The One That Got Away Trailer from JIFF on Vimeo.
At age 15 in 1944, Thomas Beck escaped over the wall of a Nazi concentration camp in Budapest with one regret. He was leaving behind Edith Greiman, a 14-year-old inmate with whom he had fallen in love.
More than 60 years later, the Herald Sun reports, Beck got a second chance. While retracing his journey in Hungary and Slovakia for a documentary about his getaway, a reporter located Beck's best friend from childhood and arranged a meeting in Prague. Then, the friend delivered the line that would change Beck's life: "Edith and I were looking for you for 62 years!"
Greiman had not only survived the camp but had also settled in Australia -- about a quarter-mile from Beck's son in East St. Kilda.
Greiman and Beck started emailing -- she had recently lost her husband, according to J-Wire. Then, love bloomed again.
"We are together again four years now, and very happy," Beck told the Herald Sun.
"We are more than happy," Greiman said.
Greiman recalled to the Australian paper the terror of being rounded up for the camp and how Beck became her "turn-to" person. Despite their budding feelings for each other, Beck said he took his chance at freedom when he received a note telling him to scale the wall at a certain time. He never forgot Greiman.
A lost-and-found romance that spans one of history's darkest chapters across generations and continents is ripe for a movie -- and so it is that "The One That Got Away," a documentary about the couple, will screen in November at the Jewish International Film Festival in Sydney and Melbourne.