All language subtitles for Unlikely.Heroes.2003.720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX].en

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- [Narrator] People often ask,

why did the Jews go like
sheep to the slaughter?

Sheep to the slaughter.

How can they know what it was like

crowded together in a way that
even animals are not treated,

weakened by months or hardship and hunger,

locked up in sealed wagons without food,

without weapons, without friends,

knowing that even if
one escaped the Nazis,

who was there that would welcome them?

Who cared?

Sheep to the slaughter.

What do those who use the phrase

know about honorable courage?

Of the brave partisans
who risked their lives

in the forest to battle the
Germans and their collaborators?

Of the fearless individuals who defied

the Nazis and helped
thousands escape death?

What do they know about reverence?

Of the parents who would not
desert their little ones,

who stayed behind to embrace them,

to exchange glances
with them one more time?

About those who gave up
their daily ratio of food

so that a father, a grandmother
might live another day?

What do they know of the people who refuse

to believe in the death of mankind,

who in forsaken places called
hell organized schools,

prayed and studied the town would,

painted, composed lyrics,

sang songs of today of
eternity of tomorrow,

even when there was to be no tomorrow?

(dramatic uplifting music)

(light easy piano)

- I had an argument with my father,

and I was kind of, I would say depressed,

and I thought I'll go out into the park

and to walk a little bit.

And finally I sat down
on a long row of chairs,

and I sat there and I cried.

I didn't realize but my
husband told me later

that he walked by several times

and finally stood in
front of me and asked me,

"Is this chair here next to you free?"

I said to him, "Idiot, don't you see

"this whole row of chairs is free?"

And he just said thank you and sat down.

He started talking, "I see you are crying,

"why are you crying?"

And it took a long time but finally,

we started talking together.

After a while, we walked together home,

and I was much calmer then,

and we made a date for another day.

It was kind of a hard relationship

because he was very
Jewish and I was Catholic.

As a child, he was told you would

never marry a known Jewish girl,

that there is just no future for us,

but after a year of courtship
on and off and on and off,

we decided I would convert and I

would become Jewish and we would marry.

My father always said you
don't know what you get into.

Don't, don't, and don't,

and my mother always
said, "Follow your heart."

But we would keep it all very secret.

The Nuremberg laws were at this time

not yet in effect in
Vienna, but everybody knew

that they would be part of Austrian law.

- [Narrator] Willy Perl had been closely

following what had been happening

to Germany's Jewish community since

Hitler's rise to power in the early 1930s.

Convinced that it was
only a matter of time

before the Nazis marched into Austria,

and that there was no future
for the Jews in the country,

he began organizing illegal
transports to Palestine,

violating British policy that

severely limited Jewish immigration.

But at the time, his efforts had

little support among Vienna's Jews.

- The Jewish community
was very hard on him,

he was kind of an outsider.

They believed that he was getting

all those young people into a situation

where they might die instead of live.

- [Narrator] By early 1937, working with

Greek smugglers who previous
cargo had been alcohol,

Perl's operation had engineered three

successful shipments of
Jews to the port of Hyper,

circumventing the British Navy.

- An entirely new undertaking for me,

smuggling, I had not been a smuggler

but I had been in touch
with the Greek underworld,

and we persuaded them to switch from

smuggling booze to smuggling Jews.

It was all before the
Nazis marched into Austria.

The Germans marched into their full

triumphant acceptance of the very

majority of the Austrian people.

(crowd cheering)

- I was on the balcony and the streets

were lined with people and they were all

in a frenzy shouting "Heil
Hitler, Heil Hitler,"

and Hitler came by in
his car standing erect

and holding his hand in his salute.

Willy was not with me,
because at this time

we tried very hard not
to be together in public,

only very secretly we met.

We were very very much involved
in the political situation

and he also knew what would be coming.

(dramatic tone)

(orchestra plays)

(audience applauds)

- After the Nazis had been
in Austria for a short time,

Jews were arrested by the
hundreds and by the thousands,

not because you were loyal, because

your neighbor said that you
said Hitler stinks or something,

but just because you had a
Jewish name, you were arrested.

From this moment on,
everybody was eager to get out

under any circumstances,
there were no parents anymore

who would have said don't go.

- My husband's office
was in the first district

of Vienna on 14 (speaks foreign language).

Once, it must have been
a private apartment

so it was just very elaborate
and very very beautiful.

Willy was not a very orderly guy,

he had very important pieces of paper here

and here and here and here,

and whenever he wanted something

he would just go and look,

and the girls who worked
there always said,

"It's very nice of you if you come in,

"but please don't touch the files."

They didn't let him go
close to the file cabinet.

- When you came to Doctor Perl,

you could always enter his
office and speak to him.

A lot of friends of mine at that time

left for Palestine not legally.

Doctor Perl organized it.

- The Nazi policy towards
the Jews was very vague,

out with the Jews, but nothing more,

just (foreign language) in our policy,

one way street to Palestine.

They shouted let's get them out.

- [Narrator] A young Lieutenant,
or Obersturmbannfuhrer

Adolf Eichmann was brought to Vienna

to oversee Jewish affairs in Austria.

In one of his first official acts,

he summoned a number of
Jewish leaders to his office,

including Willy Perl.

- He took me in, he asked
me where is so and so,

I told him I do not know.

So he put me against the wall
with a pistol in my back,

and said, "Maybe better you'll
remember where this man is.

"If not, I might like to give
you a second belly button."

I was frozen with fear, I couldn't talk

but suddenly I broke out of this phase

and said I have something much
more important to tell you,

something political I can help you

to make Vienna pure of Jews.

So apparently this had
aroused his interest because

he was a very ambitious
man, he wanted to get ahead.

- Eichmann said, "Give
it to me in writing."

So that's what Willy then later did,

and after several days
Eichmann told Willy,

"Out of your projects
this will be nothing,

"this is just a Jewish trick."

- [Narrator] Doctor Perl realized

that unless he took some other action

his plan would become
truly dead in the water.

Ignoring the dangers
faced by a Jew traveling

in Germany and Austria at
this time, he went to Berlin.

There he met with one
of Eichmann's superiors

and outlined his scheme
to pay Germany an exit fee

for every Jew wishing to leave Austria.

When the officials saw how Germany would

profit out of making Austria Jew free,

he quickly authorized the plan.

This was not a move that
the man whom Austrian Jews

called the Devil's Deputy took kindly to.

- Willy did it.

He got the permission to take Jews out

and he came back to Vienna
and Eichmann was furious.

Then he said, "I'll get you, Perl."

- [Narrator] On the days immediately

following his Berlin trip, Doctor Perl

scrambled together plans
for a new transport

of almost 400 Austrian Jewish teenagers.

- My mother, she selled
certain things you know,

to get the money for me to get on

the transport of Doctor Perl.

We were told not too many relatives

should come to the train station.

I didn't want my parents to come

because my father looked
a little bit Jewish

so I didn't want to put
my father in danger.

I didn't know if I would
see my parents again.

My mother was crying very much.

At that time, I saw my
father the first time crying.

The first time.

My father never cried,
but that's the first time

I saw him crying.

- We had some 386 Jews assembled
at the railroad station.

Eichmann was there and Lange was there

who was the Chief of the Vienna Gestapo.

- [Narrator] Doctor Perl began
addressing the young people.

As you enter these railroad
cars, he told them,

you leave behind a country and a people

that do not want you.

You are going home to the country in which

we will shape our own future,

and one day, he concluded, you will

make it your own state, the Jewish state.

A happy homecoming, he wished them.

Happy aliyah.

- I finished speaking
and apparently inspired

patriotically by what I had said,

a girl's voice started to sing,

a few people fell in and soon everyone was

standing and I hadn't planned it

but I was standing next to Eichmann and I,

to hell with it, I had to,

I couldn't stand there
without singing too.

I am sure this was the only time

that Mr. Eichmann and Lange stood by

when the Jewish national anthem was sung.

- [Narrator] Eichmann and Lange watched

as the Perl transports left Vienna.

Some four years later,
both would participate

in the Wannsee conference,
which formalized

what became known as the Final

Solution of the Jewish question.

The next morning it was
Willy's turn to leave.

He needed money to finance his transports

and raising such large sums from

Vienna was proving impossible.

He had no choice but to go to London.

- He went into the unknown, and alone.

We were all sure he could manage,

but with me around it would
not have been so easy.

So I stayed back with my parents,

I lived under my maiden name.

- [Narrator] Lore's
existence in Vienna became

very difficult after her
husband's departure for England.

In less than a year, both
of her elderly parents died.

Then she was arrested by the gestapo

for hiding a Jewish friend and secretly

bringing food and supplies
to others in need.

She was sent to Ravensbruck, a woman's

concentration camp in Germany.

It was a particularly
brutal place of hard work,

lack of food, and for some
medical experimentation.

One day, Lore was summoned
to the Commandant's office.

It was a frightening moment.

- And he asked me, "There
is a letter here from

"a Lintpointner, a Hans Lintpointner,

"do you know him?"

I said, "Yes it's a cousin of mine."

"And he writes to you that he wants to be

"united with you, what does he mean?"

