Avoiding Hitler’s slaughter, 600 Dutch Jews were hand-picked to survive the Holocaust because they were considered “valuable to their country.” The Saved poignantly captures their exceptional story and reveals the guilt that plagues them decades after their troubling experience.

“You can’t go on living with that . . . or you may as well commit suicide,” says one survivor of the persistent question, “why me and not him?” Another survivor shares the fact that “I wake up at night thinking about it — I’m in debt,” because “God brought us through, through the war.”

Nearly 100,000 Dutch Jews were deported and slaughtered by the Nazis. When a senior Hague official decided to intervene on behalf of a close friend, he managed to secure an agreement that guaranteed the protection of two distinguished Jews and their families. As word of the agreement spread, Jews from across the Netherlands sent letters pleading to be included in the special list, which eventually grew to include 600 Jews. Among them were distinguished professors, scientists, physicians and musicians, and they came to be known as the Barneveld group.

Shipped off to a remote Dutch castle, the Barneveld Jews created a mini-society modeled after the world of high culture and sophistication they had left behind. As the horrors of the Holocaust decimated European Jewry, the Barneveld Jews lived in relative comfort. Families brought along their furniture and china. The group instituted a school and held music recitals. In contrast to those imprisoned in concentration camps, the Barnevelders had the opportunity to pay particular attention to personal appearance. “The men were always clean-shaven, the women always had hairdos,” recalls one survivor.

Living in close proximity to members of the opposite sex created opportunities for young love. One couple, now the parents of four grown children, got engaged in the Barneveld home.

Though as the group expanded, the “cavernous castle” became increasingly cramped, compared to “a prison cell, but one that is huge and has no bars.” Food was soon being rationed, and in order to maximize the living space, men and women were housed in separate, dormitory-like quarters. As contact with the outside world became increasingly restricted, the “psychic isolation was intense.”

Together, the group struggled to maintain a sense of personal dignity and some semblance of normalcy. “When you no longer have a house of your own, or cars in front of the doors, and you can’t get to your money, you want to somehow show your worth,” a survivor explains.

The Barneveld group was transferred to Westerbrook, a Nazi labor camp in Holland, in September, 1943. The shock was overwhelming, from castle to barracks. Forced by the Nazis to participate in the deportation of their fellow inmates, the Barnevelders witnessed family members and friends being transported from Westerbrook to Auschwitz, but the Barnevelders themselves remained unharmed.

Even as their living conditions continued to deteriorate, their lives remained protected. When the Barnevelders were eventually transported to Theresienstadt, they watched friends and family die, but their fates were spared.

Nearly all of the Barnevelders managed to escape the war physically unscathed. But the emotional scars remain, and for some, the sense of guilt at having survived is still difficult to overcome. Everywhere they were saved from selection for death, but their survival is both a gift and a curse.

It’s an experience that leads to protest – even of their own story. “I’m against this film,” says one Barnevelder at the start of The Saved. “The Barneveld Group story is an exception…you have to look at the 100,000 Dutch Jews who were slaughtered and not at the point-five-percent who survived the deportation.”

Nevertheless, the uniqueness of the Barneveld story demands retelling.