(vintage recording of singers) ♪ Go on wishing... ♪ ♪ (Wicked Queen) Mirror, mirror, on the wall.

Who is the fairest one of all?

(Warwick) "Mirror, mirror, on the wall.

Who is the fairest of them all?"

One of the most famous questions in the world, from one of the best-loved fairytales in the world.

But not so long ago, it was one of the most dangerous questions in the world.

(enchanted music turns somber) ♪ (Warwick) In 1930s Germany, anyone who didn't fit the Nazis' idea of perfection was exterminated.

♪ So what happened when they came across someone like me?

Like the Ovitzes, a family of seven Jewish dwarf entertainers?

(engines rumbling) What happened when the Nazis found them reaches beyond the imaginings of even the darkest fairytale.

♪ I'm going to tell you the magical story of the real Seven Dwarfs.

♪ There comes a time in every man's life when he must go out into the world to seek his fame and fortune.

What shall I do?

Go into politics?

"Warwick Davis, Prime Minister and leader of the nation."

(laughter) -How old was it?

-I dunno, 12?

-Oh my God!

-Are you serious?

-Oh my God!

-What's the matter with that?

(laughter) This is a film about me getting the part of an Ewok.

-Many people have seen this.

-But as for me, I wanna be in the movies!

(laughs) Thank you very much!

(dramatic music) Please, could you tell me where Ewoks have to report?

(laughter) -Ewoks?

-Yeah, Ewoks.

♪ (Mark Hamill) Well, Warwick, it wasn't easy, but we couldn't have done it without you.

-That's all right!

-Thanks a lot, -you worked really hard.

-Yeah.

-Buh-bye!

-Bye!

That was 30 years ago.

I went on to do films like Willow and Harry Potter.

And I even met my wife, Sam, also a dwarf, while performing in Snow White.

-Give my love to the Ewoks!

-Sure will!

(Warwick's son, laughing) What is this?!

(Warwick) I'm perfectly comfortable with my size, and I actually don't think I could do my job if I wasn't.

Okay.

Here we go.

(whimsical music) -Take two, 'cause you know... -Very good.

But I've always been fascinated by other short performers through the ages, from court jesters to Tom Thumb.

Some were successful because they were seen as freaks, others simply because they were great entertainers.

Extra legroom.

(public address in foreign language) ♪ There's a dwarf family who really shed light on all the complexities of being a dwarf entertainer: the Ovitz brothers and sisters, and--wait for it... there were seven of them: Elizabeth, Franziska, Rozika, Micki, Avram, Frieda, and the youngest, Perla.

♪ ♪ (Warwick) I've always wanted to know more about the Ovitz siblings, so I've come to Transylvania, Northern Romania, where their story begins.

They were born in a village that, according to an ancient fairytale, was named after a giant who fell in love with a dwarf.

♪ (hooves clopping, horses snorting) Hello, hi there.

♪ They've all got, like, tools and... should be singing "Heigh-Ho."

Um...

I don't know whether to agree.

My name's Warwick.

(Johnny) Warwick Davis, how do you learn about them?

(Warwick) I've known of them and their story for a number of years now, and it's always interested me and always something I wanted to investigate further.

You know, I'm looking at it through the eyes of a little person and also a person who is an entertainer in the same business that they were.

(Johnny) Why do you think it's important -the world to know?

-The idea that they-- they didn't let their size get them down...

I've met Johnny Popescu, a local radio host who's also something of a historian.

He's agreed to show me around.

So tell me about where we are now.

(Johnny) Well, we are in exactly the place that the Ovitzes' house used to be, many, many years ago, and he is the one who owns the house now.

(Warwick) Hello, nice to meet you; -I'm Warwick, hi.

-And by chance, he is the person who is I guess the only one in the village -who actually met the Ovitzes.

-Really?

Have you got a good memory of them?

(Johnny speaks in foreign language) (Warwick) So I've got some pictures of the... (Warwick) The Ovitzes were an unusual family.

Their father was a dwarf, but their two mothers and three other siblings were tall.

Whereas my parents and sister are all average-sized, and when I was born in 1970, I came as a bit of a shock.

♪ (Warwick) Did you ever see them perform?

(Warwick) They all look like sort of classic movie stars from Hollywood, really, they way they were dressed, and... Now, this picture here, he looks like a silent-movie actor, do you know what I mean?