"He wants to marry me," and that

was the last communication
I had from Willy,

but I knew that he was alive.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] As the war
began raging across Europe,

Doctor Perl risked his life and moved

from country to country continuing

to arrange his transports
of Jews to Palestine.

(bell rings)

In less than three years, his efforts

had led to tens of thousands of Jews

being able to escape from Austria,

Hungary, and Czechoslovakia.

- People in my organization,
about 18,000 people,

but altogether more than 40,000 people

were smuggled into Palestine.

- The official British count 42,000 people

went through Bill's
transports to Palestine.

It was not really a pleasure cruise,

but after some hardship,
the people were alive,

and this was what really counted.

(loud dramatic uplifting music)

(audience applauds)

- Two songs saved my life
between 1942 and 1945,

and I'm gonna try to do it the way I used

to do it when I was 16 years old.

(singing in foreign language)

I was born March first, 1926.

It was a fantastic childhood.

I come from a huge family,
I'm the 14th and last child.

Widerman is my real name.

My father's name was
Moish, was born in Poland.

We called him Maurice in France.

My mother's name was Bayla, the
sweetest woman in the world,

and I'm sure I'm not
the only one who talks

about his mother like this,
but she really was fantastic.

Just caring about everybody.

I always was a, excuse
the expression, a ham.

I've always sang and danced
and was the clown of the party.

When all the family
were there for Passover,

they always wanted me to sing
and you didn't have to beg me.

We all loved jazz, we all loved elephants

Gerald and Louie Armstrong
and all these people.

I said hey let's form a band

and we would sing their songs,

and we were so cocky that we
went an amateur jazz concert

and we were not playing instruments,

we were playing kazoos.

(singing in foreign language)

Why do we wait to be happy,

why do we wait to have a feast?

They were wonderful songs.

(canon fires)

(dramatic suspenseful music)

The first round up that I saw
was absolutely frightening

because I was 15 years old.

I've never seen such trouble, such hate.

The French policemen were very thrilled

to arrest these people
and so were the non Jews,

yeah take them away, that
Jew bastard, let's get him.

Life was tough, it was very tough,

and then September 23rd,
1942, it was our turn.

Around probably nine or 10
pm, it was after curfew,

suddenly the buses are
there and French policemen.

Complete chaos in the apartment building,

screaming, crying, no
discrimination you have 10 minutes

to take your belongings
and come downstairs.

I think the joy of the non Jews

seeing us go was unbearable.

That night they sent us
to the police station,

and we stayed overnight
in the police station.

The next morning back
to the buses, sent us

to Drancy, this huge camp, and
it's an unfinished building.

At that time it was unfinished,

straw on the floor, no windows.

Next morning, there were lists of people

who will get deported, and my mother,

and my father, and my
uncle, and my sister with

her husband and two children,
and I were on the list.

Again, we took the buses and
we go to a railroad station,

Bobigny, and suddenly there
are the cattle trains,

and we are just pushed
into those cattle trains.

I don't know how many we were.

I say 100 people, maybe
it was a little less,

but nonetheless we were
on top of each other.

(train clatters)

My father was 72 years old.

He was in the corner with his brother,

for three days, never talked to anybody.

I never said my father, do
you know what's gonna happen,

do you know anything, how do you feel?

Never talked to him, never talked to him,

I was next to my mother,

and the stench was unbearable,

and the crying and some old
people not feeling well.

It was unbelievable but then,

here again my brilliant mother

who was not well educated at all,

she said, take a piece
of paper and a pencil

and write a letter to
your brother Jacques.

She told me what to write,
and I wrote the letter

and I threw it through the slot.

That letter got to my brother Jacques.

Somebody picked it up and sent it to him.

(speaking foreign language)

We are writing to you to tell you

that we are on a train traveling
toward Helene in the east.

I am asking you in momma's name

that you take good care
of yourself in Madland.

We are 50 in sealed cattle cars

and frightful things are happening in them

that I hope you will never see.

We have lots of courage and hope

to come back alive amongst you.

I have only one wish, it is to be able

to see all of you again one day soon.

Excuse my handwriting, but I am writing

while the train is in motion.

Momma kisses you and Golda and everybody.

Pappa, Ida, Jacques, the children, and I

will bear think all about you.

PS, tell Madeleine to take out those

10 sheets that are at the laundry store.

Uncle is with us, want his daughter.

Take care of her, take care of the people

who were not deported, and go and pick up

the 10 sheets that are waiting at laundry.

If we knew that my mother's
gonna die three days later

in a gas chamber, would she have written

go and pick up the 10 sheets of laundry,

such a foolish thing to say?

We didn't know.

And suddenly we're separated.

Suddenly I'm this brat who
was always scared of the dark.

I was always scared to go to the bathroom.

I'm all by myself with a brother in law,

but he's not my father,
he's my brother in law.

Anyways, suddenly I became a man,

and because of what my mother said to me,

it stayed in my mind.

Don't be a brat, I'm not there anymore.

Again, we are sent on trucks going

to the first camp which
was Ottmuth, a small

slave labor camp, a transit camp.

Once a week, there's a
gestapo agent who would come

and we all in one roll call and he just

point fingers and these
people will be sent

to either concentration camps or whatever,

but not stay in that transit camp.

My brother in law asked
me to sing, and I sang.

In that camp, that transit camp,

there were maybe five women who would

take care of the laundry,
take care of the shower,

take care of the kitchen.

One of them heard me sing and she was

the girlfriend of the
(speaks foreign term)

which is the Jewish
Commandant of the camp.

She was so taken by the songs,
(speaking foreign language),

and Josef Josef, and a
few other French songs,

and she said listen to this kid,

and he fell in love with my singing,

he fell in love with the
enthusiasm that I had

and when that gestapo
agent came once a week

I was put aside with my brother in law,

he doesn't go either.

- It was this harsh
regime of very hard labor,

very little food, constant
exposure to illness,

to the elements, and yet
he managed still to sing.

- We worked in a shoe factory,

I was ordered to make 4,000
pair of wooden heels a day.

When we were not working, I
was entertaining the inmates.

I guess that allowed them
to escape where they were.

- For those who heard him,

it was a moment in their day,

a moment in their lives when the

harshness of the daily regime

was not foremost.

It was a moment of grace,
a moment of beauty.

- Suddenly they evacuate us
and we are put in trucks again

and we arrive in Blechhammer,
it's a camp with 4,000 people.

That's a camp when we get tattooed.

- Blechhammer was an enormous camp

with electric wiring on
the top of the walls.

We had to give up our personal clothes,

and we were put into the
pajama type of uniforms.

- [Robert] And I don't know
if you know the winters in

upper Silesia because
that's where we were,

60 miles away from Auschwitz.

Treacherous.

- There were some people in
the camp that were artists,

we had some violinists,
we had some dancers,

we had some singers.

- Every Saturday night
for the elite in the camp,

there were people entertain them.

A violinist, an accordionist,

there was a guy called Howie
Post he was a wonderful tenor.

As small as I am, from Holland,

and he would entertain and
I entertained there, too.

- We saw him performing on the
stage Bei Mir Bist Du Schon.

That's one of the songs in
Ottmuth that made him the star.

- Every Sunday we did two shows at night.

First, for the SS, they
were there in the first row

and I did, I'm crazy.

There was a Jewish song called
I'm leaving, I'm going home,

I want to be with the Jews,
that's where I was born,

I'm gonna stay with the Jews.

That's a Jewish song I'm singing to SS.

(singing in foreign language)

I don't know what they thought I was doing

because if you're German
you can understand Yiddish,

it's not that far apart.

- (speaking foreign language)
because that was a kind of

a song which everybody enjoyed

because everybody was
thinking of getting a heim.

- Maybe my accent was so French that

they didn't know what I was singing about.

It's quite possible.

- And when it came to dance or anything,

he exerted an energy that you
wouldn't believe one could do.

- I would sing a French
song, not a French song,

a Yiddish song that said
when I was a young kid

I left my parents, I went
to make a living someplace

and then years later I
went back to the shattle

where they lived and
then they're not there.

Say where's my momma,
where's my (speaking Yiddish)

you know all these things and

there was everybody with tears.

(soft sad music)

I would go from one bag to the other

and entertain the inmates.

That was a great morale
booster I suppose it was.

I really don't know, I never asked them

did you like it, did it help you to live?

I never asked them that.

- To put on a show secretly
in a forced labor camp

in a concentration camp
was enormously risky,

and not only that but he used
precious calories to do this.

We who have so many calories
we don't even think about

the extra expenditure of energy,

the cost to him, the physical cost to him

of staying awake those extra hours,

of singing those extra
hours, of putting on a show.

- It was something that
you looked forward to

because it was a little hole of light

in all that darkness, no question.

- Each time I performed,
they were always gratifying,

they were happy to see this little kid

really singing his heart
out, whatever song,

whether rhythm or a sad song,
but just entertaining them

and I think they were
very grateful about it.

- That hour or two hours we were in there

we kind of lost track of

of work.

We kind of thought that we
really are in a theater.

We thought that we are still human beings.

(soft easy music)

- [Narrator] Saint Gallen, Switzerland,

close to Lake Constance
on the German border

was an unlikely home for Recha Sternbuch,

the daughter of one of the most respected

orthodox rabbinic figures in the world,

the chief rabbi of Antwerp, Belgium.

