Part 3 of 3
***
[Arnon] Grandmother probably knew
that Gertrud wouldn’t approve
of her friendship with the von Mildensteins,
just as she couldn’t relate to her longing for Germany.
But the pictures keep revealing a friendship
that continued after the war.
Here, my grandparents can be seen
on vacation with Gerda von Mildenstein.
And here, the baron captured them
in front of a waterfall.
I don’t understand how they could reunited
after what happened to Susanne.
[Mother Hannahle] Truth is, I’m amazed.
It was so unlike them.
[Arnon] Why?
[Mother Hannahle] It was unlike my dad.
Your grandpa …
I’m surprised he agreed to meet him
in light of what he knew.
How did they meet in the first place?
[Arnon] They met at that first journey to Palestine.
On 7 April 1933, the Juedische Rundschau, the bi-weekly paper of the Zionist movement, declared that of all Jewish groups only the Zionist Federation of Germany was capable of approaching the Nazis in good faith as "honest partners". The Federation then commissioned Kurt Tuchler to make contact with possible Zionist sympathisers within the Nazi Party, with the aim of facilitating emigration to Palestine, and Tuchler approached Mildenstein, who was asked to write something positive about Jewish Palestine in the press. Mildenstein agreed, on condition that he be allowed to visit the country in person, with Tuchler as his guide. So, in the spring of 1933 a party of four set out from Berlin, consisting of Mildenstein, Tuchler, and their wives. They spent a month together in Palestine, and Mildenstein began to write a series of articles for Der Angriff, a Nazi Party newspaper in Berlin which Joseph Goebbels had founded in 1927 and still controlled. Mildenstein himself remained in Palestine for a total of six months before his return to Germany as an enthusiast for Zionism. He even began to study Hebrew. In August 1933 Hitler's government and German Zionists entered into the
Haavara Agreement [Transfer Agreement], which encouraged emigration by allowing Jews to transfer property from Germany to Palestine.
--
Leopold von Mildenstein, by Wikipedia
[Mother Hannahle] It’s amazing that they looked for him and visited him …
He probably said he’d had no choice;
he wasn’t involved.
He must have tried to …
to picture himself as a saint.
[Arnon] He may have tried that,
but Grandpa was a judge, after all.
[Mother Hannahle] Yes, he was.
What did his daughter tell you?
[Arnon] I’ve some questions left.
Maybe if you join me next time, you could help me understand …
[Mother Hannahle] What had really happened.
***
[Arnon] Before Mother goes on an adventure,
she always ties up loose ends.
The things that managed to stay on
will now emigrate to an unknown destination.
[Furniture movers move furniture]
[Arnon] Two Jews on an airplane to Germany.
As protocol would have it, we must visit family first.
But of all the relatives we had here,
only a distant one remains.
His name is Manu Troekes,
and we’re of the same generation.
His family survived the war
because his grandfather wasn’t Jewish,
but he, too, discovered one day
that he had a great-grandmother who died in the Holocaust:
Paula Lehmann.
[Buzzer buzzes] [Muller/Trokes]
[Manu Troekes] Arnon?
[Arnon] Hi.
[Mother Hannahle] Hi.
[Manu Troekes] Hannah?
[Mother Hannahle] Yes. I’m here.
Hello.
[Manu Troekes] Ja! Hello.
[Mother Hannahle] Hello, Manu.
[Manu Troekes] Hello.
[Hellos all around]
[Mrs. Troekes] Please come in!
[Arnon] This is me, okay?
[Manu Troekes] Mm-hmm.
[Arnon] This is my mother and father. Okay?
This is Gerda …
[Manu Troekes] Mm-hmm.
[Arnon] And Kurt.
[Manu Troekes] Mm-hmm.
[Arnon] And here, this is Susanne Lehmann.
And Heinrich Lehmann.
[Manu Troekes] Yes.
[Arnon] And he had four brothers …
[Manu Troekes] And a sister.
[Arnon] Who?
[Manu Troekes] Lehmann, Heinrich Lehmann.
[Mother Hannahle] Heinrich Lehmann.
[Manu Troekes] Yes, yes, that’s right.
[Arnon] That’s your grandfather.
[Mother Hannahle] I didn’t know.
[Manu Troekes] You didn’t know?
[Mother Hannahle] No.
[Manu Troekes] What?
Okay, continue.
Still, you’re right. You’re right.
[Arnon] And this is Paula.
The mother of your grandmother.
[Manu Troekes] Yes.
[Arnon] And here is your mother.
[Manu Troekes] Yes.
[Arnon] And here is you.
[Manu Troekes] Exactly.
[Arnon] Manu.