Reminds me of sort of Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton sort of look.

♪ (Warwick) Above all else, the Ovitzes were committed entertainers, and that's something I've always tried to be as well.

Being just over three feet tall, you are more vulnerable.

You tend to make up for that with a much-larger-than-life personality.

(singing in foreign language) ♪ And that's what other dwarfs were doing all over the world in show business.

♪ (Eilat) It was really the heyday of the interest in dwarfism.

The public was really fascinated by dwarfs, and they were part of freak shows.

(Yehuda) There was 75 different agents, dwarf agents, all over Europe, and they were really knocking on doors, hunting new dwarfs.

♪ (Eilat) In Coney Island, New York, there was a Lilliputian city where dwarfs were paid to live there.

There was the barbershop where a dwarf was the barber.

(Yehuda) A fire brigade operated by dwarfs.

(Eilat) And it is estimated that by 1939, about 1,500 dwarfs were making their living out of show business.

(singing in foreign language) ♪ (Yehuda) They were basically making a living out of exhibiting their deformity.

And this is what exactly the Ovitz family tried to avoid.

They wanted that people will come to see them because they were able actors or singers.

(vocalizing, singing in foreign language) ♪ (Warwick) Amongst all the other dwarf acts of the era, the Ovitz family really stood out.

♪ (Warwick) They spent time practicing, building props, making costumes, so that their act was the best it could be.

♪ They could hold an audience.

It wasn't a gimmick.

From the beginning, they were thinking big.

♪ (Eilat) They really appeared in the largest halls in Europe.

Places for 800, for 1,000, for a huge audience.

(applause) (lively music) ♪ -The Ovitzes used to play a lot.

-Here?

(Johnny) Yes.

You can see the room as it was.

(Warwick) So this is where we are now, this room here.

(Johnny) Exactly.

It was the largest restaurant of the time, -and kings visited it.

-That's amazing.

♪ They weren't just entertainers 'cause they were small.

They were entertainers 'cause they were very good at what they did.

I think their reputation as great entertainers was what carried them through a career.

That's kind of the philosophy that I have throughout my career.

I got started in acting 'cause I was short, but I didn't rely on that.

I thought, to maintain this, I need to hone the craft of performing and acting.

You know, ultimately, it'd be nice to be known as an actor who just happens to be short, which I think the Ovitz family were.

(applause, cheers) (singing "Bei Mir Bist Du Schön") (applause) ♪ (Warwick) It was the end of the 1930s and dwarfs were everywhere.

(singing, applause) And by 1937, when Disney released Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the craze for little people as entertainers had reached its height.

(announcer) Most entrancing of all, Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

(parade music) (music turns introspective) (Warwick) But no one could have foretold who one of the film's greatest fans would be.

(engine rumbling) (crowd shouting) Like all good fairytales, Disney's Snow White had a darker side.

(melancholic music) Much like the Wicked Queen in Snow White, the Nazis' obsession with physical perfection would prove deadly, especially for the Ovitzes.

(chanting in German) ♪ (melodramatic music) ♪ Hitler loved Disney's Snow White so much, he made his own version, as Nazi propaganda.

(Warwick) In the German version of Snow White, she's a beautiful Aryan maiden who's threatened by an evil, shape-shifting outsider.

♪ People who had any kind of physical deformity, including dwarfs like me, became an obsession for the Nazis.

♪ (solemn music) ♪ They would either kill them through their euthanasia program, or they'd use them as guinea pigs in laboratory experiments, in their quest to create a master race.

♪ So when the Nazis started tearing through Europe, what would that mean for the Ovitzes, who were not only dwarfs but also Jews?

(singing in foreign language) (Yehuda) For them, it was far away, Germany.

(rhythmic marching) They didn't feel that it had any implication upon them.

It is simply a terrible thing which happens elsewhere.

♪ -As if nothing changed.

-Show must go on.

(bombs whistling) (flame roaring) ♪ (Yehuda) They simply hoped the war will be somehow over before the fire reached them.

(engines rumbling) ♪ (Warwick) Thanks very much, thank you.

Cheers.

(Warwick) This is Dragomiresti, six miles from the Ovitzes' village, where they were forcibly taken.

I'm meeting the son of the village priest, who lived right opposite the ghetto.

-Hello, I'm Warwick.