But that was where she settled

after she married Yitzchak Sternbuch,

a member of one of Switzerland's

most distinguished
orthodox Jewish families

and a highly successful business man.

It was a comfortable life
with few if any worries.

But all of that changed for Recha

once Adolf Hitler took power.

From the earliest days of the Nazi regime,

Recha Sternbuch aided Jewish

refugees fleeing into Switzerland,

more often than not illegally.

- There were Jewish
people who tried to get

over the front by themselves.

Every night, she got
news that on the trunchal

which was only a half an hour away from

(speaks foreign term),

there are Jews who can't come over,

the Swiss don't let, they throw them back,

they throw them back to the Germans.

Her soul had the reaction and
she started to work to rescue.

There was a need for a person who goes

beyond her possibilities to help

because the help was something which the

Jewish people needed so much.

- Most people in Switzerland who were in a

neutral place behaved in a neutral manner.

She decided that neutrality
was indifference.

She took neutrality and changed it

from indifference to activity,

and that activity saved people's lives.

- [Narrator] Using her own money,

this devoutly orthodox Jewish woman

created an independent rescue operation.

She traveled alone to Nazi
controlled Germany and Austria.

She bought illegal
Swiss visas that enabled

scores of German and Austrian Jews

to cross the Swiss
border into Saint Gallen.

Once there, the refugees were

taken to her home and sheltered.

- Their house became a hotel.

Some neighbors complained
and said what's going on,

this was a quiet family
and here all of a sudden,

tens of tens upon tens of people
are coming in and going out

and they provided for them.

They succeeded to some of
them to legalize their stay.

- [Narrator] One key to
this was Saint Gallen's

local police chief, Paul Gruninger.

- As soon as she had
one, two, three persons

or a whole family, she went to Gruninger

and Paul Gruninger
wrote sort of a passport

that became legal and
he gave his signature.

It was unbelievable
for a Swiss to do this.

- [Narrator] Another key to the operation

was a young orthodox
Jew, Doctor Julius Coole.

- He was stationed in the
Polish embassy in Bern.

This was a unique opportunity for her

because there were thousands of persons

who were without papers.

They had no identity in a country

where papers were critical.

- [Narrator] Recha and Doctor Coole also

cultivated connections in
other consulates and embassies.

They found one such contact
in an unexpected place.

- We all know that the
Vatican has a spotty record

with regard to its behavior
during World War II

but the Papal Nuncio in
Switzerland, Bernardini

did wonderful things and she found him

and Coole played chess with him

and lost to him every
weekend to make him feel

friendly enough and Roncalli, later to

become Pope John XXIII, in Turkey

was working with them, even
among the Vatican diplomats.

They found good people.

- [Narrator] The Sternbuch Network allowed

tens of hundreds of Jews to
flee central and eastern Europe,

the refugees used her
home and other safe houses

she established as havens
on their way to safety

in Shanghai and Latin America.

In 1939, several hundred joined one of

Willy Perl's transports to Palestine.

- She was a spokesperson, a negotiator,

and a human resources operator,

she went to the consoles,
she went to the embassies,

she went to the people
who needed the passports,

she acted as a conduit.

She acted for people who
couldn't act for themselves.

- [Narrator] While she spent
most of her waking hours

building a network to save Jews,

Recha was also a wife and a mother who

tried to maintain whatever family life

was possible under the circumstances.

One Sabbath morning,
just as the Sternbuchs

were preparing to leave for Synagogue,

a messenger arrived.

Three young Jews who had
escaped from occupied

France had been arrested
by the Swiss Border Police.

The family went ahead to the synagogue,

Recha got on the phone trying to stop

the boys from being deported,

fully aware that she was
violating the Sabbath.

(speaking foreign language)

As her family prayed a few blocks away,

Recha discovered that the
boys had been taken back

to Vichy, France to a military camp.

She violated the Sabbath a second time

and got into a taxi to make
her way across the border.

- She even put herself at risk.

She crossed the border into Vichy, France.

That's ridiculous to assume that people

would do such things,
because she knew what was

going on on the other side of the border.

- [Narrator] At the military camp,

Mrs. Sternbuch produced
paperwork showing that the

boys were under the protection
of the Polish government.

Vichy authorities had no choice

but to release the
refugees into her custody.

They sped back to Saint Gallen

but arrived in the late afternoon,

long after Sabbath services had ended.

(singing in foreign language)

Recha had not missed just any service,

that morning had been the bar mitzvah

of her only son, Oberheim.

Later that day, she explained that saving

the lives of those three boys was the

greatest bar mitzvah gift she
could ever have given him.

- The average person must
know that they have a certain

relationship with their creator,

and part of that relationship is

keeping the Jewish tradition,

and by breaking the Jewish tradition

she was making a new Jewish tradition

because saving a life is more important

than any other aspect of Jewish tradition.

- [Narrator] It wasn't
long before Swiss officials

who were anything but
sympathetic towards the plight

of refugee Jews, began cracking

down on the Sternbuch network.

The first to find himself in
hot water was Paul Gruninger.

His superior Heinrich Rothmond,

the head of the Swiss Alien Police

was infuriated by his activities.

- Historically we know
that he made the Germans

stamp the Jewish passports with a J

in order that the Jews should not be

able to come into Switzerland.

He dismissed Gruninger and then of course

he became harder.

- [Narrator] Then in the spring of 1939,

Swiss authorities came
after Mrs. Sternbuch.

- She was arrested, she was put

on trial for smuggling in people.

They wanted her also to give the names

of those people who helped her,

I mean, this is an operation
with tens of people,

but she said that was one
thing she will not do,

she will go to jail,
but she will not give up

anybody else and she'll
not become an informant

for people who are saving people.

- [Narrator] From her prison cell,

Recha wrote an impassioned
letter to the District Attorney.

- [Woman] Your demand
that I should denounce

human beings who haven't harmed anyone

and for the most part
are poor, decent workers

who could not bear to suffer a punishment,

this I cannot do.

Do you really expect me
to denounce the fathers

of these families and
bring them misfortune?

And possible, Mr. District Attorney,

I will not permit anyone to rob me of

the things that make a person's

life pleasant and worthwhile.

- [Narrator] A few days later,

the judge released her on bail.

Recha had been imprisoned for two weeks.

In May of 1942, after three
years of legal proceedings,

all of the charges against her

were dropped for lack of evidence.

Ironically, after the dismissal,

the District Attorney who
had tried so diligently

to put her behind bars personally

handed her a contribution
of 100 Swiss Franks

towards her rescue efforts.

Not long after her legal battle was over,

Mrs. Sternbuch received
word that a Jewish family

had been arrested by the gestapo

on the German side of Lake Constance.

She rushed from her home and

crossed the border into Germany.

- Recha went on the other side,

went into this house and all of a sudden

she was in front of this German,

and had two big dogs,
two very very big dogs

and she took out her Swiss passport,

she said, "I am Swiss."

So he said, "But you
are Jewish, aren't you?"

So she said yes.

"So by me you are the
same as these Jews here,

"and I'll do you the
same as I do to them."

She said "Okay, so wherever you send them,

"you'll send me with them."

He said, "You wouldn't speak so nicely

"if you knew that I
send them to Auschwitz."

She said, "I'll go with them."

I can't believe that the
German ever was impressed but

this was the case, he said, okay,

"Take your Jews and
disappear, this moment,

"disappear with them."

- [Narrator] She quickly gathered the

family up and walked across the

border with them to her waiting car.

Less than 30 minutes later, they were

safely ensconced in the Sternbuch home.

(bell rings)

In the summer of 1942,
the first in a series

of letters arrived at the Sternbuch home

from a contact in the Warsaw ghetto.

A Mister Jay Dome.

The Dome correspondence was filled

with disturbing news of mass deportation

and murder of the Jewish
community of Poland.

- This is a letter written September 1942

where he writes that uncle
(speaks foreign language)

which means uncle our brothers,

(speaks foreign language) they are dead.

- [Narrator] Alarmed by his reports,

Mrs. Sternbuch cabled
American Jewish leaders.

- [Woman] According to recently

received authentic information,

the German authorities have evacuated

the last ghetto in Warsaw.

Beastly murdering about 100,000 Jews,

the deportees from
other occupied countries

will meet the same fate.

- [Narrator] A second less urgent cable

was sent by Gerhart Riegner, the Geneva

representative of the
world Jewish Congress.

Details of both telegrams
were sent to the White House

and then passed on to
the State Department,

but neither did anything
about the horrifying news.

So Recha continued to barrage
American Jewish leaders

with more cables and letters filled

with the details about the Nazi slaughter.

Her efforts eventually forced the leading

spokesman of the American Jewish community

Rabbi Stephen S Wise
to call the first ever

emergency meeting of
major Jewish organizations

in the US to discuss the situation.

The Jewish leaders were
alarmed but the gathering

ended with Wise convincing his colleagues

not to go public with the
news of the massacres.

- Jewish organizations at that time

had one goal and that goal was to support

the US Government which I understand

because they felt that if the war would

end quickly Jews would be saved.

- [Narrator] Frustrated that the American

Jewish organizations would
not be more proactive

in trying to save Jews, Mrs. Sternbuch

then undertook one of the most dangerous

and controversial rescue
missions of the war.

