In the 1940s, while much of the world was asleep to the horrors of Adolf Hitler's Holocaust, a few, courageous souls persevered Nazi tyranny, fought back against fascism and survived to tell the tale.
Today, these same souls are bringing their stories to the silver screen in a pair of riveting films documenting their fight and their flight, lest the world should again stay asleep while tyranny rises.
Anita Dittman was just a little girl when the winds of Nazism began to blow through her native Germany. A Jewish child abandoned by her Aryan father and orphaned when Nazis took her mother, Anita was eventually captured and forced to perform back-breaking labor in a concentration camp.
Anita fled her Nazi captors, was recaptured and then fled again, determined to find her mother and escape the hell of Hitler's making in Europe.
Hans Poley was a brilliant, young, Dutch student when the Nazi war machine rolled through the Netherlands. His parents placed him in hiding in a private residence in Haarlem, where he witnessed firsthand the atrocities Jews were suffering and decided he must do something.
The residence was the secret home to a number of hidden Jews, Dutch resistance fighters like Piet Hartog and a woman named Corrie ten Boom, whose account of those days became the best-selling book and film "The Hiding Place."
Poley's account of those days, "Return to the Hiding Place," tells of how he, Hartog and their friends – as part of Corrie ten Boom's army of untrained teenagers – navigated a deadly labyrinth of challenges to rescue the Jewish people, while embarking on a nonstop, action-packed hunt with the underground involving Gestapo hijacks, daring rescues, codes in windswept old windmills and stunning miracles in one of history's most famous dramas.
Climaxing in the true, breath-taking rescue of an entire orphanage of Jewish children marked for mass execution by Hitler's assassins, Poley's "Return to the Hiding Place" has now been made into an inspiring and award-winning film of the same name.
"Return to the Hiding Place" opens this weekend in select cities and stars John Rhys-Davies ("Indiana Jones," "Lord of the Rings"), Craig Robert Young ("NCIS: LA," "Hawaii Five-O") and Mimi Sagadin ("The Dilemma"), among others. Based on the true story taken from Poley's autobiographical book, the movie highlights themes of endurance, perseverance and faith through Poley's experiences as a student resistance fighter during the Holocaust in World War II.
"'Return to the Hiding Place' depicts a great story with real historical characters brought to life in a stunning account of self-sacrifice for the greater good," says director Peter Spencer. "It captures a moment in time that will impact society for generations to come."
A trailer for the film can be seen below:
And while many audiences will have to wait to see "Return of the Hiding Place" until it comes to a city near them, Anita Dittman's equally amazing story is available right now in the gripping and action-packed movie "Trapped in Hitler's Hell."
In this documentary from WND Films about Dittman's journey of courage, forgiveness and faithfulness, Dittman reveals how her native Germany traded liberty for a promise of security, a powerful lesson as relevant today as it was 70 years ago.
"'Trapped in Hitler's Hell' is like 'The Hiding Place' on steroids," claims WND CEO Joseph Farah, "non-stop action that takes your breath away. It's the story of a Jewish girl, an aspiring ballerina, who learned quickly there is no place for her in Nazi Germany. She becomes a Christian, but it makes little difference to the Nazis. She escapes from two concentration camps, reunited with her mother, who also becomes a Christian, finds love, escapes rape, starvation and overcomes serious injuries and lives to tell her story in America.
"Anita Dittman's story is one for the ages," Farah concludes, "and she tells it with grace and perspective and an eye to the world's future."
The trailer for "Trapped in Hitler's Hell" can be seen below:
"Trapped in Hitler's Hell" is also available in an updated, autographed paperback edition from WND Books, which includes a special author's note about how the world has changed since the book's first edition and how we need to continue to be diligent not to forget the atrocities against the Jews lest history repeat itself.