Refugee

Josef is a 13-year-old Jewish boy living in Germany in the 1930s. He is of average height with brown hair and brown eyes. His only distinguishing characteristics are big ears and wire-rimmed glasses. Josef’s life is turned upside down on the night when Nazi Brownshirts take his father away to a concentration camp. Even though Josef’s father is later restored to the family, he’s psychologically broken. During his family’s ocean voyage to Cuba, Josef struggles to assume the responsibility of being a grown man. His bar mitzvah marks the end of his childhood and the beginning of making difficult decisions to protect his family. He eventually sacrifices his own life so that his little sister Ruthie can live.

Josef’s father returns from a concentration camp mentally damaged. He tries to throw himself overboard in Havana Harbor and is taken to a Cuban hospital, never to see his family again. Josef’s mother gives up entirely after her husband is left behind in Cuba and detaches herself emotionally from the peril her family faces. Josef’s little sister is only four years old when her brother sacrifices himself to save her from the Nazis. She grows up to become Ruth Rosenberg, who welcomes Mahmoud’s family to her home in Germany in 2015.