Shifting Paths

“Charles Abelmann’s film about his grandfather’s dispossession and his father’s refugee experience is both touching and illuminating.  Using a remarkable range of fortuitously preserved documents and photos, it connects us to a past at once still visible and tangible yet almost lost to the people who live where it happened.  The remarkably decent people at the core of the German part of the story seem—and proved—too good for the world they inhabited, but shining examples for us today of what can come of American openness to refugees.”

—Peter Hayes, Professor Emeritus; Professor of History and German, Theodore Zev Weiss Holocaust Educational Foundation Professor of Holocaust Studies

Shifting Paths is a multi-generational narrative exploring one family's resilience during the 1933 boycott of Jewish businesses in Frankfurt, Germany. This film traces the loss of a family-owned pharmaceutical company and how a once banned chamomile product, Kamillosan, has survived today with few knowing anything of its history. Arthur Abelmann founded the Chemiewerk pharmaceutical company in Frankfurt in the early 1920s. The film captures Frankfurt’s transformation between 1932 and 1934, highlighting Abelmann’s efforts to protect his company and family amid rising danger. After Hitler’s rise to power, the Nazi Doctors' Association banned his products, and on the eve of Boycott Saturday in 1933, he sent his family to Zurich before resigning from the Chemiewerk. The company was soon taken over by Degussa and IG Farben. The film uses first-person narratives, family artifacts, and archival media juxtaposing the vibrant Jewish cultural life in Frankfurt with the rise of Nazi oppression. Incorporating materials from the Arthur Abelmann collection at the Jewish Center for History and images from archives in Germany and Switzerland, the film explores the themes of survival, loss, and legacy. By blending historical visuals with modern footage, the film bridges past and present, telling an enduring story of resilience and hope.

2025

Digital video, 39 min

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Producer / Director: Charles Abelmann

Co-Producers: Lucia Fox-Shapiro

Editors: Lucia Fox-Shapiro

Camera: Philipp Hannappel

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Screenings

2025 Temple Israel, Boston Massachusetts

2025 Museum of Jewish Heritage, NYC


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