The story examines the Holocaust from the perspective of a Polish Jewish family and a young man who is able to escape while he is transported to a concentration camp.
It was partly shot at the Bavaria Studios in Munich with sets designed by the art director Carl Ludwig Kirmse.
A major aim of the film was to lobby for Jewish survivors still living in Displaced Persons (DP) camps to be allowed to emigrate to the British Mandate of Palestine.
Many of its themes were similar to other German rubble films of the era, but it was notably different partly because of its advocacy of an optimistic, idealistic new world in Palestine.
The film only ever went on a limited release, and by the time it received its German première, many inhabitants of the DP camps had been re-settled, with large numbers emigrating to the newly founded state of Israel.