NOW . . . AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

Jetzt - nach so viel Jahren

Director Harald Luders, Pavel Schnabel / 1981 / Germany

Rhina, a small German town, for centuries as known as “the Jewish town” because more than 60% of its population was Jewish. When the Nazis came to power, the entire Jewish community vanished, mostly in concentration camps. Today, all that is left of the Jewish majority is a vandalised graveyard.

Now, after all these years, the people of Rhina discuss their departed neighbours on camera. They deplore the atrocities “commited by outsiders” and speak warmly of the old Jewish community. The film then moves to the Washington Heights section of New York City, where the filmmakers have discovered a tiny pocket of Jewish refugees from Rhina. The few remaining Jews, elderly and still wounded by the holocaust, present a sharply different version of what happened in Rhina.

Back To Index