Stars

In 1943 Walter, a German sergeant posted to a Bulgarian town far from the fighting, spends his days painting in something close to comfort. Then a transit camp is set up there for Jews brought from Greece and held until they can be deported to Auschwitz. When Ruth, a Greek Jewish teacher among the internees, asks him to help a pregnant woman, an unlikely bond forms between them. The film refuses to turn that into a rescue story; it shows how narrow Walter’s means are and how far hesitation can carry a man. Konrad Wolf directed, working from the recollections of the Bulgarian writer Angel Wagenstein, and it is counted among the first German films to look directly at German responsibility for the Holocaust. The first East German and Bulgarian co-production, it won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes in 1959.