Reaching beyond conventional portrayals of the Holocaust's legacy, ANDRE'S LIVES explores the tension between the collective obligation to remember and the personal need to forget.

Dubbed "the Jewish Schindler," Bauhaus trained architect Andre Steiner saved thousands of Slovak Jews. The last surviving member of the secret and illegal Jewish "Working Group" in Slovakia, Andre helped save over 7000 from deportation to Auschwitz (almost six times as many as Schindler). His complex rescue effort involved bribing Nazi and Slovak officials in order to build labor camps to keep Jews employed and safe from deportation.

After testifying before a war-crimes tribunal against one of the Nazis he bribed, Andre emigrated to Atlanta, rebuilt his life, becoming a successful architect. He chose never to look back, or share his story. The cost of his secret was his marriage, distance from his sons and a sacrifice of emotional connections.

Now, at 89, he returns to Europe with his sons to grapple with traumatic memories for the first time. During the film he begins to forge new relationships with his sons and his past. His resistance to exploring his history unfolds on camera through a complex dynamic, as father and sons struggle to make sense of the present by wrestling with the past.

ANDRE'S LIVES seeks to understand the legacy of the Holocaust, by probing the many dimensions of one man's experiences and his post-War battle to put it behind him.

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Select Accolades

• World Premiere, 1999 New York Jewish Film Festival
  
• Honorable Mention, 1999 Film Fest New Haven