Although this year marks 80 years since the end of World War II, there are always more stories that illuminate the suffering of those who went through the Holocaust. There will be film and television programs in Israel to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.
Israel commemorates its own Holocaust Remembrance Day in the spring, on the Hebrew date of the start of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
The highlight of this year’s film commemoration will be several new films, screened as part of extensive programs at cinematheques. One of them, The Investigation, will be shown in the presence of the director RP Kahl, the producer Alexander van Dülmen, and of the two actors, Clemens Schick and Rony Herman. The screenings will take place at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque on January 27 and at the Jerusalem Cinematheque on January 28.
The Investigation is a filmed version of the theater piece of the same name that was first performed in 1965 when playwright Peter Weiss adapted transcripts from the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials which took place between 1963-65. The film features the actual words of the victims and the perpetrators of the Holocaust. Weiss himself was an observer at the trial and created the play using newspaper reports and court records. The Investigation is an adaptation of the play with the participation of 60 actors and it brings the original text to life on the big screen.
Bearing the subtitle, “Oratorio in 11 Cantos,” the film is not meant to be a literal reconstruction of the trial but a more lyrical representation. The original play premiered in 14 cities in Germany and at the Royal Shakespeare Company in London. In 1966, it was performed by the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm in a version directed by Ingmar Bergman.
Each canto consists of testimony concerning a specific part of the camp, starting at the loading ramp and going space by space until it gets to the crematoria. The simply staged dramatic readings of the actual testimony present a vivid portrait of the survivors and the perpetrators, who range from vicious guards, commanders, and industrialists who profited from forced labor.
The actors include some of Germany’s finest performers. Fans of the recent Israeli series Save the Date will recognize Herman, who played the role of the European prince who wants to sweep the heroine off her feet.
The 241-minute film, which will be shown with an intermission, is moving and memorable. Because of its simplicity, the horrors described are especially vivid since we have to imagine them. Although a great deal of violence is described throughout, I was most moved by this section, in which a survivor recalls a boy about to be killed talking to a guard. The survivor says: “I heard a guard talking through the barbed wire to a nine-year-old boy. ‘You already know a great deal for your age,’ said the man. The boy replied, ‘I know that I already know a lot. And I also know that I shall never learn anything else.’” After that, the survivor recalled, the boy was loaded into a van with about 90 children, many of whom struggled. The boy urged them to get in, telling them they would soon see their grandparents, who had been taken away earlier. As the van drove away, the survivor said that the boy cried out to the guard, “You won’t get away with this.”
Recently screened
The movie, 999: The Forgotten Girls, was screened recently at the Jerusalem and Tel Aviv cinematheques and will be shown on Hot 8 on January 27 at 9:15 p.m. as part of its International Holocaust Day programming. It will also be shown on Hot VOD and NextTV.
Directed by Heather Dune MacAdam, it reveals the untold story of 999 unmarried, young Jewish women initially registered for government service in what they were told would be a shoe factory, only to be sent to Auschwitz. Only a few survived and the film presents interviews with some of these, including 94-year-old Edith Grosman. MacAdam, who wrote a book on this subject and others related to the Holocaust, spent the past 11 years interviewing survivors all over the world who were in their 90s, only five of whom are still alive today. She also delved into archival material around the world. The movie asks why girls were targeted first. It will be especially poignant to watch following the release on January 19 of the three female hostages held in Gaza for over 15 months.
Yes Docu will show Annette Baumeister’s Playing to Survive: von Cramm vs Hitler, on the evening of January 27, a look at the life of German tennis star Gottfried von Cramm who was involved in the failed plot to kill Adolf Hitler and managed to survive with his life.
The Listener by Micha Livneh and Ohad Ofaz is a documentary about a psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor who devoted his life to hearing the testimonies of trauma survivors, and will be screened at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque on January 28. The filmmakers will be present, as will those working on the Edut 710 project, a project that collects testimonies of survivors of the Hamas massacre on October 7.
For the full programs, to cinema.co.il for the Tel Aviv Cinematheque and jer-cin.org.il for the Jerusalem Cinematheque.
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