Keyword Judeo Espanol

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.

Fascinating documentation of the Sephardic cuisine, which disappears over the years, just like the Ladino language, through the eyes of a director who documented her grandmother, cooking Ladino: "I'm afraid this food is starting to disappear. I want to teach my granddaughters to cook, but they have no time."