Edith Hahn never believed the reach of Nazism would extend as far as her comfortable Viennese life. Though a Jew, Hitler and his ideology were a world apart from her, or so she thought.

That was until the Nazis crossed the border and a union was formed between Germany and Austria.

What happens next is a tale of defiance, character and the reassurance that, even in the darkest of hours, little pockets of light can be found.

Based on the book of the same name, `The Nazi Officer's Wife' is a documentary which, though lacking in drama, is held together by the strength of its subject matter and the experiences of its author.

Narrated by Susan Sarandon and featuring interviews with Hahn and readings from her letters, the 45-minute piece tells how she and her mother were forced into a ghetto, before being separated - Hahn despatched to a labour camp in northern Germany and her mother to a concentration camp.

In a rate moment of black humour, the elder did not realise the extent of her fate, asking if she could take her sewing machine with her so she could earn some extra money.

When Hahn returned home, months later, she opted to go underground rather than face what awaited many of her friends and members of her family.

With the help of a caring Nazi party member, an official who looked the other way and a Christian friend who put her life on the line by giving her her own identity, she emerged in Munich, a stronghold of her `enemy', as Grete Denner.

If what she had done was not dangerous enough, Hahn then falls in love with Werner Wetter, who turns out to be a member of the Nazi party. Breaking her rule never to see any man twice, she tells her lover the truth, all the time knowing that the wrong reaction could lead to her being exposed. Fortunately, he agrees to keep her secret, marries her and later fathers her child.

A life of privilege follows, especially when Wetter becomes an officer in Hitler's army, but just as a degree of normalcy returns to her existence, he is sent to fight in Russia as the Reich begins to crumble at the hands of the Allies.

Wetter ends up being captured by the Russians and sent to a POW camp, and but for one letter, he is never to be heard from for two years.

With the war at an end Hahn is determined to find out what happened to her mother. But when she encounters fellow Jews returning from the camps she finds herself cold-shouldered and made to feel guilty for avoiding the horrors that they had been subjected to.

After discovering her mother was murdered by the Germans, Hahn, leaves her false identity behind and, after remaining for a time, leaves for England with her daughter.

It is at this point, when we are introduced to her daughter, that we perhaps discover the reason for her telling her tale almost half a century later.

Hahn had kept the secrets of her past hidden until her daughter came across her birth certificate, bearing a name different to her mother's and a Nazi insignia.

"I felt blighted," her daughter said, barely hiding the resentment she felt at the time. Such was Hahn's desire to rewrite history that as her daughter was growing up, whenever she celebrated her birthday Hahn would write cards purporting to be from her relatives, when, in actuality, they had perished at the hands of their oppressors.

Hahn now lives in Israel and many of her documents are part of the permanent collection at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC.

Interspersed between the dialogue is old film from the Second World War, including graphic images from Dachau. This all adds to the testimony and leaves you will an overall feeling of sadness, and to some degree, guilt.

`The Nazi Officer's Wife' does not possess a happy ending, after all this is real life and real life does not follow fiction's criteria.

It is, however, memorable and thought-provoking and at a time when armed forces fight in our name to rid people from a tyrannous regime, it is also a poignant reminder of the cosseted life we are fortunate to have, but seldom appreciate, on this Island.

Matt Westcott