[Manu Troekes] Yes, exactly.
I show you what I did.
[Mrs. Troekes] He did the same paperwork.
[Manu Troekes] The same paper, I did.
[Mrs. Troekes] A few days ago.
[Manu Troekes] I started maybe a week ago because I didn’t --
I knew – I knew, but I did not have all the details.
And I got some details and a photo,
two photos, from Ilanna.
[Arnon] Uh-huh.
[Manu Troekes] Ilanna’s also the same generation.
[Arnon] Yes.
[Manu Troekes] Of another brother, Max Lehmann.
[Arnon] Max Lehmann. He is here somewhere.
[Manu Troekes] He is the brother of Heinrich Lehmann,
and the brother of Paula Lehmann,
who is Paula Bernstein.
[Mother Hannahle] To me, it’s new.
[Manu Troekes] No, I show you. Wait.
[Mother Hannahle] To me, it’s new.
I really didn’t know.
[Manu Troekes] Look.
[Mother Hannahle] Oh!
[Laughter]
[Manu Troekes] My name is not Lehmann, of course,
and yours is not Lehmann, but still, it is our family.
It goes back one, two, three, four generations.
[Mother Hannahle] I don’t understand how I don’t know.
[Manu Troekes] Yeah. Yeah.
[Mother Hannahle] We didn’t ask, and we were not told.
I knew only about the people who are alive,
but never about the people who are not with us.
[Manu Troekes] Yeah.
[Arnon] Did you know about the destiny of Paula Lehmann?
[Manu Troekes] Yes, yes.
[Arnon] And how did you know this story?
[Manu Troekes] I asked.
But they said, “No.”
They didn’t want to hurt me.
But then much later, I learned
they didn’t want to hurt themselves too.
And one of the most horrifying things
is that they let go my great-grandmother.
She was deported.
She ended in Theresienstadt.
So what did the family do?
Did they bring her with a suitcase to the truck?
Did they – why did they let her go?
And why did not somebody hide her?
I mean, even from the family.
[Arnon] Yeah.
Is it possible they didn’t know where she was going?
[Manu Troekes] No!!!
Everybody knew.
[Mother Hannahle] This is it …
[Arnon] Afternoon has come,
and in Berlin, do as the Berliners do:
after Schlafstunde, time for Spazieren.
[Manu Troekes] Hannah?
[Mother Hannahle] What?
[Manu Troekes] Would you live here?
[Mother Hannahle] No. Not here.
I like it where I live.
But I would like to visit more often.
[Manu Troekes] This is Paula’s old house.
[Mother Hannahle] Yeah? I didn’t know.
[Manu Troekes] 45 Ginzel Street.
[Arnon] That was her last apartment?
[Manu Troekes] Yes.
[Arnon] Wow.
[Manu Troekes] Yeah.
And here, look.
There’s ein Stolperstein.
To memory …
[Mother Hannahle] Where?
[Manu Troekes] Paula Lehmann, here.
[Mother Hannahle] No.
[Manu Troekes] Yeah.
[Shows her plaque to Paula Lehmann on the ground]
[Mother Hannahle] I didn’t know that they put that –
[Manu Troekes] It says: “Paula Bernstein,
“born Lehmann, lived here.
“Born in 1867, deported to Theresienstadt in 1942,
“and murdered December 1942.”
[Mother Hannahle] Unbelievable. Hmm.
[Manu Troekes] It’s an artist who had the idea, an artist.
And then either a family or a friend or somebody …
[Mother Hannahle] Pays for this,
[Manu Troekes] Pays for this,
and then you have to ask the community,
and this is for Paula.
[Arnon] And that’s for –
[Manu Troekes] This is for Paula.
[Arnon] Paula Lehmann isn’t my only relative who lived here.
The home of Susanne Lehmann was a quick walk away.
When Susannah would go to visit her sister-in-law,
she’d take little Hannahle along,
to show off her granddaughter.
[Mother Hannahle] Nice neighborhood.
[Manu Troekes] It’s a very quiet, pleasant residential area.
Look. That’s 55 Innsbrucker Street.
Susi lived here.
[Mother Hannahle] Really?
[Manu Troekes] Yes.
[Mother Hannahle] Here?
[Manu Troekes] Yes. That’s the address.
Susi Lehmann.
[Mother Hannahle] How do you know that?
[Manu Troekes] Arnon told me.
[Mother Hannahle] That Susi lived here?
So my mother also lived here?
[Manu Troekes] Yes, Gerda lived here as a child.
[Mother Hannahle] Really?
[Manu Troekes] Yes.
Not in this house, of course. The old house was destroyed.
