Coquitlam Public Library

Tangled Roots

eng

videorecording

Tangled Roots

945762583

Originally produced by New Day Films in 2001

66

More than 55 years after the end of World War II, Germans and Jews still struggle with the difficult legacies of war. Filmmaker Heidi Schmidt Emberling confronts her German father and Jewish mother about the devastating secrets and painful silence about the past as she struggles to reconcile her dual identity as both a German and a Jew. Through intimate interviews with both her Jewish relatives in America and her German Lutheran relatives abroad, she discovers a rich family tapestry spanning three continents, shaped by war, courage, prejudice, and fear. Tangled Roots gives a personal voice to a rarely-heard minority, a generation of German children branded forever by their parent's actions during the war. The film also gives an original voice to the countless Jewish friends and family changed forever by the horrors of the Holocaust. Because there are few films that explore the lives of the first generation of Germans to grow up in the aftermath of World War II in Germany, Tangled Rootsbecomes a critical work in the ongoing dialogue between the Jewish and German communities

live action