The Invisibles (German: Die Unsichtbaren – Wir wollen leben) is a 2017 German docudrama by Claus Räfle. The film presents the experience of four Jewish teenagers who survived the holocaust by going into hiding in Berlin during World War II. It interweaves personal interviews, dramatic reenactment, archival footage, and narration.
The film recounts the struggle to survive of Cioma Schönhaus, Hanni Lévy, Ruth Arndt-Gumpel and Eugen Friede during their persecution as Jews in Berlin during the war. Their different individual situations are re-enacted, and, in interspersed interviews, they recollect and comment on their experience. Their survival is due to resilience, luck, and helpers. These helpers come from different ways of life and include normal people, communists, Christians, and even people in the Nazi hierarchy. These, too, are at risk to fall into the hands of the Gestapo who work with a network of spies and informants. Schönhaus learns how to falsify passports and other documents that he can sell to Franz Kaufmann, a lawyer, who is helping people to escape. He has an encounter with a Jewish informant, Stella Goldschlag, and is fortunate that she does not denounce him. One of the persons helping him was Helene Jacobs. Hanni Lévy colors her hair blond and learns on how to blend in. Eugen Friede lives with a communist German family wearing the uniform of the Hitlerjugend. He meets Werner Scharff who had escaped from the KZ Theresienstadt. After learning about the horrors he joins the resistance group Community for Peace and Development. Ruth Arndt-Gumpel pretends to be a war widow and serves as a maid in the household of a Nazi officer.