[Mother Hannahle] But this is the address.
[Manu Troekes] Yes.
Unbelievable, eh?
[Mother Hannahle] Amazing, yes.
[Manu Troekes] But no Stolperstein.
[Mother Hannahle] Yes.
[Manu Troekes] You could do one.
[Mother Hannahle] Yes, maybe.
[Manu Troekes] We could do it together, next year or …
[Arnon] It is from here that my grandparents
tried to rescue Susanne Lehmann.
They wrote from Palestine to anyone who could help
and also tried desperately to locate their good friend.
He now had a code name: “Mild.”
I don’t know if von Mildenstein ever received their letters
or where he was in those years.
Could he have helped?
***
[Mother Hannahle] How did they receive you
when you visited them?
[Arnon] Very kindly. Did you say, “Where”?
[Mother Hannahle] No.
[Arnon] They were very nice.
[Mother Hannahle] Really?
[Arnon] Very friendly.
Question is, what should we tell them?
[Mother Hannahle] I think we should act as normal as possible.
Then we’ll see how things go.
[Arnon] My question is, should we actually say the word “Nazi”?
On one hand, we know he was a Nazi.
On the other hand, I don’t know
whether it would be nice to verbalize it.
I don’t know how things stand in Germany today.
Whether people are ashamed of it.
Do they see it as a blemish? How do they see it?
[Mother Hannahle] I’m certain they see it as a blemish.
So we won’t verbalize the actual word.
We’ll just ask what he did then
without saying the very word.
[Arnon] We don’t want to come across
as if we know something and we’ve come to interrogate.
[Mother Hannahle] We’re not going there to tell them,
“Listen, we know something you don’t.”
Why should we?
[Arnon] But why not?
[Mother Hannahle] Because it’s none of our business.
Our only concern is our own family.
Why mention things that only concern them?
Would you tell your friend that his father’s a murderer
if he doesn’t know that?
What for?
[Train station announcer]
[Arnon & Mother Hannahle] Hi.
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] How are you?
[Mother Hannahle] All right.
[Hugs]
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] Did you have a good journey?
[Mother Hannahle] Yes.
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] [Hugs Arnon] That was brilliant, that you could do it that soon.
[All laugh]
[Birds chirping]
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] There’s Ravensburger jigsaws.
[Arnon] Ah.
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] If they like that.
It’s great fun.
[Arnon] My daughter loves puzzles.
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] That is actually very nice.
You know what a Tigerente is?
It’s a tiger-duck.
[Harald P. Milz] I must admit
it’s my birthday today, you know?
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] Oh!
[Everyone laughing]
[Harald P. Milz] I didn’t want to tell you before.
[Mother Hannahle] Happy birthday!
[Harald P. Milz] Thank you.
[Arnon] So, Harald, this is for your birthday.
[Harald P. Milz] Yeah. [Laughing]
[Arnon] I hope you will like it.
[Harald P. Milz] Thank you very much.
[Arnon] [To Edda] Yes, and this is for your hospitality.
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] I’m not doing anything for you.
Oh, that is wonderful.
[Arnon] You know, this is from the Dead Sea.
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] Oh, that’s great.
[Harald P. Milz] Israeli folk songs.
Ja, good.
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] Thank you very, very much.
[Arnon] Before we arrived, Edda dug up new evidence
of the friendship between her parents
and my grandparents …
[Harald P. Milz] Oh, I don’t believe it.
[Arnon] Her mother’s old diaries
from the time after their trip to Palestine.
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] Mother’s diaries, yes. They are something.
[Arnon] Here are the Tuchlers.
September 21, 1933.
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] “Dinner with Mrs. Tuchler.”
“A walk with Dr. Tuchler.”
Well, there’s Tuchlers again.
“At Café Vienna.”
That was a theater or a film.
“Phoned Mrs. Tuchler.”
“Ate at Igel.”
“Ate at Igel.”
I think I would get so bored to go to the same restaurant.
Well, there’s Tuchlers again. That was on the 13th.
[Arnon] 13th of what?
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] Of November.
[Arnon] Just before they …
[Mother Hannahle] left.
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] Just before they left,
but they stayed even closer together
just before they left.
[Mother Hannahle] Yes.
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] Understandable.
[Mother Hannahle] Yes.
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] “Tuchlers’ departure.
November 23, 1936.”
That was it.
[Harald P. Milz] [Opening a bottle of champagne] It’s coming. It’s coming.
[Neighbor Jedel] [Pointing to the garden umbrella] You’ll shoot a hole in that.
[Arnon] Mazel tov!
[clapping]
[Mother Hannahle] Mazel tov!
