This movie is about the emotional and historical journey taken by Arnon Goldfinger, a filmmaker, as he explores his grandmother's life based on artifacts he finds among her possessions after her death and interviews with people outside the family. Goldfinger's grandparents left Germany in 1936 for Palestine.As the daughter of someone who was similarly expelled from Germany by the Nazis, this movie resonated deeply. The silences, secrets and omissions in the family's communications about themselves and their history are very familiar. Goldfinger does an excellent job of revealing the sadness and confusion created when painful truths are revealed.The movie centers on Goldfinger's great-grandmother Susi, his grandmother Gerda, and his mother Hannah. Matralineality is recognized by the Jewish faith as the means by which Judiasm is conferred on offspring. In this sense, the women are the keepers of the faith. For Goldfinger's family, Gerda did not, or could not, sustain the powerful emotional family life that she knew in Germany. Her daughter Hannah was almost completely ignorant of her grandmother Susi's existence and had a relationship with Gerda that was not particularly close. When Hannah discovers Susi's letters among Gerda's effects, letters that proclaim love for Hannah and fervent hopes for Hannah's safe future, Hannah shrugs and claims she knew nothing about it. This is a profound emotional loss for Hannah, even though she fails to recognize it. Arnon's relationship with his mother Hannah is similarly not particularly close. In the end, this is the movie's most powerful message: how the Holocaust destroyed much more than the millions of lives terminated. Through the thread of the plot that traces the history of a highly ranked Nazi whom Goldfinger's grandparents befriended, it is also clear that the Germans were never held fully accountable for their crimes.Congratulations to Arnon Goldfinger for having the courage to explore the past, no matter where it led.

I had never heard of this film as we don't get many documentaries in our area and if it was shown at a Jewish film festival, it would have eluded me. Although this is a documentary focused on the holocaust, primarily whet I took away; is that there are people who want to be realists and deal with the truths of their own and the lives of others and there are those who live lives of denial. It is my opinion that the second type of people actually endanger not only themselves but those they may love very much.I knew people who themselves had been in camps or were the children of those who had been, but I had never stopped to consider the "lapping" over of lives of those who had been persecutors and persecuted. And of course there must be many such instances of this.Many people on the message boards have criticized Aron Goldfinger for confronting the daughter, Edda, of the Von Mildensteins. But why should he not have done so? She said her father was traveling in Japan during the war, but did his grandparents receive any letters from his travels then? I was sort of disgusted with both husband and wife in that situation. that the camps had been Russian and American propaganda, I am roughly the same age as Hannah and Edda and believe me I would have known if all the Jewish children in my school had disappeared. What do they think happened to those people. Where are all the other Arons that should have populated Germany? They never got born because there parents died in the camps.Through one of those odd twists of fate I became involved in a correspondence with a woman whose parents had been very prominent in Hitlar's Nazi Germany. When it was found that one of the couple were not completely Aryan they had to leave Germany and settled with their large family in the town I now live in. When I first heard from one of these children I did research in the newspaper archives here, and like Edda my correspondent was very desirous of explaining away her parents involvement in events that took place in Germany.We here in the United States are supposed to continue to feel guilty about the fact that this country once allowed slavery. No one alive today owned a slave here, and many are descended from people who did not even live in America during slave owning years. But there are many in Germany who lived though those years of 1930 and 1940 and who claim to have no knowledge of anything unpleasant that happened, except to themselves. As we learn Edda and her husband had spent many years living in England.My husband and I are both very pleased that we saw this wonderful documentary and we both liked Aron very much.

What I never understood was how the holocaust could have happened in a country that had excelled in philosophic thoughts, music and literature. I have seen many films related to the holocaust. I have even visited Auschwitz. I never thought I would see a film like this on the subject. The film was very sensitively produced and seemed very honest to the content. What is fascinating is that the characters were all real. Like a documentary. Yet the film had a story that flowed. I would certainly see it again to fill the gaps that I may have missed. What I would also like to find out is the reaction to this film in Israel and Germany.

