The Boy Is Gone (2012)

At the death of his father, the director remembers a photograph he discovered as a child, portraying his father at the age of 12 wearing a swastika insignia on his sleeve. Bewildered by this memory he sets out to learn the truth about his father's past. He ventures to his father's birthplace. Gradually he exposes a local glide club as a cover for the Nazi propaganda in East Belgium and as a way to undermine the Belgian state. He discovers that boys at the age of 12 are misled, by their dreams of being a pilot, into becoming a member of the gliding club. These youngsters in search of identity in times of nationalism and patriotism are easily fooled to believe Germany will once again be their country. 1940. Hitler invades Belgium. As from 1941, after the German annexation of the border region, these boys, some barely 15 years old, are drafted by the German army and sent to the eastern front. Only half of them, after years of war, deprivation and captivity, return home. Germany looses the war. The young men loose their country and become victims of Belgian repression. Neither the father of the director nor his family are spared. Discord, trauma and obscurity, but most of all shame and taboo, reign till this day. This nasty part of our Belgian and European history was hitherto untold. The last of the witnesses are still alive.