Die Lebenden (2012)

Sita Popescu is a 25-year-old Romanian-Austrian student who makes a living working for a television station in Berlin. Her private life is chaotic: after a colleague ends his affair with her, she meets the photographic artist Jocquin at a club and spends the night with him. After her grandfather, who came from Transylvania, celebrates his 95th birthday, Sita finds a photograph of him in an SS uniform. Shocked and curious, she sets out to investigate the background, against her father’s wishes. After her grandfather’s death, she receives help with her search from her previously unknown uncle, Michael Weiss, whom she meets at the funeral. He is the family’s black sheep, having written a critical book about the family history himself, and is therefore ostracized by her father. Sita realizes that both her beloved grandfather and her father tried to hide the truth about the past from her and suppress it within themselves. Old video interviews Michael conducted with her grandfather, in which he talks about his past, complete the picture: “In Auschwitz, I thought I was dreaming; that wasn’t me, that was someone else. I don’t feel guilty at all.” Her research in Vienna eventually leads her to Warsaw, where she meets Silver, an American political activist who lives there. Through Silver, Sita finally obtains the documents proving that her grandfather had served in the SS and had been a guard at Auschwitz concentration camp. Back in Berlin, she meets the long-lost Jocquin again.