VIENNA, 27 January 2025 – The documentary ‘UnBroken’ by American filmmaker Beth Lane tells the story of the seven Jewish Weber siblings who survived the Second World War and the Holocaust together. Beth Lane, the daughter of one of the Weber siblings, reconstructs the story of the siblings' escape whilst hiding from the German Nazi regime. The children, who were taken in by a benevolent farmer, spent two years in hiding in a laundry room on a farm east of Berlin, fighting their way through hunger, loneliness, bombings and fear. After the war, the siblings managed to settle in the United States and build a new life. Beth Lane's film is an impressive work based on interviews with her family and their documents and footage where she visited various German Holocaust landmarks.
Following the screening, a discussion with invited panellists took place, moderated by Sonja Wintersberger, Officer-in-Charge of the United Nations Information Service (UNIS) Vienna. The panellists unanimously stressed the importance of remembering the Holocaust. Dirk “Dicky” Adler, who survived the Holocaust as a child with the help of a Dutch family who risked their lives by hiding him, spoke about his personal experiences and the parallels he could draw to the story of the Weber family.
Dina Porat, Senior Academic Advisor at Yad Vashem and renowned Israeli Holocaust researcher elaborated on her work as a historian for the memorial site in Jerusalem. She also talked about the initiative “The Righteous Among the Nations”. With this project, Yad Vashem, after a complex process of selection, honours non-Jews who risked their lives by helping Jews during the Holocaust. The farmers Paula and Arthur Schmidt who helped the Weber siblings were awarded this title posthumously in 2015.
Doron Rabinovici, board member of the Center for Israel Studies in Vienna, said that even until the 1960s, non-Jews who had helped Jews during the Holocaust in Austria often did not speak about it. He also emphasized how impressive and important the remembrance work of many Holocaust survivors is: “After everything they had to go through, survivors found the strength to speak out and stick up for humanity.”
The audience and the panel were deeply touched by the film, and the evening ended with Holocaust survivor Adler’s advice to the younger generation by: “Open up your hearts, use your brain and save the truth.”
Earlier on the same day, a commemoration ceremony and a screening of the same film was held at the Vienna International Centre to pay tribute to the victims and survivors of the Holocaust. The day was a reminder to continue remembering the past and showing solidarity by upholding human rights for all.
