And everyone was silent

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Movie
Original title And everyone was silent
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2012
length 90 minutes
Rod
Director Dror Zahavi
script Andrea Stoll
production Doris Zander
music Ingo Ludwig Frenzel
camera Gero Steffen
cut Fritz Busse
occupation

And everyone was silent is a German television film from 2012 that uses a fictional story to address the injustice of West German home education. The film is based on the book Beats in the Name of Lord by Peter Wensierski from 2006. The television premiere took place on March 4, 2013 on ZDF .

action

2008: Luisa returned to Germany from the USA in order to finally talk about the time in a children's home of the Protestant Church after decades of being suppressed. You and Paul have been invited to report to the round table in the Bundestag about what they suffered there. For both of them it is also a reunion after a long time, because after their brief love they lost contact with each other.

1964: Sixteen-year-old Luisa comes to the children's home because her single mother becomes seriously ill. There all children and young people are only addressed as numbers, Luisa is number 84. Like everyone there, she is beaten, humiliated and harassed. She notices Paul, who is the same age, when he is supposed to pray the Our Father on the first day after his arrival. The pastor stands next to him to punish any mistake or slip of the tongue with slaps on the hands. Paul stutters.

All inmates have to do heavy work, the girls in the mangling room or cleaning, the boys in the workshops. They are constantly monitored and reprimanded by the sisters. When the director of the home, Sister Elisabeth, comes to the mangelstube to greet Luisa, the girl dares to ask a question: when she will be able to go to school again, her teacher thinks she will be able to pass the Abitur. The sister's answer destroys all her hopes. The girls are destined to find a man, to look after him and the children and to run the household. She doesn't need a high school diploma for this.

A short time later, the qualified pedagogue Jana Michels comes to the home to write a paper on the development of diaconal youth homes in Germany as part of a research project on the cooperation between youth welfare offices and churches and to make suggestions for improvement. After tough talks with the prison management, she managed to get the youngsters an hour to themselves after the bishop's visit, without supervision. Paul and Luisa take the opportunity to escape. They break into a farmhouse, get new clothes and eat something. They can escape the returning farmer with a moped, but are soon caught up by the police and brought back to the home. After their experience there, they are sure to be brutally punished. Luisa rushes out the window, but survives and comes to the hospital. She is lucky and, thanks to Jana's efforts, she doesn't have to return to the home. Paul, on the other hand, is sent to a prison camp where he has to work hard for two years until he is no longer “useful” and is sent back to the children's home.

reception

“What was previously only known from abstract stories can be experienced emotionally in the film: Luisa is ordered around like a prisoner, her hair is shaved, even her identity is stolen from her: she is no longer Luisa, she is just a number. If she complains, she is reprimanded, if she protests against injustice, she is beaten. The enamored looks of the teenage girl, which she throws at boy Paul, are suspiciously registered by the careworn sisters, sexuality is forbidden, freedom is forbidden, fun is forbidden, everything is forbidden. The home is a prison. [...]

The former home children are portrayed as adults by Senta Berger and Matthias Habich - and this cast is excellent. Not only because both are excellent actors and are able to breathe life into the naturally somewhat wooden scenes in front of the parliamentary committee. But above all because the home inmates who have been voiceless and unlawful for many years, who have remained silent about their fate in shame, have escaped their role as victims. Two of the best German actors play the home residents - these are not broken existences, but stars. 'And all have been silent' gives the victims back what was stolen from them in the home: their dignity ”. (Stefan Kuzmany on Spiegel.de)

“Director Dror Zahavi has dared to tackle the gloomy subject: the failure of German post-war education. He doesn't gloss over anything, gets by without voyeurism: not all sisters are monsters, but the system favors those who enjoy torturing. A film well worth seeing. ”(Monika Maier-Albang on sueddeutsche.de)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ mirror .Spiegel online March 4, 2013, called on December 8, 2013.
  2. ↑ Sueddeutsche . Süddeutsche from March 4, 2013, accessed on December 8, 2013.