Michla and Feiv’ke Schwarz, sister and brother, could have re-met in Lodz in 1945. But they didn’t. She migrated to a Jewish state in the Middle East and started a family there, while he returned to East Germany, changed his name to Peter, married a German woman and lived the rest of his life in the camp where he was once a prisoner. But that is just the beginning. The outcome of their decision 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.
Farewell, Herr Schwarz is an epic documentary by Yael Reuveny, the granddaughter of Michla Schwarz, a personal journey between Israel and Germany.