-Salut.

-What's your name?

-Mihai.

-Mihail.

-Mihai.

(bell pealing) (Warwick) And this is where they were kept.

And how many people would be here?

-About 3,000.

-Whoa!

(Johnny) From six villages.

(Warwick) But when they were here, they wouldn't have known what was going on, would they, in particular, they would have been just-- (Johnny) No, no; they thought they will be taken to labor camps.

-So if you tried to leave... -Shooting on the spot.

-Really.

-Uh-huh.

These pictures were taken here in this area.

(Warwick) So this is when they would've just arrived.

(Johnny) Yeah, the picture was taken when they arrived and they had descended from the cart.

(Warwick) I mean, this is an unbelievable photo, that this was taken here, we're here, there's a cart here, it's... it's amazing.

-Who is this here?

-A simple soldier, to compare.

And it's written here that's an average height.

(Warwick) This is telling you that he's average size, so you could see how short they were.

Hm.

(Johnny) They mock them.

They mock them, they consider them as luggage, there is a word in Hungarian.

"Okay, the luggage has arrived in Dragomiresti," and they have to be thrown out of the cart.

(Warwick exclaims) I don't know what to say about that.

That's amazing.

1944 there.

Does he talk about the ghetto here in the diary anywhere?

(children shouting) (somber music) ♪ (Warwick) It's kind of hard to imagine, you know, what happened here, um... You know, for the Ovitz family, suddenly they're brought here on a horse and cart, sort of dumped here.

It must have been so frightening.

I wonder if the children that play out here realize what their playground once was.

♪ (train trundling) (Johnny) So, finally, we arrived here, as the Ovitzes did.

(Warwick) I mean, this place looks like it probably did -in the 1940s.

-Definitely, yes.

But the Ovitzes were in a cattle wagon.

(Warwick) I mean, that's impossible.

That's impossible, I wouldn't know even where to start, just even to get on this, and this is meant for passengers to get on, but a cattle truck isn't even designed with steps.

(Johnny) And the cattle truck is like that.

There are no steps for it.

(Warwick) I mean, I'm not getting in there, -whatever happens.

-Don't try.

(train's whistle blows) (door slams shut) (eerie music) (train chuffing) ♪ (Warwick) There were 40 cattle trucks... ♪ ...each with 80 people crammed inside.

♪ (melancholic music) ♪ (Warwick) The Ovitzes thought they were gonna be rehoused, so they brought the tools of their trade: makeup, costumes, instruments.

♪ I wonder, what did they talk about on the train?

Did they discuss, "I wonder what's gonna happen"?

♪ "Where are we gonna end up working?"

♪ Do you think they discussed a strategy?

You know, what were their thoughts?

♪ ♪ ♪ (mournful music) ♪ (Yoav) This is a typical day in May '44, where loads of transports from Greater Hungary arrive.

The Ovitzes' family were also from Transylvania, which was at the time Greater Hungary, so at first, they arrive, and they would unload at the ramp.

As you can see, they get off of the train there.

As Auschwitz was a working camp but also an extermination camp, they needed to decide who goes to-- who will live and who will die.

(Warwick) And so, the person that's deciding this... (Yoav) ...is the doctor.

The people who live were people who were more fit to work.

Even though it was not a rule.

You could be very fit and be sent to die.

So by general, I would say women with children, the elderly, and people who they perceived as crippled were automatically sent to--to die.

(dark music) ♪ Most of them have no idea what-- that in 30 minutes, they are going to be dead, 30 to 45 minutes.

♪ (Warwick) This person here would have been-- (Yoav) This is a dwarf.

What's interesting, did he live or did he die?

-Yeah, yeah.

-Basically, I would say no chance that he would live.

♪ ♪ (Yehuda) Even there, Micki was so self-assured, and he had in his pocket their fan cards.

Micki there on the ramp took from his coat a fan card and distributed to the SS guard.

This--it's amazing.

♪ ♪ (Yoav) You can see here, Mengele... he was part of the mainstream of the German academic milieu at the time.

But as you can see, he has a very, uh, striking appearance.

He was a handsome man.

He was also a war hero.

He arrives at Auschwitz, where he was in the front.

So, um... -Very powerful man.

-Very powerful man.

