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UnBroken: Would You Hide Me? is an award-winning, feature documentary film about the daughter of a Holocaust survivor who embarks on an international quest to uncover answers about the plight of her mother and her six siblings, who, as mere children, escaped Nazi German relying solely on their own youthful bravado and the kindness of German strangers.

UnBroken, is about anyone who ever felt that their individual actions don’t matter. It’s about knowing, deep down, that what we say and what we do has a ripple effect that reverberates through generations. It asks the question, “Would you hide me?”

Synopsis
UnBroken chronicles how the seven Weber siblings, ages 6 -18, evaded certain capture and death, and ultimately escaped Nazi Germany using their own cunning instincts following their mother’s incarceration and murder at Auschwitz. Their lives changed forever when a benevolent farmer put them in the back of his truck and drove them to his fruit orchard 60 kilometers east of Berlin, where they were put into hiding in a laundry hut and spent two years on their own in war torn Germany. Emboldened by their father’s mandate that they ‘always stay together,’ the children fought through hunger, loneliness, rape, bombings, and fear. Climactically, separated from their father, the siblings declared themselves as orphans in order to escape to a new life in America. Unbeknownst to them, their only salvation would be what ultimately tears them apart, until reunited 40 years later.

Filmmaker Beth Lane, daughter of the youngest Weber sibling, embarks on a quest to retrace their steps seeking answers to long-held questions about her family’s survival. The film examines the journey of the Webers as told through conversations with living siblings – now in their eighties and nineties – while Beth and her crew road trip across Germany, following the courageous, tumultuous, and harrowing path taken by her family over seventy years ago. UnBroken asks the the timely question, “Would you hide me?”  

A photograph of the seven Weber siblings, Alfons, Senta, Ruth, Gertrude, Renee, Judith and Bela hangs in the last gallery of the permanent collection at The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. Their names, along with their parents, Alexander Weber, incarcerated at Plötzensee Prison and Oranienberg concentration camp in 1933, and Lina Banda Weber, murdered at Auschwitz concentration camp in 1943, are honored with Stolpersteine bricks in Berlin created by artist Gunter Demnig. The benevolent farmers, Arthur & Paula Schmidt, who hid the seven Weber siblings for two years during the Holocaust in a town called Worin, are commemorated in the   Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Memorial Center in Jerusalem, Israel. Two plaques commemorate Arthur & Paula Schmidt in the town of Worin, Germany.

Production
Beth Lane was born in Chicago, Illinois. She first learned that her mother was adopted at the age of 6, the same age her mother was when she came to America from war-torn Germany as a hidden child of the Holocaust. Beth is a life-long actor, dancer and singer, and wrote her first draft of the theatrical play, “The Groaning Board,”  at The Barrow Group theatre school in Manhattan which explored her curiosity about her birth grandmother Lina who was murdered at Auschwitz in 1943. That stage play would eventually become a one-woman solo piece  titled “Lina” which Beth presented  for an evening of F.A.B. at TBG. “Lina” was written 72 hours after Beth returned to the U.S. after her first trip to the town of Worin where her mother, uncle and five aunts were hidden on a farm during the Shoah. The reception to “Lina” was overwhelmingly positive and Beth immediately went into pre-production at the University of California, Los Angeles where she was studying for her M.F.A in theatre. Principle photography began in March 2018 at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Filming continued in the U.S. in 2018 and in Germany in 2019. Post production began in 2020 and completed in August 2023.

Release
Executive Producer, Director & Writer Beth Lane, was honored  at the 32nd Annual Heartland International Film Festival in Indianapolis, Indiana winning Best Documentary Feature Premiere, where UnBroken had its World Premiere and her directorial debut on October 8th 2023, the day after the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. The West Coast and California premiere took place on October 13th 2023 at the 24th Annual Newport Beach Film Festival.The 14th annual DOC NYC Film Festival will host the NYC premiere on November 12th and 13th, 2023. UnBroken is represented by Josh Braun and Ben Schwartz at Submarine. All profits from the sale of UnBroken will be allocated to The Weber Family Arts Foundation whose mission is to combat antisemitism, bigotry and hate through the arts by shining a light on stories of hope, courage and bravery. WFAF was established in the state of California by director Beth Lane in 2023.