Escape from Hell (1954)

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Movie
Original title Blodveien, Krvavi put
Country of production Norway / Yugoslavia
original language Norwegian , Serbo-Croatian
Publishing year 1955
length 95 minutes
Rod
Director Kåre Bergstrøm , Rados Novakovic
script Sigurd Evensmo
production Norsk Film , Avala Film
music Predrag Milosevic
camera Olav Kyrre Grepp , Nenad Jovicic , Ragnar Sørensen
cut Neva Paskulovic-Habic
occupation

Blodveien is a Norwegian-Yugoslavian black and white film from 1955 by the directors Rados Novakovic and Kåre Bergstrøm. The film premiered on February 14, 1955 in Yugoslavia under the title Krvavi put , on February 17 in Norway as Blodveien and on September 6, 1957 in the GDR under the title Escape from Hell . The film was shot in Rjukan and Rauland in Norway.

Blodveien tells of the struggle for survival of Yugoslav slave laborers in an SS camp in northern Norway during the Nazi occupation in 1942. At the same time, it is a film about Norwegian resistance against and collaboration with National Socialism in this country.

Historical background

The historical background of the film is the construction of a road between Botn and Saltnes by Yugoslav slave laborers during the occupation of Norway by the German Wehrmacht. This should ensure the military supplies but also the supply of the necessary raw materials for the German occupation forces. This section of today's European route E6 was built with great sacrifices by abducted Yugoslav slave laborers. The so-called Blood Road (Norwegian: blodveien , Serbo-Croatian: krvavni put ) got its name from a cross painted on a rock with the blood of a slave laborer. It symbolizes the suffering of the slave laborers, who suffered high death rates during detention due to malnutrition, disastrous sanitary conditions, work, torture and executions. For example, half of the approximately 900 forced laborers in the Botn camp died after just a few months. Russians, Yugoslavs and Poles were held captive in the concentration camps set up along the route. In addition to members of the Wehrmacht and SS, young people from the Hird battalion (Norwegian: Hirdvaktbataljon), a paramilitary youth organization of the Norwegian National Socialists, served as guards .

action

1942, two years after the occupation of Norway by German troops: Two Norwegian road workers watch the arrival of German troops in a small village on the Norwegian-Swedish border from a residential building. While Svare was unsuspectingly working on the construction of the planned concentration camp, Kvetil wants to return to his hut near the Norwegian-Swedish border, since his road-building work has now ended. A little later, both observe the arrival of forced laborers from Yugoslavia, who arrive at the newly built concentration camp at night, wrapped in rags. Some are shot by the SS because they collapse, exhausted from the long march. Immediately afterwards, Svare and Kvetil are forced to work as foremen to build roads by the SS and get to know first hand the daily martyrdom of the prisoners and the manifest sadism of the German guards. You observe the humiliation, torture and murder of the slave laborers by the SS guards up close.

The prisoners describe themselves as partisans and are under the leadership of the almost blind commandant Miljan. It is only slowly that they realize that they have been transported by ship to Northern Norway via the Baltic States. In their daily work, Svare and Kvetil get to know Miljan’s son, Janko, whom they try to protect from being tortured by the SS guards. The two Norwegian workers are outraged by the working conditions of the Yugoslav forced laborers and try to support them as far as they can with various types of assistance such as the supply of medicines and food. However, they have little to oppose the sadistic camp commandant. In the further course of the action, the suffering of the prisoners and the murder of the prisoners is depicted with relentless realism. It quickly becomes clear that this is not so much a labor camp for prisoners of war as an SS extermination camp and the road construction is only used as a pretext.

But the lines between good and bad are blurred. There are traitors among the Yugoslav comrades who betray their fellow prisoners. And Kvetil also discovered one day that his son Magnar, who had joined the National Socialist Battalion Hird, was assigned to guard the forced laborers and treated them like the SS with ruthless severity.

When Janko is supposed to be beaten to death by the SS commandant for an offense in the camp, Ivar and Kvetil help him to escape. Janko arrives at Kvetil's house on the Swedish border via wrong turns. There he met Magnar by an unfortunate accident and was captured by him again. In a desperate fight, the rushed Kvetil shoots his son. He frees Janko and releases him on the border with neutral Sweden. With the words "Freedom for all human beings" Janko says goodbye to his liberator.

criticism

Blodveien advertising

The film is remarkable because of the cooperation between the two countries Norway and Yugoslavia, at a time when international co-productions were unusual and which were also increasingly shaped by the Cold War. Not only were the languages ​​used in the film Serbo-Croatian, Norwegian and German, a mixed Norwegian-Yugoslav team was also responsible for the cast and directing. The production companies were Norsk Film on the Norwegian side and the state-owned Avala Film on the Yugoslav side. Overall, the production of the film can be seen as a concrete act of jointly coming to terms with the painful history of both countries immediately after the Second World War. This is all the more remarkable as the history of forced laborers in Norway has not been adequately dealt with up to the present day.

“A drama that is as poignant as it is convincing, which focuses on the value of humanity regardless of ideological convictions. The Nazi brutality and the sufferings of the victims are shown unpathetically and with partially relentless realism. The acting is also excellent. "

- Film service

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ gates Pryser: Blodveien. In: Store Norske Leksikon. January 24, 2017. Retrieved October 20, 2017 (Norwegian).
  2. ↑ snl.no: Store norske leksikon Historie Norsk og nordisk historie Norges historie Norges historie fra 1940 to 1945 (Norwegian)
  3. ↑ DinaView: Krvavi put / Blodveien / Blood Road (Yugoslavia / Norway, 1955). April 3, 2010, accessed October 20, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Susanne Maerz: The long shadows of the past. "Coming to terms with the past" in Norway as an identity discourse. Berliner Wissenschaftsverlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8305-1505-0 .
  5. ↑ Escape from Hell. 2017, accessed on October 28, 2017 (German).