A compelling, intimate story about a young German who begins alternative military service in Poland, assigned to help an aging survivor of Auschwitz. Discussion follows.

Sven is a rudderless but amiable enough young man who signs up for a year of civil service abroad rather than serving in the German army. He's sent to Oswiecim in Poland—a place of humdrum lives and youth unemployment, but also sunlit meadows and a new factory, signaling possibilities for the future. The past looms heavily over this foreign place Sven has come to serve. It used to be called Auschwitz, and unspeakable things once happened here. 

Now he's charged with the thankless task of assisting at the memorial museum and keeping a watchful eye on a concentration camp survivor named Krzeminski, a stubborn old man who treats the young German with a mixture of arrogance and impatience. Luckily the budding relationship with the interpreter Ania makes Sven's everyday life more bearable—until Sven begins to see how inextricably linked the past and the present are.

D: Robert Thalheim, Germany, subtitled, 2007, 1h25m

Discussion follows with director and Harris Distinguished Visiting Professor Robert Thalheim 

Programmed in collaboration with the Department of German Studies

This event is free and unticketed.

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