The year is 1943, and the Goldmans - Louis, his brother, and their parents - have crisscrossed Europe, always just barely ahead of Nazi forces in Germany, Poland, and France. Now penniless, exhausted, their only ID stamped with "JUIF," they face a journey over treacherous Italian Alps to their last hope: the safety of the Allied lines.
What emerges from the horrors of flight is irrefutable proof of human decency. The Goldmans, along with hundreds of other Jews, become part of an underground network that has sprung up across Italy to help fugitives. Italian priests, nuns, partisans, peasants, and nobility defy Nazi authority at the risk of their own safety, their only motive to help another human being.
Friends for Life is a tribute to this group of Italians who, for two years, from 1943 to 1945, risked their lives to save Jews from the Nazis. The friendship born in those dark days, especially between priests and those whom they kept safe, has continued and deepened over the years.
Louis Goldman survives the terrors of the Holocaust and emigrates as a young man to Palestine, where he lives until moving to New York City to work as one of the world's foremost feature film still-photographers.
While the pain of Holocaust memories makes us want to forget its evil, Friends for Life offers us something to remember: the innate dignity and goodness of human beings.
