LOST TRACES – A FAMILY HISTORY FROM THE HOLOCAUST
A rural Jewish family in Germany is torn apart, forced into hard labour, deported and murdered. We trace the steps of their destruction, from mere harassment to an incomprehensible end in Auschwitz.
The film tells the story of a rural Jewish family in Germany that was torn apart, its members scattered and forced into hard labour and then, when no longer deemed useful, deported via different routes and finally murdered. Glambeck, the family’s hometown, is a quaint village north of Berlin with a stork living on the church roof. This is where Rosa Labe lived with her children before war broke out. Widowed at an early age, she ran a grocery store to make a living. Her son Paul worked as a farmhand, and Dora and Theo went to the village school. A school friend remembers seeing the Labe family’s belongings burning in the village square on the evening of 9 November 1938. That was the beginning of the family’s destruction. Documents and eyewitness testimony make it possible to reconstruct step by step the crimes committed against them. The film traces these developments from what at first seems like mere harassment to deeds that are beyond comprehension. In the process, we visit the settings where the Holocaust unfolded: Auschwitz as well as Kaunas and Treblinka.