Secret Courage: The Walter Suskind Story (NR)

synopsis

Walter Suskind was a German Jew living in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation. He was forced to serve as the Jewish head of deportation at the Hollandsche Schouwburg (the Jewish Theater), the main deportation site in Holland. Using his fluent German, his skills as an actor and businessman, and unfathomable courage and tenacity, he and an intrepid group of resistance workers orchestrated the escape of close to 1000 Dutch children who were marked for transport to the death camps. In Secret Courage , we hear the stories of five of the saved children in their own words. Eleven of the resistance workers interweave their own stories, painting a picture of an incredible rescue operation fraught with intrigue and danger, but also carrying the emotional and ethical burden of deciding who could be saved and who could not.