Inheritance is a labor of love based on director Paul Cuoco’s experience of learning that his Grandfather was a liberator at the Buchenwald concentration camp during World War II. Using his Grandfather’s photographs combined with thorough research, Cuoco crafted this film to honor his Grandfather and all of the men who witnessed these atrocities first hand, as well as to honor the memory of those who were forced to endure it. The following is a short synopsis of the film itself: On the eve of his Grandfather’s funeral, a young man receives his inheritance. It is not a dowry of riches, but instead a simple manila envelope containing photographs and a letter. As the befuddled young man sifts through the worn and tattered photos he can not believe his eyes. The images are horrific. Image after image of dead bodies neatly stacked in rows. Ovens filled with half-burned human corpses. In shock, he slowly sifts past the horrible imagery to the letter, and reads his Grandfather’s words, a powerful and impassioned recounting of that fateful day, April 11, 1945, when he and his company came upon the Buchenwald concentration camp. His Grandfather describes through haunting words and ghastly photographs the horrors of the camp, its effect on him, and the shame he felt for locking these feelings and images away for fifty six years. He pleads to his grandson that this can never be forgotten, it is now his burden to bear, and this is his Inheritance.

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