[Harald P. Milz] Friendly fire.
[All laugh]
[Mother Hannahle] Happy birthday.
[Arnon] Happy birthday, Harald.
[Mother Hannahle] Stay like this. [Holds up bubbly glass]
[Harald P. Milz] Yeah.
[Neighbor Lady] Yes.
[Arnon] Edda. Mazel tov.
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] Cheers.
[Birds chirping]
[Arnon] I was asking my mother
what happened the Second World War
for our family.
[Neighbor Lady] Yes.
[Arnon] And she claimed that her parents
didn’t tell her nothing.
[Mother Hannahle] No, they were not talking about it. No.
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] I think that was the kind of education we got then.
You know, parents wouldn’t talk about it,
and you wouldn’t ask
because you weren’t allowed to ask.
[Mother Hannahle] Also, with us, it …
We don’t have any discussion, any --
It was holes.
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] But that was the way that we were brought up.
We didn’t really get an awful lot of …
[Harald P. Milz] Mm-hmm.
But I remember very well
during the war, we had no radio,
we had no electricity,
and the Americans and the British,
they put posters on the walls and so on
and informed us about these concentration camps.
And people didn’t believe it.
They said, “It’s all propaganda.
“It’s all, you know” – um, ja --
“done by the Americans and British.”
They just didn’t believe it.
It’s – it’s – it’s --
You couldn’t believe it, you know.
And then all of a sudden, ja, it is the truth, you know.
And I remember that the word “Nazi” wasn’t there.
It was Nationalsozialisten.
This word “Nazi” came after the war.
We never used it.
[Arnon] And today you use it?
[Harald P. Milz] Pardon?
[Arnon] Today do you use the word “Nazi” here in –
[Harald P. Milz] Oh, yeah, all the time. Nazi, Nazi.
“Oh, he was a Nazi,” and so on.
Mm-hmm.
[Arnon] So you are the famous neighbor.
Edda told me about you.
[Neighbor Lady] [Laughs]
[Arnon] That any question I have, you are the read address.
[Chuckling]
[Neighbor Lady] Whenever I need anything, I turn to him.
[Neighbor Jedel] When I find something,
I copy it and I say, “Edda, look at this.”
Here and there, you encounter the name “von Mildenstein.”
[Mother Hannahle] During the war, what …
what did Baron von Mildenstein do?
[Neighbor Jedel] I’ve no knowledge of that.
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] He’s too young to know.
[Mother Hannahle] But from the books?
[Neighbor Jedel] I haven’t found anything,
at least not in the ones I’ve read.
[Mother Hannahle] Was he in the army?
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] No.
[Neighbor Jedel] I didn’t find anything.
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] If he says he didn’t, he didn’t.
[Neighbor Jedel] There’s a book that was published in which all,
let’s us call them “relevant” Germans,
starting with …
the highest ranking generals
down to functionaries, et cetera, are listed.
In this book, Edda’s father is mentioned.
The book is divided into categories
according to occupations.
As far as I remember, he was listed as “journalist.”
So …
I would say, “clean as a whistle.”
[Mother Hannahle] Yeah.
[Neighbor Jedel] So concerning this issue, everything is okay.
[Birds chirping]
[Harald P. Milz] The little house
where you sit and have your tea in the afternoon.
[Arnon] And what was actually the story
with the father of Edda?
I didn’t get it.
[Harald P. Milz] Well, I learned a lot today when Jedel talked about it.
I didn’t know Edda’s father was --
he is an engineer, civil engineer, really.
And as such, I think he also worked,
and, um, but he liked traveling …
[Arnon] But during that time in the beginning,
was he part of the National Socialistic party?
[Harald P. Milz] Oh, he must have been, ja. Ja.
Edda would know. I think he has been.
He must have been, as many have been,
like our teachers all were members of the party.
They had to be, and nothing with it.
They just wore this little emblem here,
and that was it.
I must say, not everybody was a bad Nazi, you know.
They were also just members.
Had to – some had to be.
Many von Mildenstein documents survived the war. Among them: a membership card from the Nazi Party before they took power
-- The Flat, written and directed by Arnon Goldfinger
[Arnon] But do you know what was his job?
[Harald P. Milz] Pardon?
[Arnon] What was his job?
[Harald P. Milz] I think he was, um …
Ja, it’s strange to say, I don’t really know.
He worked in government,
in the – I think in the interior ministry.
But Edda would know exactly, of course.
And it’s strange enough that we never --
Edda and I, we hardly ever talk about it.
[Arnon] Ah, really?
[Harald P. Milz] It’s not a topic between us
I don’t know.
[Arnon] Really?
