Love It Was Not

Israel/Austria, 86m, DCP

Showtimes & Tickets

Screened November 5–23, 2021

A tragic love story between a prisoner and her captor. Flamboyant and full of life, Helena Citron is taken to Auschwitz as a young woman, and soon finds unlikely solace under the tutelage of Franz Wunsch, a high-ranking SS officer who falls in love with her and her magnetic singing voice. Risking certain execution if caught, their forbidden relationship goes on until her miraculous liberation. Thirty years later, a letter arrives begging Helena to testify on Wunsch’s behalf. She’s faced with an impossible decision: will she help the man who brutalized so many lives, but saved hers, along with some of the people closest to her? A Greenwich Entertainment release

In Hebrew, German, and English with English subtitles

Official Selection: Docaviv International Documentary Film Festival, International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival, Hot Docs International Documentary Festival

A film by Maya Sarfaty

Remarkable not only for its unusual central story and unique creative execution, but also for its extensive eyewitness testimonies.”

Alissa Simon, Variety

A masterpiece; amazing. Absorbing and affecting.”

Victoria Petroff, The Times of Israel