8 /10 1 Votes
Directed by Richard Dindo Distributed by Lea Produktion GmbH Initial release 28 November 1997 Music director Arvo Pärt Cinematography Pio Corradi | 8/10 IMDb Music by Arvo Pärt Release date 1997 Director Richard Dindo Written by Richard Dindo | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Based on Grüningers Fall. Geschichten von Flucht und Hilfe. Edited by Richard Dindo
Georg Janett
Rainer Trinkler Cast Erich Billig-Bannwart, Klara Birnbach-Hochberg, Ludwig Boder-Zobel, Hilde Billig-Bannwart, Felix Bauer Similar Movies about the Holocaust, Documentaries | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Grüningers Fall is a Swiss documentary film that was produced in 1997 for the Swiss television SRF. The film focuses on the events of late summer 1938 when Paul Grüninger saved the lives of up to 3,600 Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria by enabling them to migrate 'illegally' to Switzerland by pre-dating their visas.
Contents
Background
The documentary focuses on the fates of Jewish refugees who 'illegally' migrated to Switzerland before World War II. In August 1938, Switzerland closed its borders to Jewish refugees that tried to flee the Nazi regime. Every migration of Jewish people by crossing the green border to Switzerland was declared by the Swiss government to be illegal, and refugees had to be sent back to Germany or Austria. Furthermore, hundreds of people without a valid visa tried to cross the green border to be secure in Switzerland from the Holocaust, most of them by crossing the border to the Canton of St. Gallen. This "illegal migration" and the background of these border crossings, its support by officials and citizens in Switzerland, came to the attention of the Swiss immigration police.
The events of August 1938 and thereafter and the characters base on facts respectively on historical personalities. Paul Grüninger was degraded, dismissed from the police service and sentenced to a fine and loss of pension. Paul Grüninger died in 1972, nearly forgotten in Switzerland and without rehabilitation by the Swiss authorities – in 1971, the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial foundation in Israel honored Grüninger as one of the Righteous Among the Nations. In 1995 the district court of St. Gallen revoked the judgment against Paul Grünginger, and in 1998 the government of the Canton of St.Gallen paid compensation to his descendants. The Rhine bridge between Diepoldsau (Switzerland) and Hohenems in Austria, which was one of the locations in the film, was named after Paul Grüninger in the summer of 2012.
Production
The shooting took place at the district court of St. Gallen where Paul Grüninger was sentenced by the Swiss authorities in 1940. The contemporary witnesses came from Argentina, Austria, Germany, Belgium and the USA to relate their experiences in Switzerland from 1938 to 1940. The documentary was produced by Lea Produktion GmbH, and bases on Stefan Keller's book Grüningers Fall. Geschichten von Flucht und Hilfe.
Cinema and television
Grüningers Fall was produced by the Swiss television SRF. It premiered on 28 November 1997 in Switzerland, on 16 February 1998 at the Berlin International Film Festival, on 20 November 1998 in Austria, on 31 March 1999 in France and in Argentina on 28 September 2000.
Awards
Home media
The film was not yet released on DVD/Blu-ray.