“The Flat” is opening at the independent Loft Theater, 3233 E.Speedway on November 16.

At age 98, director Arnon Goldfinger’s grandmother passed away, leaving him the task of clearing out the Tel Aviv flat that she and her husband shared for decades after immigrating from Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Sifting through a mountain of photos, letters, files, and objects, Goldfinger undertook the complex process of making sense of the accumulated ephemera of a lifetime. In the process, he began to uncover clues pointing to a complicated and shocking story: a chronicle of the unexpected yet inevitable ethical ambiguities and repressed emotions that arise when everyday friendships suddenly cross enemy lines.

In his award-winning, emotionally riveting documentary, The Flat, Goldfinger follows the hints his grandparents left behind to investigate long-buried family secrets and unravel the mystery of their painful past. The result is a moving family portrait and an insightful look at the ways different generations deal with the memory of the Holocaust.

My Native German husband (whose father was drafted into the German Army at the end of WWII) watched a screener version of this documentary. This film is about an Israeli grandson who goes on a quest to find out about the friendship between his deceased grandparents Kurt and Gerda Tuchler (former Germans) and a pro-Zionist Nazi Officer Leopold von Mildenstein and his wife. As this documentary is being made, revelations about Holocaust victims in their family are revealed. Apparently this friendship continued after WWII, which is disturbing to filmmaker Arnon Goldfinger. Different viewpoints about the information about the Holocaust following WWII are presented in the film.