Alles, was wir nicht erinnern

At the end of the Second World War unleashed by Nazi Germany, more than twelve million Germans were forced to flee or were driven from their homes - a collective trauma that still affects families today. It is linked to the fate of millions of refugees today and has become topical as a result of the war in Ukraine.

In January 2020, author Christiane Hoffmann sets off from Różyna (Rosenthal), a village in Lower Silesia, on her way west. On foot, she retraces the 550 km that her father covered as a nine-year-old in the winter of 1945, fleeing from the Red Army with the trek from his village. His escape finally led him to Wedel near Hamburg.

The emotional starting point of the daughter's journey is her rapprochement with her recently deceased father, whose lack of memory of what happened back then has shaped her life. It is an attempt to understand the effects of the trauma of flight on future generations. For the long-time foreign correspondent and current deputy government spokeswoman, it is also a journey through Europe into the shared history of Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic.

In February 2024, director Gernot Grünewald will travel to Różyna together with Christiane Hoffmann and Polish author Jarosław Murawski to collect documentary material for the theater evening in Gaußstraße. They spoke to contemporary witnesses and descendants of the Polish families expelled from western Ukraine in 1945, who now live in the village and in the Hoffmann family home. Together with the team, video artist Jonas Plümke examines how this gigantic population shift is still reflected in people, houses and landscapes along the escape route.

World premiere November 29, 2024, Thalia Gauss