Surviving Hitler: A Love Story

A hopeful story of true love and its accompanying blind optimism, SURVIVING HITLER is not your typical Holocaust documentary. The film tells the story of Jutta and Helmuth, two teenagers who fall in love in Berlin at the beginning of WWII and wind up joining a plot to kill Hitler. Jutta, who is half-Jewish, and Helmuth, who is a soldier in the German military, were not only heavily affiliated with influential German-resistance groups, but also surreptitiously involved in Operation Valkyrie, the failed assassination attempt of Adolf Hitler in 1944. Narrated by both present-day Jutta and past voice-recordings from Helmuth, this documentary examines one of the darkest periods in history through an intimate and emotional lens. Using the couple's own personal film footage, as well as other archival materials, John-Keith Wasson succeeds in portraying how a love affair enabled these two young people to persevere through Hitler's reign. It will be difficult to not fall in love with Jutta, a fascinating and courageous woman who takes you with her through her rebellious past, to which she refers to as “powerful… powerful, and stupid.” Although no one will ever forget the overwhelming number of victims of the Holocaust, this film reminds us that each of these victims has a story of his or her own and, in some cases, that story is able to survive even Hitler. – M.M.