Everything Must Perish: The Screenplay

World War 2. Germany. Berlin. 1939.   

The war has begun in Germany, and Jewish civilians are massacred in the blood soaked streets of Berlin in large numbers by ‘Einsatzgruppen’, the Nazi killing squads, who stop at nothing to destroy their enemies.    

Hiding out in an abandoned barn are shop keepers Aaron and older brother Moshe, and their small band of friends, leading a dangerous existence, as they scavenge for food on the outskirts of Berlin in Potsdam, struggling to survive against the brutality of war.  

Within the midst of this chaos is SS officer Lieutenant Jurgen Klauss, head of ‘Einsatzgruppen C’, assigned to rid the Germans of their ‘Jewish problem’.   

As part of their killing campaign the S.S. capture a Jewish shop owner, Gerhard Silverman, who after being tortured, confesses the whereabouts of Aaron and his friends to the Germans. SS officer Jurgen Klauss then marches with his battalion of S.S. ‘Death’s head’ sentries to Potsdam, hunting his prey, like a wolf on a killing spree, finding the terrified civilians and executing them in cold blood.    

All hope seems to have been lost for the Jewish civilians, but by some miracle, one of the victims Aaron miraculously survives the massacre, seriously wounded and bleeding from a shot to the stomach.  

With the assistance of a local German widow Aaron slowly and painfully recovers from his wounds, vowing to avenge the death of his brother and comrades, by assassinating SS officer Jurgen Klauss.