Hundertmal Frühling (2016)

Erna Krawinkel is about to celebrate her 100th birthday. At the retirement home on Lake Schliersee, where she has lived for several years, everyone is understandably excited. Erna herself dislikes all the fuss and has become increasingly withdrawn lately. So when she one day slips out of the building via the fire escape and quietly disappears, no one notices except for a resident with dementia. Village helper Katja Baumann is driving on a personal errand when she spots the sprightly old lady on the country road. Katja has heard a missing-person report on the radio and is sure this is the sought-after Erna Krawinkel. She tries to speak to her, but the pensioner does not respond; instead, she marches purposefully away from the road, along a track and into the countryside. Katja follows her but cannot persuade the old woman to turn back. She tries to strike up a conversation and learns that Erna is determined to head up into the mountains. Their hike ends in an alpine meadow, beside a very old, almost dilapidated wooden house. Erna Krawinkel explains to Katja that it used to be an inn and that she spent her childhood and youth there. She speaks only of that time and at first ignores Katja’s suggestion that they return home, where people would be worried about her. Only when Katja threatens to leave the old woman alone while she goes to get help does Erna give in. “No one must find out about this place up here,” she says, and promises to come back with Katja like a good girl, as long as Katja does not tell anyone about it. Katja promises, and they set off back down the mountain. By the time they reach the retirement home, it is already dark. Katja’s new boyfriend, Cem, has spent the whole day waiting in vain for her to return. Since Katja left her phone in the car, no one was able to reach her. Cem is understandably angry and drives back to Berlin. Katja’s daughter Kiki has also been worried and is in no mood to speak kindly to her mother. The next morning, a caregiver from the retirement home comes to see Katja and tells her that Mrs. Krawinkel has run away again. Katja promptly drives after the old woman and climbs the mountain, where Erna seems to be waiting for her. This time the pensioner has prepared to spend the night there too, and Katja realizes she will not leave her alone. There is plenty of time for them to talk together, although Erna is usually the one recounting her past and saying that she urgently needs to take care of something before she forgets everything. After Erna builds a small pile of stones beneath a tree so she will not forget this spot either, Katja learns that her great love is buried there. Erna insists that Katja tell her about her own past, too, and so the village helper speaks for the first time about her mother having been an alcoholic and her father having left the family. She grew up with a stepfather, but always missed her father. Perhaps that is one reason she has trouble trusting men. In time, Erna tells her whole life story, and Katja learns that when Erna was 18, she fell in love with René Bertrand, a French forced laborer. He worked as a cook at her family’s inn, and they spent a lot of time together. One day—it was October 2, 1943—her father was furious and shot René during an argument. Erna had been pregnant, and later her father simply took away the child she gave birth to and left her at the church door in the spring. Erna knew only that she had given birth to a little girl, and supposedly never gave any thought to what might have become of her daughter. Her future husband would never have married her if he had known about it. But now Erna has accomplished what she wanted to do up here on the mountain: for as long as she can remember, it has mattered to her to mark the grave of her first great love, so that after her death René’s remains can be reburied in France. That is her purpose and her great secret. Content, Erna lets Katja take her back to the retirement home and promises not to run away again. Katja cannot stop thinking about what became of Erna’s daughter, so she tries to find out from Pastor Sonnleitner about a foundling from 1944. She succeeds, and learns that Erna’s daughter grew up as Rosa Meierhuber and also had a daughter. Rosa’s daughter works as a French teacher at a secondary school. Katja visits her and tells her about her grandparents. At last, the teacher understands why she and her mother have always felt such an affinity for France. Her mother, however, is now severely affected by dementia and has been living at the retirement home on Lake Schliersee for some time. Katja can hardly believe it. On the spur of the moment, she introduces Erna to her granddaughter and also draws her attention to Rosa, with whom Erna lived at the retirement home for almost eight years without knowing who she was. Only now does Erna really look at Rosa and recognize that she has her father’s eyes. Erna is sure she was allowed to live so long only so she could put all this right. Erna Krawinkel dies the day before her 100th birthday. Deeply moved by Erna’s life story, Katja reads her old childhood diaries and resolves to look for her father. Katja also researches René Bertrand and is indeed able to find some of his relatives.