Vielleicht in einem anderen Leben

The historical background of the film is the last days of the Second World War in April 1945. During one of the death marches of those days, in which the Schutzstaffel and Volkssturm drove thousands of Jews through the disintegrating German Reich from the occupied territories in the east towards the concentration camps, SS-Obersturmbannführer Schöndorf led a group of initially 20 Jews from Hungary through eastern Austria. Their destination was the Mauthausen concentration camp. Right at the beginning, he shoots one of the prisoners by pointing his pistol at several of them in a kind of Russian roulette and pulling the trigger. In a small village in Lower Austria, the remaining 19 are locked up in a hay barn belonging to the farmers Traudl and Stefan Fasching. Schöndorf takes up quarters on the von Hammersfelds' estate to await further orders. The village gendarme Hochgatterer is responsible for guarding the prisoners.