Grüningers Fall

This is a documentary on Paul Grüninger (who died in 1972), the St. Gall police chief who before the war saved the lives of several hundred Austrian Jews and consequently lost his job and faced a judicial dressing-down. The film uses the same St. Gall District Court room in which judgement was passed on Grüninger in 1940. Former Jewish refugees whose lives were saved, one by one take the witness stand in this unusual policeman’s defence. After several unsuccessful attempts to have Grüninger officially rehabilitated, the authorities of St. Gall finally gave their consent in the autumn of 1996. This film is a tribute to this long-delayed act of rehabilitation.