The Optimist: The Bravest Act Is Truth

Herbert Heller carries a traumatic secret from his childhood in Central Europe: Now the owner of a toy store in Marin County, California, Herbert survived the Holocaust in his teens. The Nazis forced him into the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp at the age of 12, but he managed to escape three years later and kept the secret from everyone - including his own children - for 60 years. When Herbert is diagnosed later in life with a terminal illness, he befriends Abbey, an isolated teenager whose own brush with pain and death inspires him to open up. Abbey and Herbert reveal their stories to each other, forge an unlikely inter-generational friendship, and together find a path toward healing.