>> A 3 year-old girl facing the loss of her mother, a Catholic father who converted to Judaism fighting to keep his children alive and not see Germany and 7 siblings who found refuge in the United States but were forced to endure separation from one another.

Those are the stories told in the award-winning documentary, Unbroken tracing the extraordinary survival of the Web or family during the Holocaust.

Now, 80 years after the siblings arrived in America, the Web or family is celebrating that during that journey with a screening of unbroken on May 20th at the Wayfair Theater in Highland Park.

And joining us our Ginger lane, the youngest of the web or siblings that's weighing Gingers daughter and director of Unbroken and Jenna Laine.

Also Ginger starter and executive producer of Unbroken.

Thanks to you all for being here.

We're thrilled you're here.

Thank you.

have sobeck ingenue who are the driving forces behind this Best was the driver.

That was because you, of invested years of work to bring this to life.

What was important for you make this film back?

We'll start with you.

I mean, I first learned that my mom was adopted when I was 6 years old, which is the same age that she was when she came to this country.

And I learned that she had 6 other siblings.

>> But that I would never meet them.

So you fast forward many, many years and we my mom did reunite with her family.

Eventually, but it wasn't until 2017 that we went back to her place of rescue and Jen and mom and I were standing on the farmland where she was hidden for 2 years and our hosts that particular day had a surprise for us and they invited as it surprise a descendant of the farmers to me this.

It just it was Felt like I was touching the DNA of the man who enable our Mumm survival in our ability to be here.

Just to talk to you today, Jen, why was important to you?

I mean, my mom's story is something that we both learned is young children.

But >> it is been sort of a full circle moment for her to be able to reunite with her family.

>> In the 80's and then now for to be the 80th anniversary.

It's just incredible.

And I'm just so proud of.

>> Our family and the work that he's done and that my mom has what she's really endured to be here.

It's pretty amazing that some people had so much compassion and empathy in their lives that they enabled our entire family to be here a grateful for It is really miraculous So Ginger, you lost your mother.

very young age, as we said, she is, you know, just explored in the film.

She was taken by the Gestapo to Auschwitz.

What do you remember of her?

First of all, she had very dark black hair.

And she was a heavy smoker.

But most important she had a wealth of friends.

And she was from Hungary.

And there were many Hungarians coming through Berlin and she actually worked for the underground, can help.

People escape.

So to get out of Berlin.

And I remember distinctly there we were in a apartment.

Also 95.

And next door.

There was one little tiny room.

every day somebody knew within that room, we have had no idea.

And it was people that she was sheltering and then moving through the system.

So that's pretty much what I remember of her as a warm and generous person who went out of her way to help other people.

How did how did her death impact the family at the time?

Because obviously was a time of great fear for the family.

Everybody else it was.

I of course, don't remember that.

But but I was devastated by losing her.

And there in in the documentary, there's an image of the coming up on a window sill and looking down and seeing he could stop overt aggression, in black coach putting her in the car and driving off.

And I was home alone.

Show a 3 year-old on really focuses on going to happen to me.

Rather than what's going to happen to my mother.

that I would never see again.

And she didn't.

When they took her, they didn't immediately transfer But because one of my sister said she and her.

she came back to the apartment and that was rearrested has happened several times.

We arrest him finally she was deported.

And we were ever lost.

My father now had to take care of 7 children.

And it would be wonderful if you could get a job.

Which was impossible.

He been arrested 19, 3, for and one of the faith first concentration camps, right?

And he was out.

He was released and he came back home at >> the film goes on tell a lot more, of course, about how you will eventually escaped on invest eur.

It raced your your mother and your aunts and uncles steps there, Germany during the Holocaust.

Of course, you've mentioned how various people hid them along the way, especially for those couple of years on the farm.

What was it like for you to follow this trail to actually stand there?

We see you in the film, you know, holding the phone up so that your mom is a part of it as well, right?

Right.

I mean, it was incredible.

I feel so lucky that we had at the 50th anniversary of their immigration to America.

>> My Uncle Alfonse moms, brother had written a 40 page document the family caught a brief history of the Web or siblings.

And we took that 40 page document, every location, every building, every street every city.

We took it and put it into Google Maps.

And that was our road map.

That's how we created our locations.

Where are we going to scout?

And we didn't know if we would come up with anything if what would bear fruit in the city or the street and some things didn't.

But most did.

And it was really pretty incredible to feel like I was walking this their steps of how they actually started in Berlin, went out of all rain and then eventually made their way down to store from then up to Brummer Haven where the SSA Marine Flasher departed and then came to America.

Great.

There is a scene that I want to during which your sister Ruth, she manages to bike from a small village in Germany.

Back to Berlin.

>> Despite a Russian air assaults, you and the rest of the family are already on the run at this point.

So Iraq separated.

Let's watch.

>> No, also by they are.

I broke the law.

Come to my.

And whatever food I had gone put behind me on the and thought about going.

We're likely calm on outside and, you know, strange thing happened on way.

The robot it dropping It was one bomb that off and that company.

flying through And I want lead the wrong time fine.

>> Yeah, scrappy bunch of Wonderful.

She's right in the middle of the family.

She took good care of me she was the most dynamic dramatic after a person our family that really comes through in the film Thank you.

It and I don't the group would have gotten here.

If it hadn't been for growth who dragged me to to the and Red United Nations Relief Fund.

And we sat there and waited and waited until finally we were called in.

She it only America.

That's where we're going.

And you know, whatever think about it.

But for the lack of strangers.

We never have made it.

The first person being our savior.

All right.

Fischman and his wife, the next somebody at that UNRWA who said to cover yourself orphans, if you want to get out.

Because we only had at that point.

Our father living.

And then every place we went, I kind of feel like there was angel watching and helping us.

So you and your siblings.

Your arrive in New York in you are eventually brought to Chicago.

Know there is.

>> Jenna, want to come to you on this because it seems like there's a bit of a cruel irony here, right with you know, fight and scraped to stay alive and to stay together in Europe only to be separated once they arrive in America when they're safe.

It's a heartbreaking.

It's a heartbreaking part of story, but it's also you'll see that they all do come back together in such a beautiful way.

But it does if it does make it a little bit difficult at that one point in the film to watch and you think to yourself, how could that possibly be when all this has happened?

But I would also say it isn't just the lack of these strangers.

It is that they made the choice.

They made the choice to be empathetic.

They made the choice to act and to do what they knew in their hearts was the right thing to And so that's really what the story is about.

the lesson that we're trying to teach through the film through the education night, etc.

That's really the goal of the Web or family or its foundation.

tell stories like this.

But their stories are hopeful because everyone has the ability to make a choice and it only takes one person.

It is is absolutely inspirational.

That is what we'll have to leave it.

Congrats on 80 years to your family and your big family because it's big family growing and growing.

Congrats.

General Wayne Beth Lane