Surviving the Holocaust as a Family

Jan 27, 2023 by Two Sues On the Aisle

By Sue Weston and Susan Rosenbluth –  Two Sues On The Aisle

The documentary ‘They Survived Together’ is a holocaust story that ends happily ever after. It is told by the Neiger siblings, a family who escaped Poland. The siblings share memories of how their parents, Herman, and Sarah, made choice about how the family would die, by orchestrating a risky escape from a Polish ghetto in 1943. Miraculously, they survived. This was just the first of a series of difficult decisions the family would face over the next few years.

New York filmmaker John Rokosny masterfully directed and produced this film as a testament for future generations. He seamlessly intertwined interviews with the siblings, Cesia, Benjamin, Hanka, Basia, and Tosia, pictures from The Red Hat (a children’s book written by Hanka), black-and-white photos, news footage, clippings, and facts. Presenting the events chronologically, starting in Krakow, Poland a tight-knit Orthodox-Jewish community, where life was simple and safe, Rokosny shows how society devolved, as Jews are systematically eliminated.

The Importance of Eye Witness Testimonies

Collecting these first-hand accounts from survivors is essential, especially now as the children who survived the holocaust are aging. Soon their stories will be lost forever. In the epilogue, we learn the timeliness of these interviews, three of the sisters have since died.

Hearing their stories, told without bitterness, adds a depth that historical accounts can’t provide. Their desperation to “survive together as a family or not at all” comes out clearly in all their accounts as does the callous disregard for life shown by the Germans. However, it is their recognition of the kindness of strangers, who risked their lives to help, that makes this film memorable.

What most surprised us was the family’s closeness. The documentary is a back-and-forth dialogue as each sibling shares their recollection of the events. They provide different perspectives, each shaped by their age and experience, all presented with disarming honesty, discussing experience without judgment.

Some harrowing tales shared by the siblings include escaping from the ghetto hidden in a vegetable cart in the middle of the night. They were prepared to take their lives if discovered. Then hiking for weeks through snow-filled fields and over mountains to freedom, with feet wrapped in rags.

Their young parents were forced to choose what was best for the family as they waited for the Russians to liberate them. Ben was hidden in a forest to prevent the Germans from discovering he was circumcised and killing the entire family. To this day he feels like he had been abandoned. Hanka was momentarily placed on the train platform, in the hopes that she could run away and at least one child would be saved. These are desperate decisions no family should be forced to make.

The Neiger siblings’ story emphasizes the importance of family, a connection they retained throughout their lives. Despite surviving, they were always plagued by nightmares, and a sense of being unsettled, never able to feel at home.

The Movie

“They Survived Together” is available on PBS and on DVD / streaming on Amazon, The film won the New York Emmy for Documentary Historical at the 65th annual New York Emmy Awards Ceremony on October 8, 2022, and can be licensed for exhibitions or screenings.

Rokosny created this documentary to educate future generations about the atrocities of the holocaust by showing a family’s struggle to survive through sheer determination.  “They Survived Together” is a powerful documentary of one family who risked everything to survive together.

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Two Sues on the Aisle bases its ratings on how many challahs (1-5) it pays to buy (rather than make) in order to see the play, show, film, or exhibit being reviewed. 

“They Survived Together” received a 3 Challah Rating