DIE VERLORENE ZEIT

New York 1976: Hannah Silberstein waits at the dry cleaner for her tablecloths. In order to pass the time she glances at the flickering screen of the old TV set in the corner, and can barely believe her eyes. There she catches sight of her beloved Tomasz, who she presumed to have died thirty two years earlier and now, before her very eyes, relates the story of his first encounter with the love of his life.

The met in 1944 in a concentration camp, to which Hannah as a German Jew and the Pole Tomasz, a political prisoner, had been deported. The two fell in love and in a desperate battle for survival Tomasz conceives of an escape plan. Disguised as an SS officer he helps his girlfriend to escape and together, after a march lasting several days, they reach the house of his mother, where they initially go into hiding. Tomasz shortly afterwards joins the Polish resistance and, since he fails to return after the end of the war, Hannah presumes he fell during the war. She returns to Germany, and ultimately emigrates to the USA.

In the confusion of rekindled emotions Hannah has only one thought in her mind: she has to travel to Poland, in order to find Tomasz. How should she convey this to her beloved husband and daughter however? “I’ve lost something”, she ultimately tells the latter.

A film about a love presumed lost, that in fact survived not only the war but also several decades. A touching melodrama inspired by true events.