The Pretense of Memory

In a nation eager to forget, one young man dares to remember, risking everything to make the truth impossible to ignore. In West Germany in 1958, the post-war miracle economy is booming and everyone seems to have forgotten — or misremembered — the crimes of the Third Reich entirely. But Oskar Gruenewald hasn’t. An idealist despite his traumatic past as a twice orphaned refugee, he enrolled in law school as a pathway to achieving a semblance of justice. But he soon learns the system is stacked against him. When a chance meeting with Romy Erlanger, an enigmatic artist with a fondness for provocation, draws Oskar into an unseen world and brings him face-to-face with the crimes — and criminals — no one wants to remember, he fears his own carefully constructed memories are a fraud. Oskar has to decide if throwing out the rule book to set the record straight is worth the potential cost to his own future — if it even works at all. But sometimes, to get people’s attention, you just have to get creative.