♪ (Eilat) He was collecting all kinds of people who were very short or tall, or with pointed head, all kinds of deformities, actually, and all the other soldiers knew that he was collecting for what was called Mengele's zoo.

(Warwick) The selection on them would have been, "Right, yeah, we're not going to exterminate you, 'cause I think you're gonna be of interest."

(Yoav) Yes.

(mournful music) (Warwick) It's incredible.

The Ovitzes were brought here because they were Jews, but they managed to buy some time because they were dwarfs.

♪ ♪ ♪ (Warwick) Doctors have always been interested in little people for genuine medical reasons.

♪ I was in and out of hospital when I was a kid because of the medical problems that come with being a dwarf.

♪ Wow.

But I want to understand why the Nazi doctor, Josef Mengele, was so interested in the Ovitzes.

(Armand) This is Charlie O'Brien, or Charles Byrne, known as the Irish Giant in his day, one of the tallest men who's ever lived.

Astonishing, isn't it?

I know a few tall individuals like this.

Peter Mayhew, who played Chewbacca in Star Wars, -he's... -Oh yeah.

(Warwick) ...pretty tall.

-Nobody's perfect.

-Well, okay, I'm of a slightly different design.

(Armand) You are of a slightly different design.

(Warwick) Let's just say that.

(Armand) Mengele is absolutely coming out of a tradition of comparative biology, comparative anthropology, lots of skull-measuring happening in early 20th-century Germany.

And it's becoming a bit more sophisticated.

Lots of interest in genetics, so hence, the interest in the Ovitz family.

-Mm.

-I mean, it wasn't just him.

His former boss, Verschuer, famous scientist, famous anthropologist, sent him to Auschwitz, told him, said, "You're going to have a fantastic opportunity to do experiments there, to do things that you can't do anywhere else."

Mengele did indeed believe that somehow, the Ovitz family have the secret of growth, you know, and we could learn something from them.

-Mm.

-And do you know something?

At heart, he was right.

But the things that he did, the experiments that he did on this family, couldn't have possibly told him anything.

They were just bizarre, irrelevant, appalling experiments.

(eerie music) It's a sort of a moral vacuum in which scientists have the opportunity to do anything they want, no matter what the cost or the consequences.

It's the right over life and death.

It's like that.

(footsteps) ♪ (Warwick) Children, twins, Gypsies.

Mengele experimented on many people.

But what did he have in store for the Ovitz family?

(Wojciech) You know, we have documents... from so-called SS Hygiene Institute.

This was a big, large medical laboratory.

(Warwick) And there's the Ovitz name there, yeah?

(Wojciech) Yes, exactly.

♪ -What is this telling us?

-This is the order to the test of the blood.

These documents show that the blood was taken on 28th of June, 1944, from this prisoner, Ovitz, Perla.

And also, the signature of Mengele here.

(Warwick) Is that his signature there?

♪ (Warwick) I mean, he seems obsessed with blood tests.

-I mean, it was... -Mengele took their blood day by day, very, very often.

He's not exactly learning a lot, really, is he?

You know, keep testing blood, it doesn't really tell you an awful lot.

(Wojciech) He has the very strong impression, it's very important for the future of the Third Reich.

(Warwick) I see.

♪ (melancholic music) ♪ (Warwick) This is where the Ovitzes slept.

(Teresa) The barrack was to be for 400 people, but as the camp was overcrowded, the number was doubled.

Some of the survivors are saying even about 1,000 people in each.

-A thousand people in here.

-Yeah.

(Warwick) The Ovitz family, they would have slept on one of these, would they?

Probably on the bottom... -Yes.

-...I'm assuming.

(Teresa) Bottom was not very safe because of the diarrhea, which was quite frequent.

People could not control the disease.

The top was also not good because of the leaking roof.

So that was just the reality that they had to fight every single day of life.

(solemn music) ♪ (Warwick) We look at pictures and we read stories and accounts of things.

Somehow, you feel remote from it.

But it's when you go to the places you really start to realize that, "Hang on a minute, these aren't stories, these are not tales.

♪ This is something that happened, and this is where it happened."

♪ (echoed laughter) My children are dwarfs.

My wife's a dwarf.

But in another time, another place.

♪ Around 100 dwarfs were killed in Auschwitz.

So, being short wasn't gonna be enough to save the Ovitzes.

To buy more time, they'd have to use another of their assets, one that chimed with the strange logic of Mengele and the other officers.