She had learned that the former president

of the Swiss Parliament,
pro Nazi newspaper

publisher Jean-Marie Musy might

be someone who could help her.

- She came to him, she said,
"Look, we know that you

"have a good relationship with
Heinrich Himmler in Berlin.

"You should realize the
Germans lost the war,

"and there's no reason why now

"you shouldn't be able to influence him

"to let out the Jews who
are still incarcerated

"in concentration camps."

And I don't know exactly
how much she paid him,

but anyway she provided
him with a Mercedes

and he went with his son
and he met with Himmler

and they started negotiating.

- [Narrator] Himmler sent back a proposal,

Jews would be released at
the rate of 15,000 a month

in exchange for five million
dollars and political goodwill

when the Germans finally lose the war.

The head of the SS was hoping to be

portrayed as a humanitarian
for freeing the Jews.

In an attempt to show good faith,

Himmler then allowed a
trainload of approximately

1,200 Jews from Theresienstadt
to leave for Switzerland.

Mrs. Sternbuch greeted
them at the station.

Himmler's proposal to
ransom Jews for money

was quickly rejected in the United States.

No one was interested in such demands

with the war's end in sight,

but for Recha the opportunity to save

even one life was paramount.

Because she was worried that Himmler might

take back his offer, she decided to go

to Berlin herself to keep
the negotiations alive.

- She thought she would be
able to convince Himmler

to do more than what he promised

and she asked Musy to take her along,

and Musy agreed, but her
husband wasn't pleased,

a Jewish woman during the
war to go into Germany,

for Himmler that he would never allow,

and he was so upset about this

that for a few days refused
to talk to her husband.

- [Narrator] Musy traveled to Berlin alone

and convinced Himmler
to approve the release

of another 2,000 Jews from
Theresienstadt and Bergen-Belsen,

but the talks came to an abrupt end.

Hitler had gotten wind
of them and was furious.

He issued orders putting
an end to the transports.

Among those who were
never allowed to depart

were Recha's parents and
other members of her family.

They would all perish in
the final weeks of the war.

From almost the first moment
the Nazis came to power,

Recha Sternbuch worked tirelessly to save,

aid, and shelter as many
people as she possibly could.

For the first three years of the war,

she used her own money,
refusing to raise anything

else from others to finance
her rescue operation.

Thousands of Jews survived
the war in Switzerland,

China, Latin America, and
Palestine because of her efforts.

But she did more than just
pay for food and shelter.

She and her husband
became surrogate parents

for hundreds of refugees
who no longer had families.

Said one survivor, "Mrs. Sternbuch made a

"wedding for me as if I were her child.

"Her husband walked us
under the wedding canopy.

"Many of my friends," he continued,

"who no longer had parents, grandparents,

"any relatives at all, were
treated in the same way,

"like children, or close relatives."

- She was extremely
extremely not conscious

of what she was doing.

She didn't realize that she
was an exceptional person.

- She didn't want any publicity,

she didn't want a place,

Mrs. Sternbuch could have
sit down doing nothing,

or she could have stayed in the office

of her husband, other people who didn't

do anything became very
rich during the war,

they didn't become rich.

- She could've spent
the whole war in safety.

She could've spent the whole
war educating her children,

many people did that if
they were living in safety.

Instead, she decided to do something

about the tragedy that was so overwhelming

that was going on around her.

And the real issue here is how many

people acted the way she did,

and my answer to you is
tragically almost none.

(light chiming music)

- [Woman] She never wanted
us to paint what we saw

in Theresien and what's happening,

she wanted us to forget Theresien

and she wanted that hour she spent with us

to be a totally normal children's hour.

- [Ela] We were taught from her to

think about beautiful things

in life because inside
Terezin you couldn't see that

but you can imagine what will be

when you be out of here.

She gave us hope.

- [Narrator] Friedl Dicker-Brandeis

was a renowned artist trained at

Germany's famous Bauhaus school.

In her native Vienna, she became a noted

designer of furnishings, homes,
and commercial buildings.

She was also an early
proponent of using art

as therapy for children at risk.

Tragically, her first real opportunity

to test her theories
came when she secretly

began to teach art classes to
children in Theresienstadt,

the German concentration camp set up

in the medieval fortress of
Terezin in Czechoslovakia.

- It had been a garrison town.

Jews began to be deported in,

questions began to be
asked internationally,

where are these Jews,
what has happened to them

after they are deported,

and so the Nazi leadership
conceived the plan

to transform Theresienstadt into

a model city, a model ghetto.

- [Narrator] A model ghetto
where hundreds of artists

like Friedl as well as writers, musicians,

and actors from all over Europe were sent

to give the appearance
to the outside world

that the Germans were really
treating the Jews humanely.

Friedl and her husband Pavlo
were deported to Terezin

in late 1942 from the eastern
Bohemian hamlet of Hronov.

It was there that she had created

some of her most memorable
paintings and drawings.

In the tiny basement room where she lived

in a building that became
known as the children's home

in Terezin, Friedl continued to

immerse herself in the world of art,

but now it was for the
children of Theresienstadt.

On a daily basis, she risked her life

to bring art lessons to
the girls and boys there

to give them a release
from the daily routine

of hunger, brutality, and death.

- In the beginning, when
I was with my mother,

we were in a very small room in

the Hamburg barracks, six people.

I heard about Friedl only when I

moved to the children's home.

We were in one room, 28 kids.

- She was from the
beginning very interested

to be with us kids.

- We were not allowed to be taught

but we were taught secretly.

I enjoyed very much her teaching

and I looked always forward to it.

- We wanted somebody to be our teacher.

We missed the school, we missed all that

that we loved before and we
didn't have it for many years.

The first time she came to our room

it was a little funny how she spoke Czech,

it was like for us Czech
kids a little different.

She was very simple like
her hairdo was very short.

She was such a sporty looking woman,

very neat.

Small, very delicate in a way,

and she was so warm to us kids.

- It was for me an honor
when she allowed me

to carry her papers into her room.

- And when you came to her room

there were flower paintings all over,

what she was doing in Terezin,

she was different than anybody really.

- [Narrator] Many of the
children who became Friedl's

students had lost either
one or both of their parents

before arriving in Terezin.

For them, she was more
than just a teacher.

This woman who could never
have a child of her own

became a surrogate mother to
well over 100 girls and boys.

One day, a group of children from

Germany arrived at the camp.

They had witnessed the
murder of their parents

and were in a state of complete shock.

When Friedl came to them, she found

the boys and girls sitting on cots

clinging to one another almost catatonic.

Emotionally rot by the scene,

tears began rolling down her cheeks.

She attempted to hide her
grief from the children

but when they saw her
reaction, they also began

to weep for the very first time.

After crying together, Friedl
took the children to wash up

informing them that in order

to draw they needed clean hands.

Then she brought paints and paper

and before long they were
caught up in her lesson

forgetting momentarily
the painful circumstances

that brought them together.

- She taught children how to use a pencil,

how to work with charcoal,

how to work with colors.

These color samples and
they painted rainbow.

They could really forget about everything

and just dream and create
and express themselves.

A difficult thing in the ghetto

which seems to be so simple and that was

how to get the art supplies.

Wasted paper you could find in

different barracks and packages.

- She was saving the
wrappings of those packages

because this was strong paper

that didn't get completely ruined.

- It was always a different material

what she just got and she
made us make collages.

She would bring some flowers, I don't know

from where she got them, put
in the middle of the table,

a teapot, a Dutch wooden shoe,

and next time she wanted the
sunrise or what we dream about.

Once she made us paint a market.

She would make a noise on the table

and we had to paint the rhythm.

She made us really forget
that we were in Terezin.

- [Narrator] Friedl may
have given the children

a momentary release, but they were never

that far removed from
the reality of Terezin.

Of the over 140,000 Jews
that were sent there,

almost 90,000 were eventually
deported to death camps,

primarily Auschwitz.

Almost 34,000 perished
within Theresienstadt itself.

While a small number were
executed by firing squad,

most died of malnutrition and disease.

The children of Terezin
were especially vulnerable

to the camp's terrible conditions,

and when they fell victim to illness,

they were often left
alone to suffer and die.

But Friedl ignored the
dangers of infection

and insisted on visiting
the sick children.

She brought her arts
supplies and lessons to them,

changed their bed sheets, and
wiped their feverish brows.

She comforted them as a parent would.

Yet even while all this was going on,

the Germans continued their
charade to the outside world.

(speaking foreign language)

In 1944, a propaganda
film was made entitled

The Fuhrer Gift the Jews a Town.

It showed an idealistic
life of plentiful food,

lectures, concerts, and sporting events.

A central scene in the
film is the performance

of the children's opera Brundibar.

Friedl was one of the
artists who was forced

to make the sets used in the opera.

Ela Weissberger portrayed
the cat in that performance.

- This was already in 1944,

and we didn't believe that something

very bad will still happen
after the filming but it did.

Most of the children and the

children in the audience went to gas.

- We were always very
upset when children left,

it was always like sisters
and brothers would leave.

I went 22nd October 44.

- Friedl went I believe
also in October 1944

and with her most of
the kids from my room.

