Shifting Paths

Shifting Paths is a multi-generational narrative exploring one family's resilience during the 1933 boycott of Jewish businesses in Frankfurt, Germany. This film traces the loss of a family-owned pharmaceutical company and how a once banned chamomile product, Kamillosan, has survived today with few knowing anything of its history.

Arthur Abelmann was driven by a passion for helping people feel better. He founded the Chemiewerk pharmaceutical company in Frankfurt in the early 1920s. By 1932, it employed over 100 people and was known for chamomile-based remedies like Kamillosan. The film captures Frankfurt’s transformation between 1932 and 1934, highlighting Abelmann’s efforts to protect his company and family amid rising danger. After Hitler’s rise to power, the Nazi Doctors' Association banned his products, and on the eve of Boycott Saturday in 1933, he sent his family to Zurich before resigning from the Chemiewerk. The company was soon taken over by Degussa and IG Farben. Abelmann passed away in 1934, and his wife and children immigrated to the U.S. in 1939, rebuilding their lives in New York while grappling with news of the horrors in Germany. Remarkably, some of Chemiewerk’s products, including Kamillosan, have endured for over a century, though few know of their origins.