[Harald P. Milz] And I never had so much interest in my father-in-law
as we had today, you know?
[Arnon] There was a time when the name von Mildenstein
must have aroused more interest.
When the Eichmann trial was on German TV
and the baron’s name came up,
what did Edda’s parents say about it at home?
She was 21.
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] I don’t know.
I mean, yes, of course, he was mentioned
simply because he was the chap before Eichmann.
But he was thrown out because he had other ideas.
[Arnon] And what was his way different from the others?
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] Huh?
[Arnon] In what way his method or way of working was different from the others?
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] Oh, I don’t know what the others were like,
but I mean, he –
[Arnon] Eichmann was –
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] Yeah, particularly Eichmann.
I mean, I don’t know what his beginning views
or what he actually stood for.
I haven’t a clue.
But what I read in the books say he immediately organized
things like concentration camps, et cetera.
That was something he hadn’t even --
father hadn’t even heard about before.
They wanted to get serious, really,
and they didn’t want to have anybody
who would hinder that.
And he was sort of being, very much,
“He’s not going to do anything to any Jews.
“He’s got Jewish friends anyway.
“So we drop him.”
And he had very quickly to rethink,
“What am I going to do as next step?”
And he said, “The best is if I carry on
“what I was good at so far,
writing about where I’m traveling.”
And then he decided to go to America.
[Arnon] He left Germany?
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] He did, yeah.
That’s when he took the boat –
[Arnon] For how many years?
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] Oh, I think four years he went out for.
After that, as I say,
he tried to put a little bit more space
between him and whoever was in power in Berlin.
When was he actually arrested?
Was it ‘50s?
[Mother Hannahle] Eichmann.
[Arnon] Eichmann? It was in ’61.
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] Close. Okay, ’61.
And I think his then-boss at Coca-Cola --
and I haven’t got the papers for that --
suggested that he would more or less
take the bull by the horn, which is a word that,
if there is a problem, tackle it.
And he got together with Der Spiegel,
which is a very, was a very well-known,
aggressive, in a way, publication.
He said, “Just put it right there.”
And he wrote his side of the time there,
and that was it, and it was never another item,
because basically, all he was,
he was doing this journalistic work.
[Distant church bells ringing]
[Leaves rustling]
[Arnon] We said good-bye to Edda and Harald
and promised to stay in touch.
I found the article Edda mentioned.
She got some of the details wrong.
It was published five years after the Eichmann trial
[19. Dezember 1966]
and dealt with SS history.
[
Der Orden unter dem Totenkopf [The Order Under the SkullDie Geschichte der SS / Von SPIEGEL-Redakteur Heinz Hohne]
In it, Edda’s father is not listed as a journalist
but as Eichmann’s first boss.
I called Heinz Hoehne, the man who wrote the article.
Much to my surprise,
he recognized my grandfather’s name immediately.
Von Mildenstein made a point
of telling him about Kurt Tuchler,
presenting himself as “the Zionists’ best friend.”
[Heinz Hoehne] Hello, Mr. Goldfinger!
Very nice to see you.
Please come in. This is my wife.
[FRIENDS OF THE ZIONISTS, VON MILDENSTEIN]
[Arnon] Did you meet my grandfather, Kurt Tuchler?
[Heinz Hoehne] No. I didn’t.
[Arnon] And when von Mildenstein
came to your office, what else did he tell you
about his relationship with my grandfather?
[Heinz Hoehne] He said that he knows this person,
that they are in good relations,
and that their wives get along well.
They traveled together …
That’s more or less all he told me
about his personal life.
He was more concerned about his career in the SS,
and that was the main topic of our talk.
Clearly, if you are a press officer at Coca-Cola,
things can get ugly when people suddenly find out
that you were in the SS.
[Arnon] But the Eichmann trial
happened already five years before,
so they already heard about it --
[Heinz Hoehne] No.
At that time, they weren’t concerned about it.
You have to remember, it was 1961.
Nobody wanted to hear
that somebody had been in the SS.
For example, if you look up what Coca-Cola wrote …
to commemorate von Mildenstein’s 60th birthday,
that’s one sweet little biography.
Nobody would ever imagine
this man had any connection to the SS.
There were lots of holes in it.
[Arnon] So what von Mildenstein
actually did during the war?
[Heinz Hoehne] There are no traces
of Mildenstein in the SS after 1937.
I haven’t seen any.
And I’ve rummaged through many files.
They don’t exist.
***
[Engine whirring]
[Arnon] When Heinz Hoehne
researched SS history,
many documents were off limits to him
because they were kept in East Germany.
I go to the reunited national archive
to find what Hoehne couldn’t.
