arts &
From
To
Family History
Family Mystery
The troubled and taboo story of three generations of Germans — both Jewish and
non-Jewish — in the aftermath of the terrible events of World War II.
I
Tom Tugend
LA Jewish Journal
T
he Israeli documentary The Flat
begins in a Tel Aviv apartment,
where half a dozen people are
clearing out 70 years of clutter left behind
by their grandmother, who has died
recently at 98.
After this deceptively low-key start, the
film's director, writer and narrator, Arnon
Goldfinger, embarks on a real-life detec-
tive thriller while exploring some very
personal and haunting questions.
How much do we really know — or
want to know — about the lives of our
families, especially our grandparents?
What were the deep ties that bound
German Jews to a fatherland that had just
expelled them? Could a high-ranking Nazi
SS official also be an ardent Zionist and a ,
close friend of a Jewish couple?
Goldfinger's grandfather, Kurt Tuchler,
was a Berlin judge, an active Zionist and
a German patriot who had been deco-
rated in World War I. He and his wife,
Gerda, left Germany for Tel Aviv in 1936
and, during the seven decades they lived
in their flat, completely re-created their
Berlin milieu and never threw away a
single receipt, letter or pair of shoes.
As their surviving daughter and grand-
children throw sack after sack of litter into
a garbage dump, Arnon rescues a copy
of Der Angriff, a newspaper published by
Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels
himself, dated April 1933.
Why would Kurt Tuchler carry such an
anti-Semitic rag with him when leaving
for Palestine?
Well, the lead story is titled "A Nazi
Visits Palestine written by Leopold von
Mildenstein, which gives considerable
space to the accomplishments of the pio-
neer Jews reclaiming the land. The writer
was accompanied by his wife and by a
Jewish couple — Kurt and Gerda Tuchler,
Goldfinger's grandparents.
How was such a relationship possible?
As one analyst in the film explains, at the
time the Nazis just wanted to expel all the
Jews, and Palestine seemed like the place
to go.
The Zionist organization also wanted
the Jews to go to Palestine and, there-
fore, assigned two trusted members,
the Tuchlers, to accompany the von
ANIL PL:r.
Director Arnon Goldfinger interviews Edda von Mildenstein, daughter of SS officer
Leopold von Mildenstein, in The Flat.
— oft
4 11111
4/G
The filmmaker's grandparents Gerda and
Kurt Tuchler visiting Germany in the
1960s
Mildensteins.
But the relationship between the Nazi,
scion of an old aristocratic family, and the
Jew didn't end there. The von Mildensteins
accompanied the Tuchlers to the train
as they left for Palestine. Even after the
Holocaust, in which part of the Tuchlers'
family perished, the two couples resumed
their friendship, with von Mildenstein,
now the Coca-Cola representative in
Germany, hosting the Tuchlers year after
year.
So perhaps von Mildenstein was one of
the "good" Germans — or maybe not.
During his trial in Jerusalem in 1961,
Adolf Eichmann testified that his SS supe-
rior and mentor in "solving the Jewish
question:' and the recognized expert on
Judaism, was a von Mildenstein, who later
worked in Goebbels' propaganda ministry.
Goldfinger finds von Mildenstein's
daughter, Edda, who receives him warmly
but says that her father was merely a jour-
nalist and had been cleared of any war-
crimes charges.
Nazi SS official Leopold von Mildenstein
in Palestine in 1933
Interwoven in this central drama are
the relationships within the extended
Goldfinger family.
Arnon's siblings know practically noth-
ing about their grandparents, and even his
mother, the Tuchlers' daughter, counsels
initially that there is not much sense in
digging up old stories.
The Flat was screened last month at the
Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, and
afterward, a highly engaged audience had
a chance to question Goldfinger about his
film.
In response, the 49-year-old director,
obviously a thoughtful and sensitive per-
son — as well as a one-time chess prodigy
— explored some of the complexities of
his life and documentary.
How could the Nazi and the Jew carry
on a friendship, both before and after the
war, a viewer asked.
Von Mildenstein was an educated and
sophisticated man who found in Tuchler
his intellectual equal, Goldfinger proposed.
So the SS officer found no contradiction
in ordering the expulsion of Jews in the
■
Arnon Goldfinger and his mother,
Hannah Goldfinger
morning and in the afternoon having a
cup of coffee and stimulating chat with
Tuchler, though, regrettably, the Jew would
have to go in the end.
But why did the Tuchlers resume their
friendship even after the horrors of the
war and the Holocaust?
Goldfinger put the same question to a
German scholar as part of the documen-
tary, who answered that perhaps Tuchler
needed the relationship more than did von
Mildenstein.
The old, established Jewish community
in Germany was so invested in its German
identity that even after Hitler came to
power, it wanted to believe that not every-
body despised the Jews, that there were
indeed some "good" Germans.
Another audience member asked, "Did
von Mildenstein's daughter lie when she
defended her father's reputation?"
Goldfinger replied that she may not
have told everything she knew; she may
have been in denial, but that did not make
her an outright liar.
Deservedly, The Flat has been received
with acclaim and awards in Israel and
Germany, and recently won Best Editing
in a Documentary Feature at the 2012
Tribeca Film Festival in New York City.
It will be appreciated by anyone who
values first-class documentary filmmak-
ing with an open-minded exploration of
human complexity.
❑
The Flat is scheduled to open on
Wednesday, Nov. 21, at the Main Art
Theatre in Royal Oak. (248) 263-2111.
JN
November 15 • 2012
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