Grüningers Fall

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.

Grüningers Fall
Grüningers Fall; The Grüninger Case; L'Affaire Grüninger
Directed byRichard Dindo
Written byRichard Dindo
Stefan Keller (book)
Based onGrüningers Fall. Geschichten von Flucht und Hilfe.[1]
Music byArvo Pärt
CinematographyPio Corradi
Rainer Trinkler
Edited byRichard Dindo
Georg Janett
Rainer Trinkler
Distributed byLea Produktion GmbH
Release date
1997
Running time
100
CountrySwitzerland
LanguageSwiss German, German

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.

Paul Grüninger assumably in 1939

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. [2]

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 , France, and the USA to relate their experiences in Switzerland from 1938 to 1940. The documentary was produced by Lea Produktion GmbH, and based on Stefan Keller's book Grüningers Fall. Geschichten von Flucht und Hilfe.[1]

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.[3]

Awards
  • 1998: Swiss Film Award for Best Documentary (Bester Dokumentarfilm) for Richard Dindo

Home media

The film was not yet released on DVD/Blu-ray.

See also

Literature
  • Stefan Keller: Grüningers Fall. Geschichten von Flucht und Hilfe . Rotpunktverlag – WOZ Die Wochenzeitung, Zürich 1998, ISBN 978-3858691576.[1]

References
  1. "WOZ Shop: Grüningers Fall" (in German). WOZ Die Wochenzeitung. Retrieved 2014-11-05.
  2. Ingrid Bertel (2014-01-29). ""Akte Grüninger": Filmpremiere in Hohenems" (in German). ORF (broadcaster). Retrieved 2014-10-20.
  3. "Grüningers Fall" (in German). swissfilms.ch. Retrieved 2014-10-21.
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