As it turns out, you don’t need explosions, 3D glasses or million dollar sets to have a totally suspenseful film that leaves you on the edge of your seat. Saviors in the Night was as powerful as any movie about Nazi Germany such as Schindler’s List, or more recently, Inglorius Basterds, but without the big Hollywood feel or budget.

Saviors in the Night is based on Marga Spiegel’s memoir “Unter Bauern: Retter In Der Nacht”; a true story from her Nazi German past. She, her daughter Karin, and her husband Menne were hidden by the Aschoffs, a family of farmers in Western Germany. 
Saviors in the Night opens with clips of German Jew Siegfred “Menne” Spiegel (Armin Rohde) fighting for his country, earning him an Iron Cross. It’s no surprise that he was met with feelings of betrayal when he heard that soldiers from the Nazi regime were coming to Westphalia to send the last of the Jews away to labor camps. It was widely known that when Jews were taken “to the East”, they never made it back. Desperate, he tells Heinrich Aschoff, a fellow Iron Cross member, about his crisis. Without apprehension, Heinrich told Menne to bring his wife and daughter to his farm to seek shelter.

Marga (Veronica Ferres) and Karin (Luisa Mix), who have assumed the last name “Krone”, enter the Aschoffs’ farm the next morning. Heinrich and his wife, Maria, keep the Krone’s real identities from the rest of the family for most of the film, as the Aschoff children are devoted party members. Anni, their oldest daughter, finds out about the guests’ identities one day when a neighbor recognized Marga and called her “ Mrs. Spiegel”. Furious with her parents, she threatened to tell members of the regime. However, after hearing of the torture, bombing, and abuse the Spiegels had been through, (especially little Karin) she has a change of heart.

The acting, especially that of Veronica Ferres, is fantastic. Maybe this is because Marga Siegel, whose memoir inspired the film, was actually on set for part of the shooting. “This withdrawal but still being present was a big challenge for me as an actress and it was a great responsibility as well, to hold Marga’s life in my hands” says Ferres. Some may attribute the film’s success to the personal connection director Ludi Boeken had to the script; his parents share a similar background, having been hidden from the Nazi regime by a farm family in the Netherlands.

Marga Spiegel was able to survive the Holocaust because of the selfless nature of Heinrich and Maria Aschoff. Through her memoir, she aimed to illuminate the few Germans who sacrificed and risked the livelihood of their families to help a fellow man. Saviors in the Night does a beautiful job locating the humanity where little exists, giving human faces to a few members of one of the most destructive regimes in history. This is a remarkable film that is both enlightening and entertaining.

Saviors in the Night will be screened Tuesday, February 2nd at 7pm at the Mayerson JCC and Thursday, February 4th at 7pm at Xavier University. For more information on the Jewish and Israeli Film Festival, visit www.jewishcincinnati.org/filmfestival