TO EACH HIS OWN - SYNOPSIS

End of April 1945: The provisional government of the reestablished democratic republic of Austria is declared in Vienna.
At the same time in the Austrian province:
A group of over one hundred Jewish prisoners is driven by the SS and men from the local home guard on a death march from Hungary towards Mauthausen.
A group of twenty Jews is encamping during their enforced march in the wooden barn of farmer Fasching, at the edge of a small village.
The guard detail has disappeared and the Jews do not know how things will proceed.  They are at the end of their tether; hunger and cold are harrying them further on.  Death is a constant companion.
Again and again shots are fired at the barn from outside, from home guardsmen and from hunters.
In this situation, a prisoner, an operetta singer from Budapest, decides to rehearse the operetta “Wiener Blut” together with his fellow sufferers, a survival strategy to win a couple of cooked potatoes and a bowl of warm soup from Mrs. Fasching’s kitchen.
The film tells the story of the desperate and droll attempt to survive with the aid of art.
It also deals with a long-suppressed chapter of Austrian history: the death marches of Jews through the Austrian province in the spring of 1945, which were accompanied above all by cold cruelty and brutality of the Austrian people towards the Jews—and by few examples of great helpfulness and moral courage.

Elisabeth Scharang