Gruber's Journey (Calatoria lui Gruber)

Summary

An absorbing drama with farcical undertones, Gruber's Journey is based on the true story of an Italian journalist and his World War II experiences in the German-occupied Romanian city of Iasi. On his way to the front, Curzio Malaparte (Florin Piersic Jr.) is incapacitated by a severe allergy. Desperate for a cure, he is advised to seek out a Jewish doctor, Josef Gruber, who he hopes will relieve the debilitating symptoms. He has great difficulty finding him.What transpires is a series of bureaucratic entanglements as Malaparte searches in vain for the missing allergist. The buffoonery of government officials is presented in chilling contrast to a violent anti-Semitic pogrom unfolding around them. Malaparte's written account (the book Kaputt) of the deportation and murder of thousands of Romanian Jews is perhaps the first important literary treatment of the Holocaust.