Lovely are the birch forests around Minsk; less idyllic is the story being filmed there by director Alexander Franskewitsch-Laje for Russian cinema.
Nadine Heidenreich plays Frau Neumann (pictured here with Jörg Westphal), the head of the German military hospital in Minsk, who is firmly convinced of what she has to decide and answer for on behalf of the German Reich. Which of the Russian children may donate blood for the wounded German soldiers, and which may not. Jewish children's blood was not what she deemed valuable enough; the children of Jewish descent were sent to the Minsk ghetto. The shoot was emotionally far from easy.
In the number of Holocaust victims, Belarus ranks second in Europe after Ukraine. The story of the Minsk ghetto is a story of suffering and of unparalleled courage — not only of the Jewish people, but also of thousands of citizens of the Soviet Union: civilians from Minsk, Bobruisk, Gomel and other towns and villages of Belarus who, at their own risk and often at the cost of their own lives, saved their fellow citizens of Jewish origin — women, the elderly, children — from the ruthless occupiers.
The film tells the fate of two boys — twins of Jewish descent who flee the ghetto in Minsk created by the Nazis. The war tore them not only from their parents but also from one another, scattering them across different front lines. And only after many decades do they manage to find and see each other again.
Director: Alexander Franskewitsch-Laje
Production: Atlant Media Group
Casting: Valentina Popkova