It went so fast in the children's home,

it was like a turmoil.

Can you imagine that
all of a sudden we were

four girls left from the 28,

and the teachers, everybody was gone.

Many kids wrote little notes,

like today you would call
it maybe goodbye thought.

Nothing is left of the girls,

it's only what Friedl saved.

- [Narrator] Friedl
Dicker-Brandeis was murdered

in the gas chambers of Auschwitz Birkenau

on October the ninth, 1944,

three days after she
arrived with 1,550 others

including 36 of her students.

She was 46 years old.

- She had always on
her mind to take us out

from the sadness and to give us hope

that probably we will survive.

If I'm looking at her last
painting, it was a child.

In the eyes you can see
what she felt for children.

We lost somebody very
important from our lives.

(light easy music)

- The layout of the little town
was a square in the middle,

a real square and streets shooting off

every direction from the square.

Most of the buildings
were wooden buildings

but there were some brick
buildings in our house

for example was a brick building,

built in 1895, I remember
there was letters saying 1895.

My father was a merchant,
a merchant of everything,

anything that it was that
you could make a dollar.

My mother was running
a dairy in the house.

I had an older brother Benjamin that was

two years older and I had
a younger sister Friedka

that was three years younger.

I was from a lower middle class home,

but very very fine people.

- [Narrator] Leon Kahn
was born Leibal Kaganovich

in 1925 in the small town
of Eishyshok, Lithuania,

very close to the borders
of Belarus and Poland.

Jews constituted at least
half the town's population,

their presence dating
back to the 12th century.

- 95% of the people were
observant, going to shul

three times a day and
especially on the Shabbat.

We had a shaman by the name of
Lepe Deshamas, Lepe Desectant

that used to dress up in the
finest clothes that he had,

black with a big top hat
with a cane in his hand

and come and stand in
the middle of the square

and holler as loud as
he could, in shul arine,

in shul arine, he used to
repeat it two or three times,

and the amazing part that the little town

used to come to a standstill.

The relationship between
the Jews and the Lithuanians

and the Poles was a normal relationship.

I went to a Polish school, I used to have

Polish kids coming to our house.

We fell down to Semitism in school

but nothing to an extent.

My father used to travel
around quite a bit,

he used to be away sometimes
three or four days of the week

just traveling but
really just to buy things

and the relationship that he had

with those people was excellent.

- [Man] June 21st, 1941.

With treacherous assault Germany

declares war on Soviet Russia.

Nazi bombers were taking
toll of hundreds of innocents

and untold numbers of homes and buildings.

(explosion)

- When the Nazi's marched
in they handed over the

running of the town to the Lithuanians.

There were edicts in the
town, everyday something else.

They used to confiscate
all your belongings.

My father and my mother used to say

if this is the only thing
they're going to take

from us, I don't care, as long
as they don't take our lives.

Some people began to try to run away.

If they caught them they used

to kill them right on the spot.

In Orany, in our little town,

not very far from us, they
already killed all the Jews.

Finally, the day came that
the word was spread that

we have to all go to the synagogues,

to assemble at the
synagogues, they gave us

all kinds of excuses, a head
count and all kind of things.

We were caught unaware and it was

one day before Rosh Hashanah.

- [Narrator] But Leon and Benjamin

decided against going to the synagogue

with the rest of the town's Jews,

instead, the two boys hid
near the Catholic cemetery

on the edge of the town.

- Now, why a Catholic cemetery,
it was an old cemetery,

and it was overgrown and we didn't think

anybody's going to look
in places like that.

All of a sudden we saw a transport

of I don't know maybe
20 wagons or 30 wagons

full of women and children.

The women and children
from our little town.

In the bushes in the cemetery
we could stand up and watch

through the bushes, nobody could see us.

They started getting them
in groups of 20 or 30

women at the time to
undress to put their shoes

in one place and their
garments in another place.

And then they used to take them

up to the ditch, line them up,

and just shoot them in
the back of their necks.

We couldn't believe what we were seeing.

Now my brother wouldn't stand up.

My brother kept dragging me down too.

Don't look, don't look.

I could see my aunt, I could
see my aunt's daughter,

my first cousin.

My cousin was the most
beautiful girl in town,

and they dragged her into the
bush and they were raping her

and finally they killed her too,

and all that was left are the children.

I saw the Chief of Police of our town

a Lithuanian by the name of Austrausgus.

He put on a smock like
a doctor, a white smock

so it wouldn't stain his clothing,

and he was picking up the children,

shooting them, throwing
them into the ditch.

We had about 5,000 Jews
in our little town,

and I'm assuming about 1,000 of

them would have been children,

and it was the end of the day,

and all the children and
all the people were dead.

- [Narrator] Nearby, a similar

slaughter had been taking place.

The 1,500 men of Eishyshok
had been brought to

what was known as the old Jewish cemetery

and shot in the same way
as the women and children.

- What I wanted to do is jump in there

and grab the Lithuanians
and choke each one of them,

or something spiritual
should happen you know,

something, God should
come out and smite them.

I made up my mind, right there and then,

that I'm not going to
submit, I'm going to run

as much as I can and just outrun them,

but I'm not going to submit.

- [Narrator] Night fell
and Leon and Benjamin fled.

They kept on the run for a few weeks.

During this period, they discovered

that there parents,
sister, and grandmother

had miraculously survived the massacre.

They reunited and made their way to Radun,

a larger town a few hours away in Poland

where they had family
with whom they could stay.

For a period of time, it was quiet there.

Then there came an
announcement from the Nazis,

a ghetto was to be
established in the town.

It was only a matter of time before

the Einsatzgruppen, the elite SS brigade

charged with enforcing the Final Solution

arrived on the scene.

Hiding in the attic of
the home of a revered

religious figure, the Hoffitsheim,

Leon's family watched as the majority

of the Jews of Radun were slaughtered.

When the Nazis and their
Lithuanian collaborators were

finished, the family crawled
out of the attic in a daze.

At that moment, Leon
underwent a crisis of faith.

- When I was in Radun
we were saying prayers

that you only say on Yom
Kippur or Rosh Hashanah

and nothing happened.

And I cannot understand where God was.

My father, my brother, and my sister,

we decided that we are not going
to go back into any ghetto.

We want to go to the forest

and we wanted mother and
grandmother to come with us

but my mother said that my grandmother

will never make it and she would not go.

(speaks foreign language)

You go, husband and my children,
but I cannot come with you.

So the parting, I can talk
about anything without

being too emotional but
I think of the parting

and saying goodbye to my mother

and I feel terrible
terrible guilt that I had

since it happened, that when
my mother needed me most

I deserted my mother.

But all I did is I kept looking
back, kept looking back.

And from there, we walk into the forest.

Completely a new life.

A group of people with women
and children, pots boiling,

cooking, and baking, and washing,

and it was a big group, I
would say maybe 100 people.

Those were family groups that were

living there close to the partisans.

We knew that if we are going to the forest

that we got to get some guns,

so we went to a farmer that was known

that he was dealing in guns.

Somebody squealed on him, maybe the guy

that sold him the gun, we don't know.

The barn was surrounded by Lithuanians.

They tried to fight
their way out of the barn

but they were picked off one at a time.

- [Narrator] Benjamin
Kaganovich was just 22 years old

when he became the first
member of the family to perish.

He was buried in the forest

shortly after his body was found.

Not long after Benjamin's murder,

partisans who'd been working near Radun

brought Leon the news that he feared most

about his mother and grandmother.

- They said to me that
everybody was taken away

to concentration camps
or extermination camps.

- [Narrator] Leaving his father and

sister behind in the family camp,

Leon officially joined the partisans.

(bright epic music)

- I'm one of the youngest here,

and they used to call me the patsan,

what is the patsan?

The patsan in Russian is
like a little shepard boy,

a little kid.

At that time, we weren't
well organized at all.

We didn't have any equipment,

we didn't have any mines, we didn't have

any detonators, we didn't have anything.

We were making due with whatever we could.

Our training is very very light training

and it was training on the job.

When they went out they were showing

you a few things to
do, how to hold a rifle

because I didn't know which
end to hold the rifle.

What we were doing is sabotage.

We were cutting down power poles,

we were cutting down telephone poles.

We were derailing trains too.

Taking wrenches, unscrewing the rails.

We used to start a
fire, heat up the rails,

and when the steel was getting soft,

we were wrapping it around
the tree like spaghetti.

We were traveling in the area where

my father was sitting in the
forest with a group of people.

My sister was there with him too.

All of a sudden, the
two guards came running

and said Germans are
coming, Germans are coming.

Of course we just grabbed our guns

so we came up to the edge of the forest,

and we could see from far away
that they weren't Germans,

they were Poles because of the
uniforms and also their hats.

- [Narrator] Leon and his group

had been attacked by members
of the so called Home Army,

a Polish resistance group
that was as violently

antisemitic as it was anti Nazi.

Their slogan, Poland without Jews.

- They started chasing us.

We were running and firing back as

much as we could with our rifles,

and then they chased us out in the field.

I dropped to the ground and
I was crawling on my belly

firing back and my father
was right beside me,

all of a sudden like he
was a bird in flight,

he went like that.

