Image copyright © by Marcus Trahan

Twin Sisters

(De Tweeling, The Netherlands, 2002)

Quite a tearjerker, adapted from a novel that was very popular in Holland and Germany. Twin orphaned sisters, 8 or so in age, are divided up between uncles. One goes to live on a farm in Germany, the other with well-off Dutch people. Both families are horrible, the farmers physically and the city folks mentally. They aren’t allowed to communicate, and never told that letters aren’t being delivered. Anna, the farm girl, finds work with a German baroness, learns Nazi ideas, marries an SS officer. Lotte gets engaged to a Dutch Jew. Lotte can’t forgive her sister’s SS hubby. Scattered through the story are scenes when both are very old, trying to come to terms with it. It’s all a bit overdone and unlikely, though well acted.