The Rose Garden (1989)

A Film from the Artur Brauner Collection at Our Library

At Frankfurt airport, Aaron Reichenbach strikes down a man he recognizes as a concentration camp commander over forty years after the fact. In order to refute the charge of assault, he tries to prove, with his lawyer's help, that the SS man was involved in the murder of twenty Jewish children shortly before the end of the war.

Map with all buildings that belong to the Jewish Museum Berlin. The W. M. Blumenthal Academy is marked in green

Where

W. M. Blumenthal Academy, Library
Fromet-und-Moses-Mendelssohn-Platz 1, 10969 Berlin
Postal address: Lindenstraße 9-14, 10969 Berlin

Building on an idea by Artur Brauner, the courtroom drama is based on a crime committed in the Neuengamme concentration camp on Bullenhuser Damm in Hamburg on 20 April 1945. As in the movie, the trial of Obersturmführer Arnold Strippel ended without a verdict. The case was closed in 1987 because the accused was unable to stand trial. After viewing the rough cut, Brauner opposed ending the film with the court case, "as this would make the film end too sadly" (memory log by Artur Brauner from 27 April 1989, in German, published on filmportal.de).