A feature-length documentary centered around a St. Louis Holocaust survivor is now in final edit with a planned release by the end of 2026. “Oskar And Suzanne” traces the unlikely friendship between Oskar Jakob and Suzanne Rico.
As a teenager in 1945, Jakob was a prisoner at the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp in Germany. Rico, a veteran journalist, learned through research into her family history that her grandfather was Robert Lusser, a German aeronautical engineer who worked with the S.S. developing weapons. Lusser was the lead designer of the V-1 flying bomb, the world’s first cruise missile. Jakob worked in forced labor making rivets used to build the V-1 flying bomb.
In May 2024, Jakob and Rico sat down at a special event for a conversation at the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum. The two spoke to the audience about their shared history and developing fondness for each other. That began earlier when Rico was developing a podcast about Lusser called “The Man Who Calculated Death.”
“I met Oskar through the podcast and I really I was going to interview him and then walk away,” Rico said. “Then we started texting and talking on the phone and creating a friendship and a relationship. The podcast was the genesis of me investigating my family history that I had grown up hearing one version of and went in search of the full version, the truth. The documentary is a lot of Oskar’s perspective and the intersection of our histories and our friendship.”
From journalist to trusted friend
Rico initially approached the podcast with a journalist’s mindset, never expecting to form a bond with a person she was probing with questions.
“We talked off the record, so that by the time we did have a camera, we completely trusted each other. Oskar was thinking in the back of his head, ‘Can I trust Suzanne?’ It took a little while, and then he decided that yes, he could. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that Oskar would trust his story to me, and that’s what he has done,” she said. “I take that very, very seriously. And I want to do it with respect and treat it with gentleness and kindness.”
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Bringing “Oskar And Suzanne” to the screen
“Oskar And Suzanne,” the documentary, includes interactions between the two principals, as well as footage of the military base where Lusser tested the V-1 flying bombs and the concentration camp where Oskar was forced to build those bombs.
“I’ve been all through Romania following Oskar’s childhood path,” Rico said. “I’ve been to a synagogue in the north of Transylvania that doesn’t have any more congregants. What hit me so hard as I was standing in this synagogue, which is so beautiful, is that Oskar worshipped there as a boy.”
A message for audiences
While Rico and her production team are completing post-production of the documentary, she is investigating release options, including documentary film festivals and potential streaming platforms. She would like to send a clear message to audiences who view the final product.
“We are in a time and a world where there is so much divisiveness and there’s so much hate and anger and we don’t listen to each other and we judge so quickly,” she said. “I hope that people would take away from this a lesson in humanity, from two people who come from opposite ends of history. What I would love people to take away from this film is a sense of hope and a sense of responsibility to make sure that these stories are told beyond the last Holocaust survivor.”