As it turns out,
many von Mildenstein documents survived the war.
[Leopold von Mildenstein]
Among them: a membership card from the Nazi Party
before they took power,
a letter of appointment as an SS officer,
and a CV in his own handwriting.
1935 to ’36:
Head of department at the SD, the secret service.
1937: A trip abroad, just like Edda said.
But oops.
1938: Goebbels’ Ministry of Propaganda,
where he spent seven years as a department head.
[Reichsministerium Volksaufklarung und Propaganda]
So von Mildenstein didn’t quit the party.
He was promoted within its ranks
less than a year
after he said good-bye to my grandparents.
[Flips the coin: SWASTIKA: UND ERZAHLT DAVON IM ANGRIFF / STAR OF DAVID: EIN NAZI FAHRT NACH PALASTINA]
Mogen Dovid and Swastika To Fly Side by SideHamburg – The Blue and White Zionist flag with the Mogen Dovid, the star of David, will fly side by side with the German swastika flag, when two German boats will begin to operate, within a short time, on Palestinian coastal transport.
The Atlantic Shipping Company is sending two motorships to Palestine loaded with the belongings of German Jews who have emigrated to Palestine. As the ships are registered in Germany they are bound to carry the official German flags. But upon their arrival in Palestine, where they will be used for local service, they will in addition fly the Zionist flag, probably in the hope of securing Jewish business and of counteracting the hatred of the swastika flag.
-- The Jewish Western Bulletin, Published by The Vancouver Jewish Administrative Council, Vancouver, B.C., Thursday, November 9, 1933
[Arnon] I just can’t understand the relationship
between my grandparents and von Mildenstein,
and no one seems to offer a satisfying explanation.
So I turn to an expert on Nazis and denial,
Professor Michael Wildt.
[Professor Michael Wildt] Hi.
[Arnon] Hello.
Happy to see you.
[Professor Michael Wildt] Hello.
A man like Mildenstein
is educated.
He knows the world. He’s fluent in many languages …
He’d consider himself a highly educated man.
With …
a Jew …
who had a similar education
and was on his own level intellectually,
he’d have lively, pleasant conversations.
And he would always separate between the two, saying,
“It is my duty as a National Socialist
“to free Germany and Europe of the Jews,
“and here I have this individual Jew,
“who, of course, will have to go one day,
“
but I can have good conversations with him,
“and I can have a good contact with him.”
[Arnon] My biggest surprise was
that I found out that the Tuchlers and Mildenstein
were in contact also after the war.
They renewed their friendship.
And I cannot understand it.
How can it be?
[Professor Michael Wildt] The question
how was it possible that after the war
the Tuchlers and the Mildensteins
have renewed their relationship …
might have …
more to do with Tuchler than with von Mildenstein.
What did Tuchler know about Mildenstein?
What did Mildenstein tell him?
Even for a persecuted Jew,
it’s important --
if you’ve lived in Germany for so long,
your family lived here for centuries,
you yourself lived here for decades,
and then that country wants to expel you,
you find it unbearable to imagine
that all Germans want to expel you,
that all Germans are like the Nazis
and they want to expel you.
You find this again and again, in many documents:
There must be at least one good German
who keeps in touch with you,
who accepts you as a human being,
who talks to you eye to eye,
who listens to you,
and treats you like a human being.
[Arnon] I look at pictures
of my grandparents returning to Germany
time and again,
as if they wanted to prove that their homeland
didn’t reject them.
And I try to imagine their first talk
with von Mildenstein after the war.
Did he tell them what he told his daughter,
that he left it all behind to travel around the world?
And did they
in order to deal with the loss of Susanne Lehmann,
choose to believe their friend wasn’t involved?
But my dilemma is not what to believe or not to believe.
I have to decide what to do with what I know.
[To Edda] You know, but what I found –
and I felt that I must tell you because, you know …
because of our, you know, some kind of a friendship
that’s started even between us, is,
I found out new information about your father.
What I found to document
that he was working in Goebbels’ ministry,
and he was officer in the SD,
which was the intelligence for the SS,
and that’s really different from what I knew so far.
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] Yeah, I don’t quite believe that
because he wasn’t there anymore.
He was not in Berlin after --
I don’t’ know whether the forces were sort of gathering up
or if he stayed long enough,
he would have been in the forces himself.
He didn’t.
Because that’s when they went to Japan.
[Arnon] I went to the Bundesarchiv,
and this is something that I copied for you.
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] Yeah, okay.
[Arnon] See, this is, uh --
That’s his handwriting, yeah?
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] Yep.