And he was hit in the
back with a dum dum bullet

and all of a sudden I could see almost

the size of a grapefruit
that his chest was open

and he was bleeding profusely,

and he kept hollering
to me where is Freidka,

where is Freidka, where is my sister?

I turned my head and I
could see that my sister

was running at the edge of the forest

and right behind her two
or three Poles chasing her.

I could see the Pole running up to her

with a bayonet on his rifle and
just went right through her.

And my father was still
beside me so I didn't tell

my father my sister got killed,

but I grabbed him by the hand and we

started running through the forest.

- [Narrator] They finally stopped at a

farmhouse at the edge of the woods.

Leon tried to treat his father's wound

but with little success.

- I was lying with my
father, and my father

knew that he was dying, and he gave

me like the last testament.

He told me that I shouldn't
forget my heritage,

I should never forget who I am,

and I shouldn't forget Yiddish guide

and I should tell my
children and my grandchildren

what has happened to him,

and the most important thing that he

wanted me to do is avenge my mother,

my sister, my brother, and him.

And before he died he said make sure

that you bury me beside
Benjamin, my brother.

I took my father and I buried him there.

It was getting to be the end of 1943

and we were very well organized

and we had all kind of equipment.

Our commander was a Russian Lieutenant

by the name of Misha, he's the one that

cooked up how to blow up a train

by exploding the artillery shell

under the thrussels of the train.

(explosion)

We were blowing up bridges.

We were blowing up dairies

where they were producing butter

and cheese and eggs and everything
for the military machine.

We had even a small
airport for small planes

to pick up and deliver stuff to us

and to take out wounded mostly officers

but we also had a hospital
there, a small hospital

being tended by some excellent
excellent Jewish doctors.

(gun shots)

I was becoming a seasoned partisan.

They taught me how to plant mines.

We had English mines, they were called.

To explode mostly tank cars that were

bringing fuel to the front.

(explosion)

The explosion, the air,
knocked us flat on our backs.

That excitement, until you're there

you cannot repeat it in a million years.

To see the train off the tracks

we did something for the cause of the war

to get even with the Germans.

It was fantastic.

- [Narrator] Leon Kahn continued

to fight as a partisan in Lithuania,

Poland, and Belarus until the Russian army

liberated those areas from
the Germans in June of 1944.

He was just 19 years old and an orphan

who had witnessed the murders
of his father and his sister.

He was no longer the patsan,

the little shepard boy, but
a veteran Jewish partisan

who had kept his word to his father.

Returning to his hometown of Eishyshok,

he hunted down and found
many of the Lithuanians

who had murdered his family and friends.

They were all brought to justice.

- If I ever had a picture of
how the partisan should look,

riding a white horse
with a black leather coat

with the bandoliers all around

and with an automatic
rifle over the shoulder.

A picture of the partisans.

(loud dramatic epic music)

(sad slow music)

- [Narrator] As the
Russian army was liberating

Leibal Kaganovich and
his fellow partisans,

hundreds of thousands were still

arriving daily at Auschwitz.

- The bloodiest period of
Auschwitz was the summer of 1944.

435,000 shipped in, 400,000
murdered immediately.

Jews in the camp were horrified

and they couldn't imagine
what the end might be.

- [Narrator] One of these
Jews was a young girl

from Warsaw, recently arrived
in Auschwitz Birkenau.

Her name was Hanka Wajcblum.

The barracks she lived in at Birkenhau

were a far cry from the elegant apartment

in which she grew up with her parents,

her two older sisters,
and a maid, Isabella.

- My mother and Isabella were
seamstress par excellence.

They used to make patterns from newspapers

and my mother and Isabella used to go

to see Shirley Temple then come home,

and recreate her clothes for me,

so I was walking around
like Shirley Temple

but with dark hair.

(canon fire)

- [Narrator] Hanka and
her older sister Estucha

fought alongside other young people

during the Warsaw ghetto uprising.

When the Germans put down the revolt,

the girls and their parents were shipped

to the notorious Majdanek concentration

camp near Lublin, Poland.

They never saw their parents again.

The sisters were then transferred along

with other able bodied young
women to Auschwitz Birkenau.

- We were assigned to work
in the munition factory

and Estucha was working in a pulv around

which means gun powder room.

There was six girls working
in this gun powder room.

- [Narrator] After work in the barracks

to keep their spirits up, Hanka, Estucha

and a number of other girls their age

formed a Zionist group.

- During those meetings
we were telling the girls

that came from different
countries that we come

from Warsaw ghetto and that the youth

in the Warsaw ghetto revolted and we are

in the same position here now,

we should do something,
that if we have to die

and that's what's
inevitable, then we have to

die with a meaning, that if we go

some of the Germans will come with us.

- [Narrator] In the gas
chambers and crematoria

the Sonderkommando agreed
with this point of view.

These Jews had the terrible
task of hauling out the bodies

of their fellow Jews after
they had been gassed.

A resistance group formed
within the Sonderkommando

to strike at the heart of
the Nazi killing machine,

to avenge the murder of millions of Jews,

among them their parents, grandparents,

siblings, and other family members.

- Sonderkommando began to lay plans

for blowing up the gas
chambers and the crematory.

To do this, they needed
the cooperation of others.

- [Narrator] One of the
people they went to was

Rosa Roberta, who had become the informal

leader of the girls working in
the union munitions factory.

She devised a plan to sneak gun powder

out of the plant and recruited
young women like Hanka

and Estucha and Alla Gurtner
to be part of the scheme.

- Estucha used to take out
a little bit of her powder

and put it in a piece of cloth,

so we would signal to
Alla, Alla and I would meet

in the washroom and divide
the powder between us.

- [Narrator] At the end of each day,

with the tissue wrapped gun
powder hidden in their underwear

the women were marched
back to their barracks.

- It was about three or four kilometers

between our factory in
Auschwitz to Birkenau

where we lived and from time to time

there were searches,
so we always made sure

that we were never at the
beginning of the column

or at the end of the column, that we were

somewhere in the middle so that when there

was a search we used
to take out the powder,

take it out from the Kleenex,

then throw it on the ground
and wipe it with our feet

so that nobody could find it.

- [Narrator] If the girls were successful

in getting the gun powder
back to their barracks,

it would be collected at
night by Rosa Roberta,

who would then turn it
over to the Sonderkommando.

The women collected the gun powder

in this fashion for more than three months

until there was enough to
make several crude bombs.

(dramatic suspenseful music)

(explosion)

October seven, 1944, a massive explosion

was heard throughout Auschwitz Birkenau.

The Sonderkommando had blown
up crematorium number four

using the gun powder supplied to them

by the women from the union factory.

They then turned on the
SS, throwing grenades,

attacking them with axes, hammers,

and any other weapons they
could get their hands on.

When it was over, several
SS soldiers had been killed,

others were seriously wounded.

Whilst over 200 Sonderkommando
had also been killed,

almost an equal amount escaped.

Many were later found and executed

for their role in the revolt.

The camp administration
began a massive investigation

to uncover the source of the explosives.

- The Germans found the traces of the

gun powder on the ground, and what we

didn't know but they knew is that

apparently you can identify the gun powder

as coming from a specific place,

and they identified that
it came from union factory.

Now the question was, who?

- [Narrator] The investigation
went on for several weeks.

Hanka, along with many of the other women

who worked at the factory were tortured.

Initially, no one broke
under the physical abuse.

And then one woman after a
terrible beating betrayed Alla.

That led to the discovery of

Rosa and Estucha's role in the revolt.

The three were taken away, interrogated,

and tortured for days.

It was clear to everyone that
they were going to be executed

for their role in the
October seventh revolt.

The fear in the barracks
was that Hanka was almost

certain to be betrayed soon.

Marta, who had befriended the sisters

took on the role of Hanka's protector.

She used a connection to
keep her from harm's way

by hiding her in the
hospital ward at Auschwitz.

- Marta, the girl that saved my life,

asked them to take me into the block,

during the execution, and I was inside

while the execution was going on outside.

- [Narrator] Hanka could
hear the murmur of the

large crowd of inmates who had been

forced to assemble outside of the hospital

building to witness the hanging.

- I heard this tremendous
collective groan, and I knew,

and I lost my mind right then and there.

- [Narrator] Estucha
wrote a letter to Hanka

just before she was taken
away to the gallows.

- [Woman] The familiar sounds of the camp,

the screams of the kapos,
the screams for tea,

for soup, for bread,
all those hated sounds

now seem so precious to me.

Everything is lost for
me, everything is lost

and I so want to live.

- [Narrator] On January
18th, as the Russians

were on the outskirts of the camp,

the Nazis evacuated Auschwitz Birkenau

and forced the women on a death march.

- When the evacuation
came, I didn't want to move

from Auschwitz and Marta
procured some good shoes for us,

I don't know from where.

We were walking together.

- [Narrator] The group was marched

to the Ravensbruck
concentration camp in Germany,

where they remained
until they were liberated

by the Allies, in May of 1945.

Hanka Wajcblum, her sister Estucha,

Rosa Roberta, and Alla Gurtner

could not completely stop
the mass murder machine

at Auschwitz Birkenau,
but they were instrumental

in saving tens of thousands
of Jews who would've

been gassed and burned in
crematorium number four

during the final months of the war.