Imagine that your grandmother has just passed away and your family is cleaning out her apartment. Amidst all the stuff your grandmother has collected, you find a tantalizing and shocking newspaper article involving your grandparents that you never heard about before from any other family member including your mother. This is essentially the set-up for 'The Flat', a fascinating new documentary by Israeli filmmaker Arnon Goldfinger.Goldfinger's grandparents, Gerda and Kurt Tuchler, were German Jews who emigrated to Palestine (now Israel) in 1936 after the Nazis forced them out. The article was from a virulent Nazi newspaper, Der Angriff, from 1934, which chronicles a trip made by a high Nazi official, Leopold von Mildenstein, to Palestine. The article features photos of Mildenstein traveling to Palestine with Goldfinger's grandparents.The mystery is not only why this SS man would go to Palestine with two Jews but why Goldfinger's grandparents would accompany him. Furthermore, Goldfinger discovers that his grandparents visited Mildenstein in Germany AFTER World War II numerous times and kept up a friendship with him and his wife.The documentary brings out the fact that in 1934 the Nazi policy of 'The Final Solution' (i.e. the extermination of the Jewish people) had not been developed and there was some consideration of deporting German Jews to Palestine. Mildenstein apparently was on a scouting mission to see if deportation was a feasible solution to the "Jewish Question". Mildenstein actually headed the SS Office of Jewish Affairs prior to it being taken over by the infamous Adolph Eichmann. Clips from Eichmann's 1961 trial in Israel are shown along with transcripts from the trial indicating that Eichmann considered Mildenstein as an "expert" on Jewish affairs and that he was basically his mentor! Nonetheless, Mildenstein, apparently was not a racialist and privately had no problems socializing with Jewish people. The Tuchlers may not have been aware of Mildenstein's Nazi affiliations and were simply glad a non-Jewish German would strike up a friendship with them.After Mildenstein's replacement at the Office of Jewish Affairs in 1937, his movements in Germany up until the end of the war were largely unknown. Goldfinger flies to Germany and meets up with Mildenstein's daughter, Edda, who firmly believed that her father was no longer affiliated with the Nazis during the war. Goldfinger seeks out a retired journalist who wrote about Mildenstein during the 1960s when he had become an executive for Coca-Cola. Although the former SS officer was mentioned during the Eichmann trial, his reputation wasn't tarnished as it was believed (as the retired reporter pointed out), that his affiliation with the Nazis had ended in 1937, when he was replaced by Eichmann. During the war (as Mildenstein's daughter's husband indicates) Mildenstein was believed to be a mere 'journalist'.The plot thickens when Goldfinger finds Mildenstein's wartime file in records located in the former East Germany, which were not available to journalists back in the 60s. Goldfinger discovers that Mildenstein was actually promoted as an official in Goebbal's propaganda ministry and worked there for the rest of the war. Goldfinger confronts Mildenstein's daughter with the new information about her father and she appears reluctant to believe what Goldfinger is telling her. Even after she shows her a copy of her father's resume indicating his Nazi affiliations during the war, it is obvious that she's now quite uncomfortable dealing with these new revelations.As for Goldfinger's grandparents, he interviews an expert on German Jewish history who points out that the Tuchlers obviously were not aware of Mildenstein's Nazi wartime activities. They were also willing to forgive him for any past Nazi associations, due to their past friendship with him. Despite being Jewish, the Tuchlers never learned Hebrew while in Israel and continued to speak German. They continued to identify with German culture in spite of the Holocaust and that's why they visited Germany many times after the war.For the most part, 'The Flat' is riveting--only the ending proves to be slightly awkward. As Goldfinger and his mother walk through an old German Jewish cemetery in Germany, they search for the grave of his great-grandfather. Goldfinger unnecessarily berates his mother for not taking more of an interest in her parents when they were alive in order to find out more about their history. Apparently, his grandparents were as complicit as the mother in not revealing information about their time living in Germany and their association with Mildenstein. The mother concedes she should have taken more of an interest in the family history but when she was younger, we have to believe her that she simply had no interest at that time.'The Flat' brings to the fore more revelations regarding issues of guilt and responsibility of ordinary Germans vis-à-vis the Holocaust. By the same token, it chronicles conflicting feelings on the part of those German Jews who survived. 'The Flat' plays out like a detective mystery, with its talented creator cast in the role of high stakes super sleuth!