The Secret Survivor - Holocaust Remembrance Day

Director: Johnathan Andrews

Cast: Veronica Phillips, Tali Nates, François Wisard, Agnes Hirschi, Lior Keinan, Martin Schäfer,
Robert Rozett, Helene Budliger Artieda

Upon arrival, you will go through security check. Please note, that your ID might be requested for identification.
Thank you for your understanding!

Veronica Phillips (92 year old living in Johannesburg, South Africa) is a Hungarian Jew who was arrested by the Arrow Cross in Budapest and deported on 1 December 1944 from Budapest to Ravensbrück (a Nazi concentration camp for women) where she could have ended up in the gas chambers. While in Ravensbrück, Veronica was "by luck" selected as laborer and taken to work in Penig (a sub-camp of Buchenwald concentration camp) where she suffered inhumane conditions.

After surviving a period in Penig, she was part of a group taken on a death march. At Johanngeorgenstadt, the group was liberated by the allies – only after many were killed by either the Nazis or starvation and fatigue.

She started an incredible journey, in an emaciated physical condition, back to Budapest to find her mother and brother… After WWII ended, Veronica became a Microbiologist and Geneticist at Brunel University and eventually moved to South Africa where she was a Microbiology lecturer at WITS (University of the Witwatersrand) for 20 years.

As a result of what she endured as a teenager under the Nazis, Veronica suffered eight miscarriages and could never have children. The only child she gave birth to survived less than two days.
The film features Veronica telling her story of surviving the Holocaust, with historians and experts providing insights into aspects related to the time when the story took place.