The apple tree

For years, I ran away from my story. Then I reinvented it.

For the novel about his family, actor Christian Berkel traced his roots. He visited archives, read correspondence, and undertook journeys. The result is a grand family saga set against the backdrop of a whole century of German history, telling the tale of an extraordinary love.

Berlin 1932: Sala and Otto are thirteen and seventeen years old when they fall in love with each other. He comes from the working class, she from an intellectual Jewish family. In 1938, Sala must leave her German homeland and stays with her Jewish aunt in Paris until the Germans invade France. While Otto goes to war as a medical officer with the Wehrmacht, Sala is betrayed during an escape attempt and interned in a camp in the Pyrenees. There, one quickly dies from hunger or disease; those who survive until 1943 are deported to Auschwitz. Sala is lucky; she is put on a train to Leipzig and goes underground. Shortly before the end of the war, Otto is captured by the Russians and returns to the devastated Berlin in 1950. For Sala, peace marks the beginning of an odyssey that takes her all the way to Buenos Aires. There, she tries to build a new life, fails, and returns. They have not seen each other for ten years. But when Sala sees Otto's name in the phone book, she knows she has never forgotten him.

With great elegance, Christian Berkel narrates the gripping novel of his family. He takes us through three generations from Ascona, Berlin, Paris, Gurs, and Moscow to Buenos Aires. In the end, it is the story of two lovers who could not be more different yet cannot let go of each other throughout their lives.