♪ (Anita) The average life was about three months.

You got so used to fear.

Yeah.

♪ (Warwick) Anita, like the Ovitzes, is a musician, something that appealed to the people who ran Auschwitz.

(Anita) Whoever could do something that was useful to them was a commodity, but if you couldn't, eh, dispensable.

We arrived there in the night.

We were put in a barrack, waited.

I don't know what prompted me to-- he must have asked me, "What did you do before the war?"

I said, "I played the cello."

He said, "Fantastic.

There is a band here."

-Lucky for me.

-That's where I draw parallels between your story and the Ovitz family.

-Exactly.

-Because they indeed were-- (Anita) Anything that was a bit out of the ordinary, you see, was suddenly interesting.

I mean, if it hadn't been Mengele was interested, I don't see how they could have survived.

("Bei Mir Bist Du Schön," sung in German) ♪ (Warwick) In a way, I'm not surprised that the Ovitzes were using all their skills as performers to give themselves a chance.

That's the spirit of a dwarf, of a little person.

♪ Wearing their artistic persona helped them to distance themself from what was happening there.

For them, it was another play, but they are actors in it, and they're playing for their life.

♪ (Anita) The Germans could at any time come into our block and ask for some music.

-So you had to be ready.

-Yeah.

And this was the moment that, for instance, Dr. Mengele, the famous guy who did the experiment on unusual people, came into the block and wanted to hear the Träumerei by Schumann.

And I played that, it was on my repertoire, you know.

(birds cawing) (soft cello and piano music) (Warwick) I do find it interesting that the Nazis wanted to have music, and I'm sort of wondering why.

You know, by day, they were killing people.

It was entertainment, to want music.

-Was it a therapy?

-In a way, in a way, it must have been.

Must have been.

And you know, we actually played concerts on Sunday, and people came and listened; I mean, it's a completely ludicrous idea, really, yeah.

♪ ♪ (Warwick) I can't imagine it.

I mean, I think I would be-- I'd be foolish to try and imagine what they went through.

You know, and even what I can imagine, I don't think I would have coped very well.

It's so, so hard to live under-- under the terror, under the fear, constantly.

♪ The Ovitzes knew that the moment Mengele got bored of them, they could end up here, in the Little Wood, the waiting room for the gas chamber.

I've seen photographs of people in the wood, just after they arrived off the train, um... (Teresa) The crematoriums were huge.

The producer of the crematoriums were saying that per day, they could burn 5,000 corpses.

(Warwick) It makes me angry, this part.

Yeah, it's really-- I find it very difficult to be here.

You know, I can really feel not what it must have been like, but--but what it's all about, and...yeah, it's difficult being here.

(mournful music) ♪ The Ovitzes' nightmare ended in January 1945.

♪ Eight months after they'd arrived at Auschwitz, the camp was liberated.

Along with most of the other SS officers, Mengele had already fled, taking his research with him.

♪ The dwarfs were transported away by cart and arrived back in their village a year later.

The fact that the Ovitzes came out alive is incredible.

They were the only family to survive the camp intact.

♪ ♪ (Warwick) To have followed their story and talked to the people I have, I feel like I've got a really great insight into their lives, and, um... what made them the people they were.

It does have a happy ending.

Not for everybody, but for the Ovitzes, it did.

♪ But that wasn't without price.

♪ They had to live with their ordeals.

♪ It's left me shocked and amazed, and... and I find them even more inspirational than I did before.

♪ (applause, cheers) (Warwick) In 1949, the Ovitzes emigrated to Israel.

(male singer) ♪ A little mazel ♪ ♪ It's the only thing you need ♪ (Warwick) They started performing again to packed-out theaters... (male singer) ♪ Mazel means good luck ♪ (Warwick) ...just as they'd done before the war.

And Perla, the last of these inspirational dwarfs, passed away in 2001 at the age of 80.

(male singer) ♪ ...beat your head against the wall ♪ ♪ Don't ever try to figure why you seem to be to blame ♪ ♪ That some folks have a million and can't even write their name ♪ ♪ That's why you gotta have a little, little mazel ♪ ♪ Mazel means good luck ♪ ♪ 'Cause with a little mazel, you always have a buck ♪ ♪ Mazel, mazel, mazel ♪ (singing in foreign language) ♪