Shifting Paths

Director and Producer, Charles Abelmann

Co-Producer and Researcher, Lucia Fox-Shapiro

Shifting Paths examines loss and survival of one family through the period of the early Jewish Boycott in 1933 in Frankfurt Germany seeing the loss of a beloved family owned pharmaceutical company and the need for the family to change paths. It traces how one chamomile product, Kamillosan, banned in 1933 has survived till today with few knowing anything of its history.

Arthur Abelmann had a passion for finding solutions to help people feel better. He went from being a chemist apothecary in a prisoner of war camp at the end of WWI to taking over a candy factory in Frankfurt to start making medicinal tablets. His dream of creating something for his son to take over went astray with the rise of Nazism and the banning of all Jewish Products. The film traces that history and how one product is still used today – a healing ointment, Kamillosan – that was being produced at his factory in 1932.

Arthur Abelmann, born in 1888, founded the pharmaceutical company known as Chemiwerk in Frankfurt, Germany. By 1932, the company had over 200 employees. Its best-known products were Kamillosan and various other chamomile and naturally based preparations –Spirobismol, Transpulmin, and Treupel’sche Tabletten. Shortly after Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany, he enacted an economic boycott against all Jewish businesses and products, which included the products developed by Abelmann’s company.

Abelmann resigned from his position and moved his family to Switzerland. The company was purchased by Degussa and IG Farben, who dominated the chemical industry in Germany at the time. Abelmann passed away in 1934, and his wife and two children immigrated to the US in 1939.

The film documents the changes in Frankfurt from 1932-1934 during the time of Arthur Abelmann working to keep his company intact. The film follows the development of Arthur from a young boy born in Riga to his growing up, serving in WW1 and building his company, getting married and starting a family. The film shows his two loves, work and family, and how he worked to keep both safe and allow for a future. The film also uses the reflections of his son Walter who was a young boy watching his father try to survive and care for the family. We see the life of Arthur’s widow making the choice to leave Europe with her son and daughter and elderly mother to start a new life in New York in 1939 and the early years of being in NY starting fresh while seeing the horrific headlines from their old home and plight of those less fortunate. During the years, the products of the company survived and between marketing and demand we see how one product endures over 100 years later with few users knowing about its origins.

Filmmakers Collaborative is a fiscal sponsor of Shifting Paths. Tax deductible donations can be made to Filmmakers Collaborative here.