Review – The Nazi Officer’s Wife

A&E serves up the story of Edith Hahn, a Jewish woman who managed to escape Austria shortly after the annexation using the identity of an “Aryan” friend. Through a series of twists of fate, she ends up marrying a factory supervisor who in turn ends up drafted into the German Army. Though the story resembles the plot lines from movies such as Europa Europa and The Black Book, there’s a subtlety here that’s more intriguing than fictional and semi-fictional tales. For example, the film-makers interview Hahn’s daughter about what it was like to have a father who felt ashamed that he had a Jewish child. But the best parts are the interviews with Hahn herself, adding a real personality to the floating photographs and archive footage. Overall this is one of the better documentaries I’ve seen on the subject, quite a surprise coming from a channel with a reputation for producing “documentaries” about pseudo-archaeology, Nostradamus and the like. Worth seeing