Farewell Herr Schwartz

Winner Best Documentary at Haifa International Film Festival 2013

Farewell, Herr Schwarz is an epic documentary by Yael Reuveny, the granddaughter of Michla Schwarz, whose brother was assumed dead in the Holocaust. The filmmaker embarks upon a personal journey that takes her between Israel and Germany, and reveals family secrets supressed for generations.

Feiv’ke did not go to Israel after the war. Of all places, he chose to live in the town where he had been a prisoner in a concentration camp. The barracks were unceremoniously converted and former guards became neighbours. They didn’t talk about the past but rolled up their sleeves to build a “better Germany”.

The outcome of both Michla and Feiv’ke’s decisions affects the course of lives for generations to come; in the here and now: The children who struggle to deal with their parents' silence and their own unasked questions; their grandchildren who are haunted by family secrets and forced to question their own identity.