Hearts

Donald Waldman is an 18-year-old Jewish street kid when he graduates high school in June of 1944. Six months later he's fighting for his life in the Battle of the Bulge and beyond as a forward observer for the 71st Infantry. Hearts moves back and forth between the closing days of combat and Donald's postwar pursuit of the American Dream. He has a life, a family, a small business and three wise-cracking, card-playing friends who would walk through fire for him. He also has an eating compulsion, chronic insomnia and bouts of depression that eventually land him on a psychiatric ward. Rather than surrender to the trauma of the past, Donald finds the courage to search back through memory to liberation day at Buchenwald and the tragic secret that has nearly devoured him. When he later meets a camp survivor on the Internet, of all places, he finally finds the absolution and peace he has hungered for in his heart. From the foxholes of Europe to the frontiers of cyberspace, Hearts looks at the invisible wounds of the "Greatest Generation" with humanity and surprising humor. "An exceptional piece of work" (Philadelphia Daily News). "An appealing drama…with solid commercial potential" (Variety).