Film Review: ‘The Invisibles’

Survivors' tales: Hiding in plain sight 
December 20, 2018 Updated: January 4, 2019

Even under the oppressive National Socialist regime, at the height of the war, homelessness afforded a cloak of invisibility—fortunately. The air raid blackouts also helped. For even after Berlin had been declared “free of Jews” in 1943, an estimated 7,000 remained in hiding throughout the city. About 1,700 would survive the war and outlive their tormentors. Four of those survivors tell their stories in Claus Räfle’s dramatic-documentary hybrid, “The Invisibles” (“Die Unsichtbaren”), which screened during this past year’s New York Jewish Film Festival.

When it comes to surviving, Cioma Schönhaus set a new standard. For a while, he lived night-to-night pretending to be a new draftee summoned to Berlin, living in spare rooms provided by patriotic Germans for recruits awaiting their formal mustering. Eventually, he fell in with a counterfeiting ring and saved thousands of German Jews and dissidents with his fake papers, while also making enough money to eat in fancy restaurants.

After dying her hair blond, Hanni Lévy spent her days in cinemas and window-shopping on the Kurfürstendamm, but she never knew where she would spend her nights or where her meals would come from. Ruth Arndt and her sister would eventually become maids for a high-ranking military officer, who knowingly shielded them from his colleagues. Eugen Friede probably lived a more typically “hidden” existence, but he too would become involved with the resistance.

Frankly, it is pretty amazing how little time Räfle’s subjects spent locked away in attics, unlike Anne Frank’s family. Instead, they largely followed a hide-in-plain-sight strategy, which seemed to work, because the National Socialists never expected such the-heck-with-it gutsiness. Of course, their involvement in resistance networks would raise the stakes even further if they were caught.

There have been previous films that combined talking-head documentary segments with dramatic representations, but usually one has been conspicuously privileged over the other. However, Räfle gives them both equal weight. Probably the strongest performance is that of Alice Dwyer as the desperate Lévy, but the late Schönhaus’s recollections are the most fascinating. Nevertheless, the entire ensemble is quite strong, and the oral history of all four survivors is profoundly valuable.

We think we know everything there is to know about the horrors of National Socialism, but “The Invisibles” will add further dimension to our understanding. Yet, all four survivors go out of their way to celebrate the righteous Germans who sheltered them. What “Invisibles” documents and dramatizes is really pretty darned incredible.

Very highly recommended, “The Invisibles” opens Jan. 25 in select theaters.

 ‘The Invisibles
Dramatized documentary
Director: Claus Räfle
Stars: Max Mauff, Alice Dwyer, Ruby O. Fee, Aaron Altaras
Running Time: 1 hour, 50 minutes
Released: Jan. 25, 2019
Rated 3.5 stars
