The Nazi Officer's Wife

"How one Jewish woman survived the Holocaust"

May 9 2003 N/A 1h 30m
Documentary, History, War

In 1938 Edith Hahn was a Viennese law student - a "Christmas-tree Jew" with a gentile boyfriend. In 1942 she was living under an assumed name in Munich and married to Werner Vetter, a Nazi party member who was later drafted into the Wehrmacht. Based on Hahn's acclaimed memoir, "The Nazi Officer's Wife" is the riveting account of how she survived the Holocaust by posing as an Aryan hausfrau. Despite the risks, she kept painstaking records including real and falsified documents and photos of labor camps. These moving artifacts along with testimony from Hahn and her daughter bring this tale of survival resilience and redemption to life.

Plot

Edith Han was an outspoken young woman studying law in Vienna when the Gestapo forced Edith and her mother into a Jewish ghetto. Edith was taken away to a labor camp, and when she returned home months later, she found her mother had been deported. Knowing she would become a hunted woman, Edith went underground, scavenging for food and searching each night for a safe place to sleep. Her boyfriend, Pepi, proved too terrified to help her, but a Christian friend was not. Using the woman's identity papers, Edith fled to Munich. There she met Werner Vetter, a Nazi Party member who fell in love with her. Despite her protests and even her eventual confession that she was Jewish, he married her and kept her identity a secret.

Written by

Jack Youngelson

Directed by

Liz Garbus

Cast

Edith Hahn Beer, Julia Ormond, Susan Sarandon

Crew

View crew

Production Countries

United States of America

Languages

English

Awards

Nominated for 1 Primetime Emmy. 1 nomination total

Scores
# of Votes
350
Average Rating
7.3 out of 10
Metascore
74
Popularity
NA