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The story covers the Bernini family's trials and tribulations from the late 19th century until the end of World War II. It is set mostly in Hamburg. The main plot concerns Alf Bertini, an aspiring concert pianist who has a Swedish mother and an Italian father. He marries a girl of Jewish-German birth, who is also musical and a piano teacher, and she raises three boys in Hamburg. Problems for the family begin when the NAZIs seize power (1933). The family keeps certain Jewish holidays and a kosher kitchen, but they also have a Christmas tree with presents for the children and do not attend a synagogue in Hamburg. Alf, who is a veteran of World War I and still keeps his uniform as a souvenir, never succeeds as a performing pianist, and his wife, Lea (played by Hannelore Hogen), tries to keep the family together in meagre circumstances by giving piano lessons. The father's failure to become a famous pianist adds a certain psychological sadness and disillusionment to the family atmosphere.
The family, however, believes strongly in education. The family gradually becomes the object of persecution because Alf has married a Jew and his family comes under the new Nuremberg laws that single out Germans who are guilty of the crime of "intermarriage".
: An American HBC reader has kindly provided this review to us. He speaks competent, but not fluent German. He viewed the German version of the progeam. (There is no English version with subtitles. He tells us, "There may be details of their plight that I didn't catch because of my German and there are no subtitles." We incourage HBC's German readers to comment on this review as appropriate.
The story covers the Bernini family's trials and tribulations from the late 19th century until the end of World War II. The main plot concerns Alf Bertini, who as the name suggests is not of German origins. He has a Swedish mother and an Italian father. Alf is an aspiring concert pianist He marries a girl of Jewish-German birth, who is also musical and a piano teacher. She gives up her promising musical career to care for the children when they begin to arrive. Alf, who is a veteran of World War I and still keeps his uniform as a souvenir, never succeeds as a performing pianist, and his wife, Lea (played by Hannelore Hogen), tries to keep the family together in meagre circumstances by giving piano lessons. The father's failure to become a famous pianist adds a certain psychological sadness and disillusionment to the family atmosphere.
The Berinis raises three boys in Hamburg. The family keeps certain Jewish holidays and a kosher kitchen, but they also have a Christmas tree with presents for the children and do not attend a synagogue in Hamburg. She is a secular Jew and doesn't want her three sons to be isolated in any way from their Christian friends. At one Christmas, the family gather around the tree and Lea, the mother, plays a lovely Bach chorale on the piano. We see the mother preparing cabbage rolls for a meal (a Jewish dish) and I think the Jewish dietary rules are observed at the family table. But we don't see the family involved in Jewish religious rituals or praying. (This was the case even before the NAZIs seized power. After the NAZIs seized power, Jewish worship, If reported, could have caused the whole family to be reclassified as Jewish.) While Alf fails as a pianist and the family struggles economically, he suceeds as a father. He stays with Lea and the boys even when the NAZIs seize power.
Problems for the Bertini family begin when the NAZIs seize power (1933). The family gradually becomes the object of persecution because Alf has married a Jew and his family comes under the new Nuremberg laws that single out Germans who are guilty of "intermarriage". The boys are intelligent and sensitive. But when Hitler comes to power in 1933, the family gradually becomes the object of persecution because Alf has married a Jew and his family in 1935 comes under the new Nuremberg laws that single out Germans who are guilty of the crime of "intermarriage". Only gradually do the boys become aware of the racial persecution that begins increasingly to make their parents' life miserable under the NAZI regime. This was a problem faced by many mixed couples. In many cases the couples undr NAZI pressure divorced. The fate of the children involved in such marriages varied. Some men simply abandoned their families.
