Synopsis

Bronia tells the extraordinary life story of Bronia Brandman, a 95-year-old Holocaust survivor who stayed silent about her experiences for more than fifty years. Born in Jaworzno, Poland, Bronia was just eight years old when World War II began. After losing her parents and being deported to Auschwitz with her three sisters, Bronia faced death time and time again, as well as starvation, illness, forced labor, and a brutal death march.

The catalyst of Bronia’s survival was Bozenka, a young Czech Jewish nurse at Auschwitz who risked her own life to protect an eleven-year-old stranger. Bozenka carried Bronia in sub-freezing temperatures from Poland to Germany during the Death March in 1945. She cared for Bronia in the camps and did everything she could to save her from the gas chambers.

Liberated at fourteen and left without family, Bronia went to live with Bozenka in rural Czechoslovakia. She then rebuilt her life in the United States. For five decades, she refused to speak about the Holocaust and her experiences. Only later in life, when pestered by an annoying co-worker, did she begin to tell her story.

In 2025, thirty-year-old Isaac Simon, the Education Programs Coordinator at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City, first heard Bronia speak. Deeply moved by her remarkable story, he asked to visit with her a second time. He wanted to hear more.

That single visit sparked an unlikely friendship. For over a year, Isaac has been visiting Bronia nearly every Sunday at her home in Borough Park, Brooklyn. Over pizza, the two talk about everything from her prewar childhood and survival in the camps to modern-day politics and Judaism.

This film is about loss, resilience, faith, and the power of unlikely friendship.