Director Gaumnitz presents a very personal family history with his father at its center, a man who seemed to be on the run from a terrible secret his entire life.
Shortly after the war the father urges the family to leave Dresden and move to Sedan in the French Ardennes, for the French a symbol of the "hereditary enemy". Why, the son asks,does the father want to live in this hostile environment?
During the Nazi years the father was first emprisoned and later send to a concentration camp. He never spoke a word about this time, drowning his memories in alcohol, exposing his family to humiliations, to shame.Indebted up to their neck the family returns to Germany, this timie West Berlin in 1964. In 1996 the father dies.
With this film Gaumnitz wants to free himnself from the terrible silence, the fear that has dominated him his entire life. He visits the places of his father's life, he searches for eye-witnesses.