The film Farewell is based on the story Abschied von den Eltern (Leavetaking) written by playwright and author Peter Weiss in 1960. In this autobiographical work, Weiss tells of his childhood and adolescence in 1920s and ’30s Germany, followed by the journey across half of Europe by his half-Jewish family in their efforts to escape persecution by the Nazis.It is an odyssey that also represents the young first-person narrator’s existential struggle as an artist, as he strives to build an independent life for himself as a painter and author.