New Yorker journalist Ruth wants to find out more about her heritage shortly after the fall of the wall. Her parents came from Poland and survived Auschwitz, she doesn’t know more than that, and there are no other relatives. Her mother recently died, now she’s convincing her father Edek to travel with her to the sites of his past. Edek reluctantly goes in order to protect his daughter, but he doesn’t share her need to find out more. He undermines Ruth’s travel plans and steers her away from places that are painful for him. But the daughter is also stubborn. The journey leads them to Warsaw, where the parents were trapped in the ghetto, and their hometown Lodz, in an apartment that belonged to the grandparents and are now inhabited by others, and, lastly, Auschwitz. The father and daughter struggle to deal with memories and trauma and clash with their different coping strategies. Ruth wants to finally see and know, understand her heritage, and fill the gaps in her own biography. Edek wants to survive the pain. The confrontation with parts of his life that were destroyed demands everything of him. Julia von Heinz, adapting from the autobiographical novel by Lily Brett, tells a story of slow rapprochement, breaking silences, and careful new beginnings, showing both positions in a loving and very understanding way,


Sometimes an actor lands a film and role at just the right time. This is what happened to Stephen Fry here. The legendary British comedian, who consciously and publicly deals with his Jewish origins in the current social climate, is a dream casting for Edek; perhaps Julia von Heinz gave him a gift with the role. Stout and with a gray beard, he believably embodies the Polish Jew in exile, speaks Polish and such beautiful broken English that the original version is definitely worth watching. Lena Dunham gives Ruth power and vulnerability. Both actors are so clearly personally touched that it lends the film a special power.

Susanne Stern

Translation: Elinor Lewy