Zeit der Wunder

Austria 1938. Twelve-year-old Bruno returns with his mother from summer vacation to his hometown. Suddenly, the train stops in the middle of the tracks, and a clear voice comes over the loudspeaker: All foreigners and non-Christians must register immediately. Signs of impending doom are everywhere. Only Bruno's father, a celebrated Jewish-Austrian writer, tirelessly seeks explanations for the inexplicable. He attributes all humiliations to the Eastern Jews. As the once quiet small town increasingly turns against them and the slanderous attacks on his work and character intensify, he even adopts fundamentally anti-Semitic positions and leaves his wife and son. He is not the only one; many others now see their Jewish identity as a stain. Shortly thereafter, the rabbi calls all the Jews of the small town together.