The Teacher Who Defied Hitler

It is 1934 and about 44,000 school-aged Jewish children live in Germany. After two years of daily harassment and constant discrimination, they are virtually barred from the school system and public life. A young and courageous woman decides to resist the Nazi administration, her goal being the creation of a place for those persecuted children to provide protection, vitally important education and self-confidence. Against all the odds she and her husband, a respected notary, find a loophole in German law and open up a Jewish school against the backdrop of Nazi Berlin – a soul-saving project. It is an institution which should not have existed. By using original and unseen footage of the school and the protagonists, this documentary offers a rare inside glimpse into the world of Jewish schoolchildren in Nazi Berlin. At the same time it tells a dramatic and moving story of courage and determination on the eve of the Holocaust.