When the NAZIs seized power, Jews had full civil rights and were not defined legally. The NAZI Nuremberg Laws changed this (1935). The Nuremberg laws defined Jews biologically. A Jew was defined as a person who had at least three Jewish grandparents, regardless of religious affiliation or self-identification. A person with two Jewish grandparents was more complicated. Any one of four further factors would classify them as Jews. The factors were: 1) practiced the Jewish religion, 2) was married to a Jew, 3) belonged to a Jewish organization, or 4) had two Jewish grandparents coupled with maternal illegitimacy. People with two Jewish granparents that were not included in any of the four factors were classified as Mischling first class (Mischling of the first degree). Mischling means "crossbread in German. It was an insulting term as it was a term used for animals. Individuals with only one Jewish grandparent were Mischling Second Class. The Bertini boys were thus not categorized as Jews, but Mischling First Class. Thus they did not have to wear yellow stars. (Their mother did have to wear it.) They were not expelled from the schools nor were they subject to deportation during the War. (Their mother was, but the NAZIs were generally reluctant to deport Jewish spouces of German citizens.) The boys were subject to various humiliations and their educational opportunities were restricted.
The family believes strongly in education. The Bertinis encourage the boys academically. We see the boys leaving home for primary school on a dark morning and returning home at night with stocking caps to keep their ears warm. The scenes involving primary school occur in 1932-33 just on the threshold of Hitler's seizing power in 1933, but at this point the family is only peripherally aware of the NAZI menace. But when the boys are old enough to go to the gymnasium a couple of years later, it is already 1935, and the Nuremberg laws have gone into effect (September 1935). Each of their three suceed in gaining admission to a good gymnasium (selective secondaty school). Most German children at the time only went to primary school. Children had to do well academically to gain admission to gymnasium or other secondary school, which before World war II were mostly single-gender schools. Just before the boys (shown with their mother in the picture) enter the gymnasium building, they ascend an outdoor staircase and are almost prevented from moving up the stairs by a large group of men in Nazi uniforms with red arm bands who rush down the steps and almost knock them down. The person who a few minutes later interrupts their class is some sort of NAZI official, though he is not in uniform. The two boys entered their gymnasium before the NAZIs seized power. After the NAZIs began to govern, political reliability and not just academic achievemdent became a factor in gaining admission to secondary schools. Applicants would present information about their perforance in the Hitler Youth. And parents had to sign documents affirming their Aryan staztus. Mischiling's would have difficulty gaining admissiin to most schools. University admissiin was almost impossible. It is not clear how the boys managed to get into their gynasium. It may haave been that 1935 was still relatively early in the NAZI era and not all the regulations had been promulgated or the anti-NAZI teachers dismissed from the schools.
The only humiliations the boys suffer when young is at school when their family background of "mixed marriage" is denounced by NAZI official. It is not clear who this official was and from what agency. We do not know how common this was. It would have required some effort on the officia;s part. More commonly we have read about pro-NAZI teachers doing this kind of thing.
And of course the Bertini boys are surprised when they hear anti-Semetic hatred expressed by ordinary people whom they meet. Although their mother is Jewish, she doesn't bring up the boys in an obviously separatist way.
The boys have no connection with Hitler Youth (HJ). There are no scenes about the HJ asking them to join or HJ boys taunting them. There is one scene where their mother tries to shield the youngest boy, Ludwig, from even watching a NAZI parade. It is notexplained why the boys did not join the HJ. The NAZIs made membership at age 10 mandatory. And Mischlings were allowed in the HJ. Here our infirmation is limited. We know that Second class Mischlings participated in the HJ. We are not sure about First Class Mischlings. It may be that the HJ would not have pushed membership for Mischlings. The HJ was, however, such an important part of youth life in NAZI Germany that their failure to join would have been noted by the other boys at school and in the neighborhood.
The family lives in modest cinditions in Hamburg. The parents struggle so that their boys will be able to achieve more than they did. The NAZI rise to power, however, makes this impossible. Here the Gestapo man " Melone" (Gerd Haucke) makes an early appearance. Alf loses his job. The boys lose their places at school. And finally they are ejected from their apartment. They flee on the country,
Later in the 1930s, the Bertini family, for reasons of self-protection, moves to a farming community in the country where they occupy a farm house and are involved in agriculural activities--growing crops and harvesting. They meet the local Lutheran pastor and are seen, in one scene, actually attending the local Lutheran church. But even in the country there is evident local prejudice against the family because of their Jewish connections and the family is forced to move back to the city.