[Arnon] Here he writes in his C.V.
that he joined Goebbels’ ministry and …
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] Okay, I mean, that is like a skeleton.
I’ve got something where, if I found the pieces,
could patch them to that, but not more than that.
With all fairness and even wanting to do it,
I wouldn’t know where to start at the minute.
[Arnon] There is a whole file in the Bundesarchiv,
but you can ask if you are interesting in it.
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] Yeah, I mean, I’m interested.
Like, you know, if you’ve got someone in the family
who’s done something,
you want to find out what was he thinking about it,
and why did it sort of – where did he go,
and where was the rest of the family at that time?
Um …
This gives nothing, really, on that, does it?
[Arnon] You think it will help to --
Do you want to learn about the past?
[Edda Milz v.Mildenstein] I want to learn around it, but I’d like to sort of,
preferably, see different sides of it as well,
if that is possible.
Um …
Anything else?
***
[Rain pattering]
[Arnon] When you start talking about the past,
it’s impossible to stop.
Who would have imagined that my mother and I
would visit the grave of Heinrich Lehmann,
Susanne’s husband, my mother’s grandfather,
my great-grandfather?
[To his mother] I think it’s straight on …
[Mother Hannahle] And then left, somewhere …
That sign says, “P7.” Is there a “P7”?
[Arnon] Yes, here it is.
There’s “A7” and “B7.”
[Mother Hannahle] This is “B7.”
[Arnon] Here’s “A4.”
[Mother Hannahle] Grandma could’ve asked to have something written on her grave
in memory of her mother, who doesn’t even have a grave.
Right?
[Arnon] Right.
What do you think she’d say if she knew you came to visit?
[Mother Hannahle] I think she’d say, “The nerve!
“What are you doing here? This is none of your business!”
What would she think about it …?
[Arnon] How do you feel about her now?
[Mother Hannahle] Because she didn’t tell me about it?
[Arnon] Yes.
[Mother Hannahle] I’m surprised now, but back then …
[Arnon] But now that we’re uncovering all the secrets,
disregarding what she’d forbidden ….
[Mother Hannahle] Well …
In retrospect, I should have done that more often.
I should’ve disregarded her “no-nos” much more often.
But it doesn’t really move me. I can’t say it does.
[Arnon] Does it bother you that you aren’t moved?
[Mother Hannahle] I can’t say if it bothers me or not.
[Arnon] It bothers me.
It bothers me that you aren’t moved by what we’re seeing here.
[Mother Hannahle] It does?
[Arnon] Yes.
It’s even making me sad that you …
[Mother Hannahle] That I react with no …
Listen.
Either you have it, or you don’t.
It’s not something you acquire or pretend to have.
[Thunder rumbling]
[Mother Hannahle] Are you going the right way?
[Arnon] Hold on.
[Mother Hannahle] I saw “Q4” over there.
[Arnon] “Q4.”
[Mother Hannahle] Here it is.
[Arnon] Ah, okay.
Wow.
[Raining hard]
[Mother Hannahle] Ooh.
[Arnon] Oh, wow.
[Mother Hannahle] Started raining again.
[Arnon] One, two, three, four.
[Rain intensifies]
[Mother Hannahle] Wow, wow, wow.
[Arnon] Wow, wow, wow.
[Looking for graves]
[Mother Hannahle] Let’s say this is one, two …
[Arnon] No, this is three.
[Mother Hannahle] Three.
[Checking among the brambles with her feet]
Nothing.
There’s nothing here.
Nothing in this row.
I didn’t think we wouldn’t find it.
[Arnon] Neither did I.
It must be here somewhere.
[Mother Hannahle] There used to be many graves here,
and now they’re all gone.
