ROSENSTRASSE

Ruth, an elderly widow in New York City, is determined to sit shivah for her deceased husband, but her children are surprised at their mother’s sudden insistence on observing Jewish traditions. A mysterious woman appears at the ceremony but is abruptly turned away. Ruth’s daughter Hannah follows the woman and interrogates her about her mother’s life in Germany. Intrigued by what she has learned Hannah travels to Berlin to uncover Ruth’s childhood mysteries of terrible loss and survival. In the process she discovers that there were officially “Aryan” women who protested the seizure of their Jewish husbands. Under the careful direction of von Trotta, this film melds past and present and proves that the scars left by the Holocaust on the living are still long and deep. -- Chale Nafus, Director of Programming, Austin Film Society