Synopsis:
MARK BELL, an unconventional Jewish businessman, finds himself reading Primo Levi while on a business trip in Munich.
Everyone he meets is kind. The Levi text, full of Nazi brutality, contrasts with modern Germany. The experience is confusing, tense and, finally, profoundly distressing.
Excerpt:
"And that's what Munich was like. Everything happened in it. And you know who I met one day? As I was coming out from the theatre buying my tickets, you know who I bumped into? Guess. Guess…Bertolt Brecht! Yes! And after we said sorry for bumping into each other, I said 'You're Bertolt Brecht, aren't you?' And he said 'Sometimes! Sometimes I'm Bertolt Brecht.' So I asked him 'Are you Bertolt Brecht today?' And he said 'It depends who I meet!' So I said 'Herr Brecht, my name is Anton Mendelssohn, I run a little secondhand bookshop on the Kaiserstrasse, I'm a great admirer of your work.' And he smiled at me and he said 'then today I'm Bertolt Brecht!'"