***
[Melancholy piano music]
[Arnon] [Takes portraits of grandma and grandpa off walls and leaves the flat with them]
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY ARNON GOLDFINGER
EDITED BY TALI HALTER SHENKAR
CINEMATOGRAPHY BY PHILIPPE BELLAICHE TALI (TULIK) GALON
SOUND RECORDING BY AMOS ZIPORI
ORIGINAL MUSIC BY YONI RECHTER
FEATURING:
HANNAH GOLDFINGER
EDDA MILZ VON MILDENSTEIN
HARALD MILZ
GERTURDE KINO
HEINZ HOHNE
PROF. MICHAEL WILDT
ELAT NEGEV
GUIDO JOCKER
YAIR GOLDFINGER
GIDI GOLDFINGER
VARDA OFEK
SHIRAN OFEK
RANI EISENBERG
HAIM MARK
UZI LUSCKI
MANUEL TROKES
TAMAR TUCHLER
MICHAEL ADLER
DR. AVRHAM BARKAI
JEHUDA KOREN
ERIKA JOCKER
ORIT GOLDFINGER-MENDEL
NOAM GOLDFINGER
RON OFEK
KEREN OFEK
MIRJAM TROKES
MEITAL BEILI
YARON AMIT
RESEARCHED BY:
MAREIKE LEUCHTE
FRANZISKA LINDNER
ARNON GOLDFINGER
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: FRANZISKA LINDNER
POST PRODUCTION PRODUCER ISRAEL: ALON CASPI
ADDITIONAL SOUND RECORDING: TULLY CHEN; DANIEL SHITRIT; SHARON LUZUN
TRANSLATIONS: RACHEL LEAH JONES; BERYL SCHENNEN; STEFANIE GROMES; SIMEON REUSCH; MICHAEL THOMAS PEINE
POST PRODUCTION STUDIOS: EDIT STUDIOS; SASHA FRANKLIN; TAMAR ROSEN, AMIT GILBOA; NOA ASSIDO; SHALOM DADUCH; LIHI ARONOVITCH; ORI ALON, OHAD NAVE; NOAM LEVI; OFIR BAR ZEDEK; MORAN AZOLAI
ARCHIVES: HERZLIYA STUDIOS ARCHIVE; FEDERAL ARCHIVE OF GERMANY; NDR; THE STEVEN SPIELBERG JEWISH FILM ARCHIVE OF THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM AND THE WORLD ZIONIST ORGANIZATION
SPECIAL THANKS TO:
MANUEL TROKES
SHUKI FRIEDMAN
SINAI ABT
ORNA YARMUT
REUVEN HECKER
DOVI KEICH
HERBERT STAHL
MONIKA PREISCHL
LINDA LOVITCH
JUTTA DOBERSTEIN
BILHA & GABI TUCHLER
FANNY ENGELRAD
BELA NOHAM
SHLOMO ARONSON
WOLF KAISER
ESTI ZAKHEIM
NOIT GEVA
OSNAT TRABELSI
SUBI SHILOACH
AMIR HAREL
MIRJAM TROKES
DAVID FISHER
ADI ARBEL
RACHEL SHOMER
AMIR TAUSINGER
MELANIE MARGALIT
MONIKA NAKATH
DOMINIK SIEGMUND
SHLOMO MEIR
ANKE RAUTHMANN
SIMONE LADWIG-WINTERS
ITTA SHEDLETZKY
DANIEL FRAENKEL
TAMI SAGI
REINHOLD GERKEN
YOAV RAZ
DAVID OFEK
AMOS SHUV
RONIT YOELI TLALIM
OSHRA SCHWARTZ – REIM
WIENER COLLECTION, TEL AVIV
LANDESARCHIV BERLIN
BStU
THE DPEARTMENT FOR FILM AND TV AT THE TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY
YAD VA SHEM
BRANDENBURG MAIN STATE ARCHIVE
DEDICATED WITH LOVE TO: SHLOMIT, HADAR, HILLEL AND MY FATHER
WITH THE SUPPORT OF: THE NEW ISRAELI FOUNDATION FOR CINEMA AND TELEVISION; THE MINISTRY OF CULTURE & SPORT; THE ISRAELI FILM COUNCIL
COPYRIGHT 2011 ARNON GOLDFINGER / ZERO ONE FILM / ZDF / SWR NOGA COMMUNICATIONS – CHANNEL 8
_______________
Unasked and unanswered questions in Arnon Goldfinger's movie, "The Flat":
1. What did Arnon mean when he said, "When I grew up, I realized that the meaningful things were always left unspoken," while the camera rests on Kurt Tuchler's portrait?
2. What did Mother Hannahle mean when she said about her parents, "I had my own burden of living with them."
3. Was Kurt Tuchler a member of the Nazi Party?
4. Was Kurt Tuchler made an honorary Aryan by Adolf Hitler, as, for example, Emil Maurice?
5. Was Kurt Tuchler a spy for the German government during the war? Did he provide intelligence to the SS, support German foreign policy in the Near East, try to find oil sources for the German Reich, provide information on the various Jewish boycott groups, and on Jewish plots against the lives of prominent Nazis, as promised by and envisioned for Feivel Polkes?
6. What is the history of Kurt Tuchler AFTER he moved to Israel?
7. If Baron Leopold von Mildenstein was a CIA agent after the war, was Kurt Tuchler also a CIA agent after the war? Is that why the two families were meeting in Germany after the war?
8. Who is Arnon Goldfinger's father, and what is his history? Was he a Zionist? Why would a Zionist or his wife have regret for what previous Zionists did?