Matinee at the Bundesplatz Cinema

"WHEN THE GESTAPO RANG THE DOORBELL - THE MICHALSKI FAMILY AND THEIR SILENT HEROES "
A 2018 film by Marie Rolshoven.
Matinee at Bundesplatz Kino, Bundespl. 14, 10715 Berlin.

Franz Michalski and his wife Petra Michalski will be guests at the screening, as will filmmaker Marie Rolshoven.

To the content
Franz Michalski turns ten on October 17, 1944. It is the day the Gestapo wants to deport him and his family from Breslau. But they manage to escape and flee to Austria. They find their first hiding place at Poppendorf Castle, but only for four weeks. Then they have to move on. Courageous people help the Michalski family: the nanny Erna and her parents Ida and Ernst Scharf, the work colleague Gerda Mez, the hoteliers Horst Schneider and the partisan Marquis de Respaldizza.

In 2012, the Israeli memorial Yad Vashem honors the helpers as "Righteous Among the Nations."
In eyewitness interviews, Franz and his wife Petra tell young people about their flight through Europe. In 2017, we accompanied Franz and Petra Michalski to the places where the story happened back then. In Styria, brothers Franz and Peter Michalski remember the cold winter of 1944 together.
The story of the Michalski family's persecution is embedded in the historical context of the National Socialist era.
(Schwalbe Film Production)