Every Face Has a Name

On April 28, 1945, ferries with survivors from the German concentration camps arrive at the harbour of Malmö, Sweden. As the survivors take their first steps in freedom, news teams film them. Now, 70 years later, the survivors see this footage for the first time and recognise themselves. They relive the happiness, confusion and insecurity of that extraordinary day when life began again.With Every Face Has a Name, Director Magnus Gertten continues where Harbour of Hope (2011) left off. Meticulous research led him to the names belonging to some of the otherwise anonymous faces in the April 28, 1945 newsreels. People like Bernhard Kempler, who was 9 years old when he came to Malmö. He, being a Jewish boy, survived the war by dressing up as a girl.Another face belongs to Elsie Ragusin from New York. She was visiting her grandparents in Italy when she was accused of being a spy and deported to Auschwitz.The crowd welling out on the docks in Malmö on April 28, 1945 was a cross section of humanity: Norwegian resistance men, Polish mothers with new-born babies, British spies and Jewish survivors. All are united in this moment of liberation. Now, 70 years later, they tell their stories.Every Face Has a Name is a film about the complex moment of liberation. Scenes identical to those in 1945 are repeated all over the world today. We also meet a group of refugees who managed to reach Sicily in a small fishing boat in July 2014, part of the endless stream of war refugees forced to leave their home countries. We see them in the news every day. All of them anonymous. Faces without names.