The Neiger family.

Updated October 12, 2022. The New York Emmy award-winning film They Survived Together premiered in December 2021 on THIRTEEN. The film is streaming on demand on our THIRTEEN Specials page and THIRTEEN Explore video app.

The Neiger family was living a peaceful life in the Jewish community in Krakow. Then World War II changed their lives forever. The documentary They Survived Together  tells the story of their miraculous escape from certain death by the Nazis in the Krakow Ghetto — with four small children. Siblings Cesia, Ben, Hanka, Basia, and Tosia share firsthand accounts of their family’s journey to freedom. They are said to be one of the only families to escape and survive as an intact family.

The Neiger siblings.

It’s chilling to hear Tosia explain in the film, “Nobody expected to survive. That wasn’t even the motivation behind making the decision to get out of the ghetto. It really was a question of how they were choosing to die rather than survive.”

They Survived Together  is by New York filmmaker and director John Rokosny and producer Andriette Redmann. Rokosny learned of the family’s story after meeting Hanka in a Lower East Side eatery, according to an article in J-Voice.

The film won the New York Emmy for Documentary Historical at the 65th annual New York Emmy Awards Ceremony on October 8, 2022.

Hanka at the Neiger parents gravesite.