Synopsis
On Saturday 26 February 1938, 17-year-old Georg Klaar went to his first ball in Vienna. It was also his last. Two weeks later Hitler annexed Austria. The comfortable world of Georg and his family was utterly destroyed. Tonight Georg Klaar, now George Clare, tells his story. Based on his widely acclaimed autobiography, the film traces the fortunes of three generations of Viennese Jews through a troubled period of Austrian history. It begins in Vienna in the 1860s and ends in September 1942 in a tiny village in France from which his parents were to make their last journey. It is this small village which is at the heart of George Clare's search for his family past - a personal attempt to record the rich cultural heritage which he absorbed and to lay the ghost of a recurring nightmare.