Synopsis
The film accompanies Joan Salomon from New York on a visit to Essenheim. Her Jewish family had to leave the German village in 1934, after the hostilities had become too strong when the Nazis came to power. Only her mother managed to emigrate to America, her grandmother and her aunt were killed in a concentration camp. On the traces of the past she meets old Essenheim women who knew her family.She was born in New York in 1945, but the past also determined her life. Her mother never forgave herself failing to bring her family to America. So she hardly told her daughter anything about her life in Germany.
The film describes the desire for home, the search for origin, but also the way those who never been away, deal with the past.