"Let Us Die"

STORYTELLING CATEGORY — SHOWCASE Silver

WFAA
Contributors: Jason Whitely, Taylor Lumsden, Tim Mallad
08/22/2023

The WFAA documentary Let Us Die details the ghastly decision by 13-year-old Ursula Weiss to die by suicide rather than let soldiers rape her again in the closing days of World War II. It is a story that would have been lost to the passage of time if it were not for the dogged determination of a Dallas man named Tim Mallad.

In heartbreaking detail, Let Us Die shares the intimate final moments of Ursula and her parents in Neustrelitz, Germany on May 1, 1945. Their last conversation, preserved word-for-word in letters, hauntingly recounts Ursula begging her father to enact their suicide pact before Soviet soldiers could return to sexually abuse her again.

The documentary’s title, Let Us Die, are among Ursula’s last words recorded by a refugee who was sheltering with her family. Ursula, nicknamed Ulla, “begged her father ‘let us die.’ The father did ask, ‘Do you really mean it Ulla?’ ‘Yes, daddy. Hurry up before they return,’” the letters state.

WFAA reveals this dark secret by documenting Tim’s journey after he bought an antique desk from an estate sale. Though he did not intend to purchase this specific piece of furniture, Tim soon discovered a secret compartment in it that hid this historic account.

Let Us Die follows Tim’s multi-year journey to uncover the truth behind Ursula’s death and the tragedy in Neustrelitz, Germany that week in 1945.

We think the years-long commitment to this project, the unique nature of the content and a Texas man at the center of it all after uncovering little-known history from World War II make it a worthy submission to the Headliners Foundation for the Showcase Storytelling Award.

Enlisting the help of a 100-year-old Holocaust survivor living in Dallas along with Hollywood actress Jane Seymour, Tim begins to piece Ursula’s life together in this WFAA documentary.

Tragically, Let Us Die discovers that Ursula’s story was not isolated. In Neustrelitz alone, more than 700 townspeople took their own lives during the final week of the war as Soviet soldiers, looking for revenge, raped women and children like Ursula.

Unfortunately, the same sexual terror has been reported during the Israel – Hamas war. And the world has read with horror of similar war atrocities by Russian soldiers brutalizing women and girls in Ukraine.

But most people alive today know nothing about war crimes committed decades ago by an older generation of Russian soldiers. Official history never recorded what they did in 1945.

Tim tracks down Ursula’s last surviving relative, a retired advertising executive in Atlanta, Georgia, and together with WFAA, they travel to the small German town where this all happened.

Let Us Die is one of the last untold stories of World War II.

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Submitted by Jason Whitely.