Based on the childhood memories of Christa Neuber Kuske, Verlorene Heimat recounts one East Prussian family’s experience during the final months of World War II.
After Nazi leaders order August Neuber, mayor of Schoenberg, to survey Ukrainian farmland, August realizes that the Nazis plan to relocate his entire village to Ukraine to farm this stolen land for the Nazi regime. He and his wife Elise begin to quietly distance themselves the other villagers, sheltering their children from Nazi propaganda.
When August refuses to wear his Nazi uniform to a local political rally in September 1944, the local Nazi party leader sends him to the Russian front as a death sentence. The Nazis send a young Ukrainian girl, Hedwig, to help Elise with the heavy farm work. Ignoring Nazi protocol, Elise treats Hedwig like a family member even after Hedwig reveals that her mother is Jewish.
While home for a brief furlough in December 1944, August instructs Elise to prepare for sudden evacuation, warning her that if the Nazis catch her preparing to flee, she will be imprisoned or worse. When the evacuation orders come in January 1945, Hedwig accompanies Elise and her children but disappears along the way.
While more than 300,000 East Prussian civilians perished during that tragic winter, Elise and August survive and are miraculously reunited in western Germany. But for the rest of her life, Christa is haunted by Hedwig’s disappearance.
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