Seeking after the Family

Authors: Florian Huber. No genre - NDR/ARD - 2007 - 45 min

In 1945, at the end of a lost war, millions of Germans were on the move, without a home. Disarmed soldiers were desperately seeking their families, and thousands of children had lost their parents and had no place to stay. In this unprecedented historic situation the Red Cross devised a master plan of gigantic proportions.

With historical documents and newly found archival footage we will show how the Tracing Service of the Red Cross posts lists of missing persons in the ruins of the cities and broadcasts the names of survivors every day at noon over the radio. And we will hear the heart wrenching stories of people who found their loved ones and built new lives in a country, which lay in rubbles.