(sad soft music)

(dramatic violin music)

March 18th, 1944.

German troops entered Hungary.

Immediately in jeopardy were the country's

approximately one million Jews.

The last almost intact Jewish community

in central and eastern Europe.

Especially with the arrival in Budapest

of the recently promoted Adolf Eichmann.

He headquartered himself in the elegant

majestic hotel, high in the Buda hills

with its sweeping view of the Danube.

In one of his first meetings
at his new headquarters,

Eichmann was in a boastful mood.

If everything goes as planned,
in less than six months

we will announce to the Fuhrer that

the Jewish vermin of
Hungary have been wiped out.

It will be another glorious page

in the history of the Third Reich.

He then wrote to Rudolf
Hoss, the commandant

of Auschwitz, and warned him to get ready

for a heavy load of Hungarians.

A few hours away, in the
north of the country,

the Jews of a small town called Kisvarda

were preparing for the Passover holiday.

Kisvarda's chief rabbi, Rabbi Rosenbaum,

was especially happy that
his 20 year old son, Pinchas

was home for a few days.

But it wasn't just any visit, Pinchas

had been working with the Bnei Akiva,

a religious Zionist youth group

that was part of a resistance organization

called Hatzalah, or rescue.

He had returned to Kisvarda with false IDs

to help his family and other Jews escape

Nazi deportation in the provinces,

and he had a difficult
personal challenge ahead.

His father insisted
that the tide of the war

had turned against the Germans and

it was only a matter of time
before they were defeated.

He and many older Hungarian Jews believed

that the active resistance
of the younger generation

would only cause more problems
for the Jewish community.

But Pinchas and his
fellow Hatzalah members

were convinced that the Nazis would not

under any circumstances
stop their killing machine.

Resistance as they saw it was

the only way to protect the Jews.

That night as the Seder meal started,

Pinchas became despondent as he listened

to his younger brother recite why is this

night different from all other nights.

The beginning of the most well known

part of the Passover
service, the four questions.

He had not been able to win his

father over to his point of view.

Rabbi Rosenbaum would not take on

a new Christian identity and desert

the community of which he
was the religious leader.

Watching his family
around the Passover table,

Pinchas realized that this might be

the last time they would all be together.

When the Seder was completed, he kissed

his family goodbye and departed to

continue his mission for the Hatzalah.

Shortly after Passover,
Pinchas, like other

Jewish males old enough to be drafted

into the Hungarian army, was required

to report to a forced labor brigade.

He and many of his friends from Kisvarda

worked the fields in the
northern part of the country.

The news from home was not good.

The Jews had been forced
to move into a ghetto,

established around the town's synagogue.

Then in the early summer,
Pinchas received a postcard

from a friend named Samuel,
it was postmarked Waldensee.

Dear Pinchas, I hope you are well.

I have arrived here okay.

Your family has already left.

- The Germans devised a trick and some

of the people in Auschwitz sent postcards

that they are well and
healthy and they are in a

place called Waldensee, sounds like a

romantic kind of a small place.

Wald means they found
us, and see means see,

sounds like a (foreign language).

- [Narrator] Pinchas
was devastated when it

became clear that his family
had been sent to Auschwitz.

- None of them have returned.

This was something which all his life

burned in him, terribly, that he was

not able to do for his parents

and his family what he
was able to do for others.

- [Narrator] With the loss of his family,

Pinchas felt that he
only had one purpose now,

to avenge their murder and to save as many

others as he could from the same fate.

The Nazis and their Hungarian
Arrow Crossed laborators

had stepped up the deportation of Jews

from Budapest to Auschwitz.

He decided to put his life on the line,

escape the labor camp,
and go to the capital city

where his language skills and steel

nerves were needed the most.

After conferring with Hatzalah leaders,

he took on the most
dangerous mission possible.

A few days later, he arrived
at the Jewish community

building in Budapest, but
he was unrecognizable.

Disguised as a Major in the Arrow Cross,

he no longer resembled the
Rabbi's son from Kisvarda.

He was the picture of the
sadistic Hungarian Nazi Officer.

To fight the enemy, he told his comrades,

you must look like him externally.

- [Interpreter] To dress in clothing

of an Arrow Cross
officer, it is impossible

to imagine how he came
up with these ideas.

A normal man would never
come up with these ideas.

- [Interpreter] Now
think, when he went out

on a mission, he was of
course without a hat or

without a kippah, he was dressed
like the Hungarian Nazis.

- [Interpreter] It's not
enough that he dressed

in this way, he knows
how to talk like this,

scream like that, to curse in this way.

- He spoke Hungarian more
effectively than others,

look the part more effectively because

he didn't look anymore
like a yeshiva bocher

and was able to act beyond that

and had a certain aristocracy to him

that gave him the ability to be

able to perform in a certain way.

- It was a very elaborate piece of work.

This is not something you do,

you improvise, this was planning,

imposing on himself
this persona, this mask.

- So how was he able to pull all this off,

a youngster, a punk, when
he's not even of age?

That's why I said, this
defies logic, defies

human psychology.

- [Narrator] The Arrow Cross uniform

was just one of Pinchas
Rosenbaum's many disguises.

He often wore the uniform of the Nazi SS,

and getting the clothes
for these masquerades

also involved tremendous danger.

- [Interpreter] In Budapest there

were a great many street battles,

and there were soldiers killed all around.

So we pretended to be medics,

we dragged the corpses and
took their clothes off,

and all the paraphernalia
that were with them.

- [Narrator] Another identity
which Pinchas took on

was that of Istvan Lukacs, a
Hungarian government official.

He used this disguise to help his friends

from Kisvarda who were still with the

labor brigade from which he escaped.

Through a contact in the Swiss embassy,

he sent an order releasing
many from the battalion,

putting them under the protection
of the Swiss in Budapest.

- While the guards took
us to the labor station

and took us up to Budapest, he took us

to a very large synagogue
in the arena street.

Every nook and cranny
was filled with people

from the basement to the rafters.

- [Interpreter] And the
door opened a little,

and a person came in with a military cap,

and an Arrow Cross band on his arm,

and he was wearing a leather
coat, a yellow leather coat,

and it was Pinchas.

- Pinchas is, and he got also some kind

of a document in his hand which he

showed to the officers in charge

and again, they gave us a guard.

- [Interpreter] And I asked
him where are you taking us?

And he told me to the Glass House.

- [Narrator] The Glass House, formerly

the site of a glass factory, was now

being run as a giant so called safe house.

Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz had put the

factory at 29 Vadasz Street under the

auspices of the Swiss Government.

On a daily basis, Hungarian Jews lined up

outside the building with
the hope of getting inside.

In their hands was the Schutz-Pass,

a kind of passport that placed its holder

under the protection of Switzerland,

Sweden, and other neutral countries.

- At that point, was
still not very unbearable.

It was not too overcrowded.

The whole building was
organized and maintained

and supervised by a committee
of the various organizations.

- [Interpreter] We were
separated into different areas,

there was the Bnei Akiva area,
the Hashomer Hatzair area.

- [Interpreter] There
wasn't a lot of food,

but there were discussions.

We learned Hebrew, there were lectures.

- [Interpreter] Because the
goal was to keep people busy,

because otherwise they would
have gone crazy in there.

- [Narrator] In mid October 44,

circumstances once again changed quickly.

The Germans overthrew Hungarian region

to Admiral Horthy for making surrender

overtures to the Russians.

The Arrow Cross took complete
control of the government.

Jews were thrown out of their homes,

deportations to Auschwitz were stepped up

and violence became the
rule of the streets.

- The local Nazis conducted hunts everyday

all over, they found Jews, herded them

to the Danube, and they
shot them into the river.

In the hundreds.

The (speaking foreign language) building

was beleaguered by hundreds
of people day after day,

day and night, trying to get in.

So the situation became really unbearable.

The place was absolutely overcrowded

about 3,000 people in the small building.

- [Narrator] The Glass House was

literally reaching its breaking point.

Then Hatzalah members broke through

the wall of the abandoned
Hungarian sock club next door,

easing the overcrowding
and allowing Pinchas

and his comrades to bring more Jews in.

One afternoon, word came from the ghetto

that a prominent Zionist and the President

of the Jewish community Eugene Frankel

was about to be arrested by the gestapo.

Dressed as a high ranking
Arrow Cross officer,

and accompanied by
several Hatzalah members

in similar uniforms, Pinchas arrived

at Frankel's apartment house.

He began shouting and banging on the door

until he got the attention
of the building's concierge.

- [Interpreter] "Where
are these stinking Jews?"

he shouted, "How come you're keeping them?

"We have an order."

The concierge opened the door.

The family, the Frankel family was

scared they were going to be taken away.

But Frankel suddenly recognized the voice

and he saw that it was Pinchas
in the Arrow Cross uniform

with the weapon and everything.

And of course he didn't
take them to the Danube,

he took them to the Glass House.

- [Narrator] A few
weeks later, there was a

message from the Jewish
hospital on Wesselenyi Street.

A key Hatzalah operative named Ziti

has been savagely tortured and was

being held there by the gestapo.

He had been arrested while carrying

a satchel of Schutz-Passes
and other false documents.