The film punctuates the scenes with shots of German newspaper headlines that keep us abreast of the terrible political changes that are gradually changing Germany into a hideous dictatorship and threatens anybody with Jewish connections or
humane values. There are also maps, which are shown periodically to keep us aware of the expansion of Germany as she takes over neighboring countries by force and then dwindles again as she is losing the war on all fronts.
Late in the film, when the boys are y are grown up, one of the brothers is savagely interrogated. (We are not sure why.) He is shown bleeding with head and mouth wounds. He is briefly imprisoned. Their rooms at home are ransacked for any evidence of pro-Jewish literature or opinion. Even music is seized.
The family returns to Hamburg from the country and attempt to be more anonymous libing in an apartment. After their apartment is bombed, we see the boys bringing sheets of plywood to board up the broken windows and make necessary repairs to their dwelling. This probaby occurred in 1943 as this was when Hamburg was devestated by a series of bombed raids by the Allies. The two older boys at this point are of militry age. It is not explained why they are not conscripted.
There is a pathetic scene at the railway station where Jewish families are reporting for deportation. Scholars differe as thow much Germans, even German Jews, knew about the fate of the deportees. The boys as Mischlings were not subject to deportation, but there mother was. This may be why the family went into hiding. NAZI authorities did not move aggrssively against the spouces of German citizens. The NAZIs did begin arresting a number of Jewish husbands of German women.
This gave rise to the Rosenstrasse protest (February-March 1943). This was a non-violent protest in Rosenstrasse conducted outside the building where their husbands were detained. The protestors were the German wives and relatives (mostly women). It was a rare example of public protest in Germany to the Holocaust. Thus while Lea as a Jew was in danger, she probably would not have received aeportment order. Lea's parents as Jews were subject to deportmenr. There is some indication that Lea's mother rotects herself by making secret payments to an older woman who can assist in concealing her Jewish identity. I'm not sure just how this worked.
One of the boys when young is of course interested in military matters and is showing trying on his father's uniform, left over from World War I. And he briefly handles his father's handgun (unloaded apparently). The boys although of military age were not conscripted into the Wehrmacht or even labor brigades. The film does not explain why that is. We are unsure at this time how the conscripted law handeled Mischlings. I believe they were drafted without restriction, but I am not sure. We see Ludwig, the youngest boy (who is at this point about 17), sitting in a bomb shelter and dressed in short trousers and knee socks. But he is simply protecting himself with other children and adults. He stands out a little bit from the other refugees because there are few youths of his age in the shelter. Presumably the other youths anf young men were in the German military.
Lea Bertini, the boys' mother, suffers from a chronic illness. She faints at various points and has to lie down. I think she has heart trouble but am not sure. This increases the difficulties of the family. We see the boys trying to comfort and tend to their mother in her health crisis, but there is not much they can do to help her except provide emotional support. After their Hamburg apartment is bombed, we see the boys bringing sheets of plywood to board up the broken windows and make necessary repairs to their dwelling. This occurs about 1944.
We are not sure why the Bertinis went into hiding. According to the film, they were constantly in fear. They didn't always hide, just at times of crisis. And of course they were afraid of Allied bombing with good reason. Hamburg was one of the German citiies devestated by the Allied bombing. Its location in western Germany and on the North Coast meant that it was particularly vunerable. The British and American raids (July 24-August 2, 1943) devestated the city. As a result, the NAZIs began deporting Hamburg Jews so homes and apartments could be found for displaced Germans. In the series, the Bertini's bulding in Hamburg was badly damaged. The family may have had trouble getting a housing billet after the devestating 1943 Allied bombing raid. They are forced to live hidden in a basement and also a rat-infested sewer.
The boys grow up but survive during the war and manage to keep the family together by hiding in basements. They end up horribly in a sewer infested with rats and nearly starve, but they manage to get through the war without being maimed or killed. The story ends on a rather dismal note when the family has lost neearly everthing but their love for each other.
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