Something that ranks high on the satisfaction meter is the sight of German filmmakers confronting and exposing the venal deeds of their Nazi-era ancestors.
Michael Verhoeven, who was born in Berlin in 1938, has a singularly impressive track record in this honorable pursuit, with outstanding fact-based dramas. “The White Rose” (1982) explored the courage of young Germans who stood up to the Nazi regime, and the Academy Award–nominated “The Nasty Girl” (1990) showed us a 1980s student who unearthed her town’s ugly wartime past.
His latest film, the documentary “Human Failure,” spotlights the work of German archivists and historians in uncovering the truth about the seizure of Jewish assets under the Third Reich. The film presents a particularly heinous side of human nature, but also takes pains to offer a dash of wit and warmth.
“Human Failure” makes its West Coast debut with a one-time only showing Oct. 23 at the Castro Theatre in the 15th Berlin and Beyond Film Festival, in a co-presentation with the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. The full lineup features new films from Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
The prevailing perception is that after the Nazis shipped Jews to concentration camps, the government seized their bank accounts while neighbors opportunistically grabbed the apartments, furniture and household items. It turns out, though, that the expropriation of Jewish assets was a concerted strategy executed by an obsessively detail-oriented bureaucracy.
As early as the mid-1930s, Jews had to provide inventories of their possessions (including sheets and underwear, if you can believe it). Incredibly, they had to complete the forms again upon their eventual arrival at a camp.
The chutzpah of the Nazis in assessing a million-Reichsmark fine against the Jewish community for provoking Kristallnacht has long been known. It comes as a revelation to learn that the fine was labeled a “Jewish capital fee” and that the tax bureau was empowered to collect it.
Laws were passed that allowed the government to expropriate the holdings of Jews who fled the country. But they didn’t cover the possessions of Jews who, lacking the ability to get out, deprived of their jobs and freedoms and fearing deportation, committed suicide. So the laws were rewritten, with demonic calculation.
“Human Failure,” which received prizes at the Jerusalem and Berlin Jewish film festivals, represents one more window opened on the bottomless depths of Nazi record keeping, with numerous shots of lists and ledger pages toting up the Jews and their holdings.
But Verhoeven goes the extra mile, recognizing that names and numbers on foolscap paper can’t convey the human toll (even when the facts and their interpretation are supplied by droll historians with nothing but contempt for the Nazis). So he locates several adult children of German Jews, in the U.S. and Germany, who relate their family’s experiences and their own fraught memories.
Their participation in “Human Failure” is not motivated by the urge to reclaim family heirlooms, but to learn more about relatives whose lives were cut short. They are presented with original Nazi documents that rekindle memories of their families, and that fill in missing gaps.
These Jews do not flinch from examining disturbing evidence, and neither does Verhoeven. “Human Failure” is a worthy addition to a remarkable filmography.
“Human Failure” screens at 4:45 p.m. Oct. 23 in the Berlin and Beyond Film Festival at the Castro Theatre, S.F.