The secret archive in the Warsaw Ghetto

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Movie
German title The secret archive in the Warsaw Ghetto
Original title Who Will Write Our History
Country of production United States
original language English , Yiddish , Polish
Publishing year 2018
length 95 minutes
Rod
Director Roberta Grossman
script Roberta Grossman
production Roberta Grossman
music Todd Boekelheide
camera Dyanna Taylor
cut Chris Callister ,
Ondine Rarey
occupation

The Secret Archives in the Warsaw Ghetto (original title: Who Will Write Our History ) is a documentary film produced by the American filmmaker Roberta Grossman and staged with reenactment parts, from 2018. Grossman adapted the English-language original book Ringelblums for the screenplay Legacy of the US historian Samuel Kassow . The film and book tell the story of the Oneg Shabbat underground archive , which Emanuel Ringelblum set up together with helpers in the Warsaw ghetto during the German occupation of Poland with the aim of giving posterity the most authentic possible picture of life in the ghetto and the crimes of the Nazi occupiers.

Content and staging

The story is told from the perspective of the Warsaw journalist Rachel Auerbach, who was hired by Emanuel Ringelblum to help set up the archive, and ranges from the establishment and construction of the archive, which mainly consists of diaries, photos and Yiddish poetry, to the eviction of the Warsaw Ghetto until the buried documents were found after the end of the war . You can see archive material , some of which is colored, scenes re-enacted by actors, interviews with experts, including Samuel Kassow, and excerpts from German propaganda films.

Emergence

The film budget was 1.5 million US dollars . NDR and ARTE were also involved in the production .

publication

The world premiere of the film was on July 21, 2018 at the 38th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival . The film was shown at other film festivals later in 2018. The US theatrical release followed on January 18, 2019 in New York City . The box office in the United States is at least 94,000 US dollars.

ARTE first broadcast the film in German on January 15, 2019. A week later, on January 22, it was also broadcast by Das Erste . Both broadcasters also made it available for access in their media libraries.

On January 27, 2019, UNESCO , whose world document heritage includes the Oneg Shabbat , announced the screening of the film at its headquarters in Paris and simultaneously in over 300 venues and museums worldwide. The occasion was the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust that was celebrated on that day .

The film was included in the program of the Berlinale 2019 at short notice. Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick invited all members of the AfD party to the screening on February 10, 2019 as spectators without having to pay an entrance fee. Kosslick responded to an event in the Bavarian state parliament in January 2019, when numerous AfD members protested against a speech by Charlotte Knobloch , which she gave to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust. Six AfD members accepted the invitation. In the vicinity of the screening location Kinos International there was a violent confrontation on the same evening, in which AfD members on their way to the cinema were attacked and in some cases injured. Media representatives commented on Kosslick's invitation after the screening as unsuccessful. The journalist Alan Posener, for example, said in an article for Welt that Kosslick had abused “the Berlinale and the Holocaust for a self-righteous popular educational staging”.

reception

Several critics rated the film positively and as impressive in terms of the portrayal of the horrific everyday life of the residents of the Warsaw ghetto.

Some critics praised the re-enactment scenes, among other things as unobtrusive. In the FAZ, for example, the author Oliver Junge justified this with the fact that the game scenes were "played in an unusually nuanced manner for a documentary film". “Even the protagonists' permanent change between Polish and Yiddish” seems authentic. In the Tagesspiegel , Manfred Riepe said: "The reenactment is used cautiously, it does not remind you of Guido Knopp's historical kitsch ." In the film service , which rated the film with four out of five possible stars and rated it as worth seeing, it was said that the reenactment scenes Convincingly staged and well cast and “empathically bring the unbelievable of what is happening”.

The critic of the NPR said that the CGI effects of the film could be found disturbing, by purists even as tasteless. However, the filmmakers are not only trying to impress viewers who are bored with a film made entirely of historical material; the mixture of old and new elements speaks for the approach of the film. In the US industry service Variety , Owen Gleiberman rated the film as "essential", "shocking" and "moving". The re-enactment scenes between Rachel Auerbach and Emanuel Ringelblum, however, looked like something out of “a sad, rather uninteresting biography about the Second World War”.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. IMDb
  2. ↑ a b c Oliver Junge: Kampf um die remembrance , in: FAZ .net from January 15, 2019, accessed on February 12, 2019
  3. ↑ "WHO WILL WRITE OUR HISTORY" TO MAKE WORLD PREMIERE AT THE 38TH SAN FRANCISCO JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL , press release of the Jewish Film Institute of June 19, 2018, accessed on Feb. 12, 2019
  4. ↑ a b Release Info , in: IMDb , accessed on Feb. 12, 2019
  5. ↑ Who Will Write Our History , in: Box Office Mojo , accessed Feb. 27, 2019
  6. ↑ Global screening event of “Who Will Write Our History” on the occasion of the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust , UNESCO press release , accessed on Feb. 12, 2019
  7. ↑ Berlinale director invites AfD to film about Warsaw Ghetto , in: Süddeutsche.de on Jan. 30, 2019, accessed on Feb. 13, 2019
  8. ↑ Claudia van Laak : A poisoned gift , in: Deutschlandfunk from Feb. 11, 2019, accessed on Feb. 13, 2019
  9. ↑ State security determined after the attack on AfD members , in: Webpräsenz von Welt on Feb. 11, 2019, accessed on Feb. 22, 2019
  10. ↑ Alan Posener : Kosslick's popular education for the AfD ends as a sad farce , in: Welt on Feb. 12, 2019, accessed on Feb. 22, 2019
  11. ↑ a b Manfred Riepe: Everyday horror , in: Der Tagesspiegel from January 21, 2019, accessed on Feb. 12, 2019
  12. ^ The Secret Archives in the Warsaw Ghetto. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed February 22, 2020 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  13. ↑ Mark Jenkins: 'Who Will Write Our History': Documenting Those Who Documented The Warsaw Ghetto , in: NPR .org on Jan. 17, 2019, accessed on Feb. 12, 2019
  14. ↑ Owen Gleiberman: Film Review: 'Who Will Write Our History' , in: Variety .com from Jan. 18, 2019, accessed on Feb. 12, 2019, original quotes in the same order:
    1. "vital"
    2. "Sobering"
    3. "Moving"
    4. "A doleful, rather nondescript WWII biopic"