Richard Steinitz

Kaplan's Quest Richard Steinitz

The disappearance of his great-uncle Samuel during World War II has shaped the life of the young university lecturer, Shmulik Kaplan. As part of his Master's Thesis on the history of German between the wars, he sets out to try and discover what happened to his uncle - an outstanding athlete who managed to leave Germany in 1935, and yet incomprehensibly, returned to Berlin, and then vanished without a trace. From his book lined office at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, to Berlin and to Mont St. Michel in France, and through the dusty WW II archives of the German army, the quest takes him on a rollercoaster journey of personal discovery and emotion. The search uncovers events and materials that no-one had ever heard of before, or seen, since the days of the German occupation of France.