The Singing Tree

Kristian Hardy, an old man closing out his days in the Amazon jungle, was once Kurt Hellmann, the youngest railway stationmaster in Germany. One day as he was serving in that capacity in 1942, a prank phone call caused him to panic and precipitate the deaths of 123 Jews en route to the concentration camps. Josef Mengele’s remains having been identified, Hardy now regards himself as “the last Nazi mass murderer.” He teeters just this side of despair, thanks to his never-ending love for Rachel, the Jewish woman he failed to save from the Nazis. It doesn’t help that a tree in his music room “sings” Rachel’s song to further torment him. He longs for his own death but he’s too cowardly to do the ghastly deed himself. When he unexpectedly meets a young Jewish woman from New York who professes to be in search of butterflies, Hardy takes her for the Nazi hunter of his recurring nightmares. The mental/emotional punishment he has evaded may finally be at hand, but at the last moment a new wrinkle, unknown to Hardy, steps in and takes the prize. A surprise ending will touch the hearts of all who see the film.