Can a language save your life? Yes it can, even an ancient one from the 15th century. Saved by Language tells the story of Moris Albahari, a Sephardic Jew from Sarajevo (born 1930), who spoke Ladino/Judeo-Spanish, his mother tongue, to survive the Holocaust. Moris used Ladino to communicate with an Italian Colonel who helped him escape to a Partizan refuge after he ran away from the train taking Yugoslavian Jews to Nazi death camps. By speaking in Ladino to a Spanish-speaking US pilot in 1944 he was able to survive and lead the pilot, along with his American and British colleagues, to a safe Partizan airport.
Bosnia and Herzegovina,
United States of America
Documentary
53 minutes
2015
Bryan Kirschen
Saved by Language Productions

1959
8.2

2014
6.9

2020
7.0

1941
0.0

1944
6.0

8.0

2022
6.0
2013
0.0

2021
7.3

2015
8.0

1942
5.0

2000
5.9

2002
0.0

2022
9.0

2021
9.0

1943
5.2

2017
0.0

2016
7.3

2006
7.5

2009
0.0