Ginger!

You're on, kid.

It's sort of the culmination of

40 or almost 50 years, really,

of family history,

and it is remarkable that we can all be together

and laugh and cry...

Uh...

and love each other.

So, I'm very grateful

for the opportunities that we've had.

When we were children in Germany growing up,

I don't recall knowing aunts or uncles

or having a big family nucleus.

It was just our parents and us.

And what warms me today is here we are, seven.

We all have children. There's husbands.

And we've gotten very... I mean, it just mushroomed!

It's become a very large family.

Who's gonna make a toast, Sherwin?

- How about you! - Alfons, man of the world!

L'chaim!

Now maybe we can take one picture of all seven together!

Don't lift it so high, my goodness.

We know you got...

That's the reason it's sitting right there.

- Oh, yes, sing. - It's not gonna bite you!

It's not gonna bite you, right!

What is Unbreakable, dear Lina,

is our family�s fertile thread.

To witness this miracle

is to show you how we have survived

We listen for your laughter.

We hold your heart in ours.

We are dancing together

deep in the belly of your soul.

In all our souls.

- Hi! - Hey! How are you?

- You must be Matt! - I am!

- Hello, I'm Beth! - Hi, Beth.

- It's nice to meet you! - Good to meet you.

- Hi, there! - Hello! How are you?

Oh, aren't you sweet. Come on in.

It's so nice to meet you!

You too.

- How are you? - Hello!

Long time. It's so nice.

How many people do you think are in our immediate family?

Just in the Weber family?

Just in the Weber family.

I never counted 'em.

One, two, three, four, five. That's 18.

I know of, I'm seeing like in the 30s or 40s.

40.

I think of 20, 23?

I'd say between 40 and 50.

I'd say... yeah.

- Are you ready to find out? - Sure.

So, we have... first, we have Alfons.

And Alfons has a son named Karl.

Karl has Kristen and Cort.

And Gretchen.

And Klaus and Heidi.

Those are all his kids.

Jonathan and Kathleen.

Rebecca

and Julia.

That's just Uncle Alfons's family.

Oh, boy.

Okay, and then we have Gertrude.

She has Lynn.

Gertrude also has Don.

And then there's Aunt Judith.

Ron has a daughter named Mika.

You have Les, who has Karen and Chuck.

I have Josh and Oliver and Sebastian.

Count 'em.

57, 58, 59, 60.

61, 62, 63...

Boy, Schmidt should only know what he did.

- 72. - 72.

- Holy crap. - This is our whole family.

Come here, sis. Give me a hug.

- Why? - Because I love ya!

- Well, that's crazy. - Because we love each other.

That's unbelievable.

I mean, you save seven people,

and you saved 72 lives.

You know, a lot of people see things wrong

and don't do nothing.

When you're faced with adversity, who do you become?

When Arthur Schmidt stepped forward to help,

our fortunes began to change,

and our lives were truly

in the hands of the righteous among the nations.

There is so much evil in the world.

That is always overcome by so much goodness.

And I think it is incumbent upon us

uh, to remember,

that the good always outweighs the evil.

In other words, your thoughts are free

and nobody can catch them!

Your thoughts are your thoughts.

And no jaeger, nobody can shoot your thoughts.

That's the song.

- I remember. - You and Senta used to sing.

Always.

# Die Gedanken sind Frei #

# My thoughts freely flower #

# Die Gedanken sind Frei #

# My thoughts give me power #

# No scholar can map them #

# No hunter can drop them #

# No man can deny #

# Die Gedanken sind Frei #

# No man can deny #

# Die Gedanken sind Frei #

# I think I as I please #

# And this gives me pleasure #

# My conscience decrees #

# This right I must treasure #

# My thoughts will not cater #

# To duke or dictator #

# No man can deny #

# Die Gedanken sind Frei #

# No man can deny #

# Die Gedanken sind Frei #

# And should tyrants take me #

# And throw me in prison #

# My thoughts will burst free #

# Like blossoms in season #

# Foundations will crumble and structures will tumble #

# And free men will cry #

# Die Gedanken sind Frei #

# And free men will cry #

# Die Gedanken sind Frei #