Dressed in Nazi SS uniforms, Pinchas and

a colleague Yassi rushed
to Wesselenyi Street.

Barging through the hospital doors

Pinchas ordered the men in charge

to turn Ziti over to him.

- So he let them in,
and they took this guy,

and they found the satchel
under his belt was still there,

it's a miracle, somehow the gestapo,

whoever he was arrested by, didn't take

the satchel from him, it was
there with all the documents.

- [Narrator] Pretending they
had a prisoner in custody,

Pinchas and Yassi marched
Ziti up Wesselenyi Street

and made their way back
to the Glass House.

The Schutz-Passes and other documents

they brought with them saved hundreds.

The war was coming to an end in Hungary.

The Nazis were quickly loosing
ground to the Russians.

The Germans could no longer continue

the transports of Jews
from Hungary to Auschwitz.

They resorted to killing
people on the streets,

focusing on children, the
elderly, and the disabled.

It was now becoming
increasingly more dangerous

for Pinchas to carry out his missions.

Friends begged him to stay
inside the Glass House

and not to risk his life anymore.

- The terror became worse and worse,

at the building, at the
gate, people were shot.

I kept on asking, begging him,

"Pinchas, why don't you stay here?

"Don't go out. Stay here."

- [Narrator] But Pinchas
refused to listen.

And he became even more
brazen in his attempts

to impersonate the Arrow Cross or the SS.

It was one thing to go out on
the streets in such disguises,

it was an entirely different matter

to do this at the headquarters
of the Hungarian Nazi Party,

but that is exactly what
Pinchas Rosenbaum did

on more than one occasion.

One day he attended an Arrow Cross meeting

and discovered that they
were about to arrest 12 nuns

from the Order of Our Lady of Zion

who were accused of helping to hide Jews.

Pinchas arranged for the
nuns to receive false IDs,

an act which saved their lives.

Then he learned about
a large action planned

against a group of Jewish children.

He assembled a group of Hatzalah members

in Arrow Cross uniforms
and rushed to the ghetto.

Hungarian Nazis were already at one house,

starting to pull the children out.

- [Interpreter] Pinchas
Rosenbaum told them,

"Comrades, we'll take
care of the Jews for you,

"we'll take them off your hands,

"we'll take them to the bath house."

To be taken to the bath house meant

at that time to be taken
to the Danube and shot.

- [Narrator] Because Pinchas was

wearing the uniform of an officer,

the young Nazis left the scene.

The Jewish parents who
also believed that he

was an Arrow Cross Officer
began to cry hysterically,

begging him not to take
their children away.

Quietly in Yiddish, he revealed himself

to the mothers and
fathers, "I am also a Jew.

"I have come to save your children."

A few moments later he
was marching the children

off to safety in the Glass House.

For more than six months,
Pinchas Rosenbaum,

the son of the Kisvarda
Rabbi risked his life

masquerading as a Hungarian Nazi

or a member of the German SS.

Disguised in this way,
he personally saved many

hundreds and possibly thousands
of Jews from certain death.

Through his own daring and with the help

of his friends in the Hatzalah,

tens of thousands of Hungarian
Jews were still alive.

They lived when almost 500,000 were killed

during the last year of the war.

He was only 21 years old.

- [Interpreter] I believe
that he reached the

highest degree a person could achieve.

A Jew who risked his
life to save other Jews.

He simply could not say the word no.

- He was such a gentle
soul, he was romantic,

he was a dreamer, he was an idealist.

How he was able to do these things,

until this day I have no explanation

other than it was (speaks Yiddish).

- [Interpreter] In Hungarian there's an

expression that's difficult to translate.

(speaks Hungarian)

That means, somebody who
was able to do everything.

Pinchas was this type of person.

- I could imagine him as a Peter Pan

and was dreaming about finding ways

how to change reality and to turn

our world into a better world.

- I know of no one else
who did what he did.

I can't explain, because he didn't explain

what it was that got him
to continue to do it.

He said that persons don't behave in a

courageous manner unless
they have something

irresponsible in their behavior pattern.

What he called irresponsible,
I called courageous.

- I always said that Willy
would come in May to pick me up.

Well, May came and my aunt
always looked at me and said

you don't know where he is, you don't know

whether he's alive,
but I knew he was alive

and I knew he would come.

- [Narrator] Doctor Willy Perl
had made his way to America

and became a Captain in
US Army Intelligence.

At the war's end he traveled to Vienna

and was reunited with his wife Lore.

They rebuilt their lives
together near Baltimore, Maryland

raising two sons and
enjoying many grandchildren.

Doctor Perl served as part
of the Prosecution Team

for the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal,

practiced law and taught.

He continued to be an
activist for Jewish causes

until he died in 1998, at the age of 92.

In the latter part of his
life, the honors rolled in

filling up the walls of his home

but the one which may
have meant the most to him

came from Israeli Prime
Minister Menachem Begin,

he wrote your deeds will be remembered

forever by the Jewish people, indeed,

by all men of goodwill.

After liberation from
Buchenwald and reuniting

with the surviving members of his family,

Robert Max Widerman returned to Paris

and went back to what he
loved most, performing.

Taking the stage name Robert Clary

he came to America and
found success in nightclubs,

on Broadway, and in films.

He also met Natalie, the woman
who would become his wife.

His biggest break came when he was cast

in what had to be the
most unlikely subject

for a TV situation comedy,
life in a German POW camp.

But his most personally rewarding work

started in the 1980s
when he began speaking

to school children about his

experiences during the Holocaust.

He lives a quiet life today,

having become a widower in 1997.

He recently published his memoirs,

paints, and still occasionally
performs and records.

His biggest joys are his grandchildren

and great grandchildren.

Recha Sternbuch's activities
on behalf of Jews in need

continued after the war ended.

She set up schools and orphanages in the

displaced persons camps throughout Europe.

And back home in Saint
Gallen, Switzerland,

she did not forget those who helped

her during the war's darkest years.

Like Paul Gruninger,
the local Police Chief

who lost his job for
helping Jewish refugees.

- In recognition for what he did

and the fact that he
suffered because of this,

they provided for him.

- [Narrator] Once the survivors were

on the road to new and productive lives

in Israel and other
places, Recha Sternbuch

returned to the life of
a traditional orthodox

Jewish wife, mother, and grandmother.

She refused all honors
and was uncomfortable

discussing the heroic work
she did during the Holocaust.

Recha Sternbuch died in Switzerland

in 1971 at the age of 66.

Friedl Dicker-Brandeis may have perished

in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau

but her legacy lives on.

Her theories on using art as
therapy for children at risk

have influenced art
therapists for decades.

An exhibition about her art and her life

has been seen by more than

one million people around the world.

In 1945, Leibal Kaganovich went from being

a Jewish partisan to
being part of the Bricha,

the clandestine effort to
bring Jews to Palestine

in violation of British
immigration policies.

In 1948, he made his
way to Vancouver, Canada

where he became Leon Kahn.

He married, raised a family,

and became a successful business man.

And along the way he
lost his anger with God

and regained his faith.

- I still have a tremendous faith

and (speaking Yiddish) with all heart,

how did I get back?

There must be something,
a connection there

from my upbringing you know,

and maybe this is the reason
that I am still so committed.

Who knows, who knows, who knows?

- [Narrator] On June eighth, 2003

Leon Kahn died suddenly at the age of 78.

That morning, he had
managed to attend services

at his neighborhood synagogue,

as had been his custom for years.

Hanka Wajcblum, Anna as she became known,

was reunited in Israel with
her older sister Sabino

who had survived the war.

She married Joshua Heilman,

had two daughters, moved to Boston,

and eventually settled in Ottawa, Canada

where she became a social worker

working with children in crisis.

For many years, few people
knew about Anna's role

in the revolt that led to the destruction

of crematorium number four,

but the publication of her
memoirs, Never Far Away,

changed all of that.

The book has become a bestseller,

and has won a number of literary awards.

After the Russians liberated Budapest,

Pinchas Rosenbaum donned a new uniform,

that of the United Nations
Relief and Rehabilitation Agency,

but like Leon Kahn, he
also worked for the Bricha,

secretly helping Jews make
their way to Palestine.

After Israel's independence,
he divided his time

between Jerusalem and Geneva, where he

became successful in business and banking.

He quietly provided for a large number of

charities in Israel, Europe, and the US.

- What he did, it was heroic.

He never mentioned them, not
during and not even after.

Once he was here in New
York at a family gathering,

and I was also there, and
someone comes over to us

and he says Pinchas, and he embraces him

and says, "Don't you remember me?

"Don't you remember
when you came in uniform

"and you took me out
of I don't know where,

"from some kind of dangerous place."

And Pinchas looks at him, open mouth,

and he has blue childish
eyes and looks at him like

he would hear that nice story
the first time in his life.

Like it was something of the past

which he didn't want to talk about.

- [Narrator] Pinchas Rosenbaum never

allowed anyone to honor
him for his heroism.

He died in October 1981 at the age of 57.

He was survived by his wife,
daughter, and two sons.

- Once you see that there
are people whose lives

made a difference and whose lives saved

thousands of other lives
because of the fact

that they were willing
to commit themselves

to something which wasn't comfortable,

and they'll see that these
people changed history,

they too will live
their lives differently.

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