The experience has haunted her, and with a great sense of dedication, she and her co-director husband and cinematographer, Curt Kaufman, journeyed to Vienna to see to what extent Austria has or hasn’t come to grips with its history and claims of victimization rather than collaboration. What makes this film special is the personal perspective. Curt Kaufman has since died, and that gives an added emotional tinge to Gita Weinrauch Kaufman’s determination to bring her vital story to the public by way of this jointly-made film.

The personal angle is also expressed in letters written by family members who were desperately in need of visas to escape Austria under the Nazis. Many of these letters are deeply moving as revelations of the terror faced in the onslaught against Jews.

But while the personal stories dramatize the situation, the film’s basic strength stems from all of the interviews the Kaufmans managed to get over the time period in which the movie was made. Especially striking is the talk with Kurt Waldheim former Secretary General of the United Nations, who was revealed to have hidden his Nazi past. (Waldheim died in 2007.)

Other comments come from Ronald Lauder, former U.S. Ambassador to Austria; Simon Weisenthal, holocaust survivor and renowned hunter of Nazis; Austrian President Heinz Fischer; film producer Eric Pleskow, actor-singer Theodore Bikel and many others who speak to the issue of Austria during the war and afterward. An excellent job has been done weaving interviews into the fabric of the personal exploration.

When I saw “Shadows From My Past” a while ago, I felt it was an important and moving addition to films related to the Holocaust. In light of today, amid widespread reports of revived anti-Semitism, there is added meaning to the accomplishment.