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Theresienstadt-Experimente Read chapter Read first chapter

2021 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

The Hell of Theresienstadt as a Paradise Garden in Nazi Propaganda Film

Authors : Jürgen Raab, Marija Stanisavljevic

Published in: Theresienstadt – Filmfragmente und Zeitzeugenberichte

Publisher: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden

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Abstract

The article approaches the hell of Theresienstadt by starting with reflections on its historical reality as a special camp and as part of the Nazi policy of extermination. It then gives some insights into authentic experiences of the “forecourt of hell”, as remembered by survivors of the Holocaust and expressed in the interviews conducted during field research in the years 2017 and 2018. Set against this background, we finally reconstruct and interpret the reality of the place as it is presented in the Nazi propaganda film Theresienstadt: Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet (Terezín: A Documentary Film from the Jewish Settlement Area). Based on an analysis of selected parts of the film, we develop the thesis that the Theresienstadt film represents a very distinct means of presenting Nazi political ideology through a propaganda tool. This is because the film stages a “hall of mirrors” that distorts the hell of ghetto life into a paradise, in order to expose this “heaven on earth” as nothing but an optical illusion and a phantasm. The more-or-less hidden main message of the “documentary film” is that skilled and well-informed observers of this Jewish fake paradise will be able to decode the mirror writing and discover the ongoing downfall of humanity, and thereby finally become aware of an existential threat that transmits and reveals its own verdict of annihilation.

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previous chapter “Deliver Me, O Lord, from Eternal Death on that Fearful Day…”
next chapter Narrative Kontinuitäten? Der Theresienstadtfilm im Kontext der NS-Propaganda über die Ghettos und die „Judenfrage“
Footnotes
2
This and all the following quotations are taken from interviews that we conducted in German with survivors of Theresienstadt in 2017 and 2018. The interviews were carried out in Israel in conjunction with Hans-Georg Soeffner, Michael R. Müller, Ehrhardt Cremers and Lara Pellner for the research project "Documents – Memories – Historiography: The Second Theresienstadt Film, its Documentation and Reconstruction from the Perspective of the Survivors". The numerical values in brackets indicate the lengths of pauses in seconds; block capitals denote emphasis.
 
3
The concept of the “politics of myth” (Mythenpolitik), which guides our material analysis in terms of epistemology and methodology, is borrowed from Hans-Georg Soeffner: "Myths live from their embedding in repetitive narration. This process of repetition is further enhanced by the structure of modern media and the 'technical reproducibility' of narratives, images, formats and data carriers inherent in them. The constantly repeated chains of associations that refer to each other create a suggested association that the recipients can scarcely escape. It establishes a power which, in the spirit of Max Weber, consists in the – here particularly great – 'chance' to 'enforce one's own will within a social relationship even against resistance, no matter what the basis of this chance is'. It is true that the media in themselves have no will. But this will is possessed by those who use the media in a targeted manner. Consequently, consumer loyalty, advertising and propaganda rely on the control of associations, the presentation automatism they cause and the resulting suggested association. The aim is to commit the recipient to an interpretation without any alternatives: to eliminate differences or at least those differences in comparison to other interpretations." (Soeffner 2017, page 102)
 
4
The following information on the film clip we have selected can be found in the setting protocol for the Theresienstadt film:
"35th sequence, preserved: Gardens. – 02 m brook bank: Leaves floating in the water; three boys sitting at the water (panning, div.) – 31 m allotment gardens by the moat below the city wall: numerous people doing various gardening jobs, mainly watering flowers (various times, partly close by).
36th sequence, preserved: Shared accommodation. – 17 m outside area of the barracks with inhabitants, mostly women and children: on benches, talking, reading (various times). – 37 m indoor barrack of the women's home. Pan across a wide central corridor to individually partitioned-off areas with wooden tables and benches. Bunk beds separate these sections, some of them covered with sheets. Various women and young girls reading, doing manual work (knitting, sewing). Entertainment in small groups, card games, including a nurse in traditional uniform (various takes, partly close, partly camera work).
37th sequence, incomplete (beginning) preserved: Dinner of a 'family'. – 02 m 'Family' at the dining table in the living room. Two framed pictures on walls: Grandparents (represented by David Cohen and wife (Amsterdam). Parents and two girls (represented by Phillip Kozower, his wife and children). Table set."
 
5
For the sociological aesthetics of the garden, see Raab 2018.
 
6
The following film documents have been preserved: Ghetto (archive title), country of production: unknown, client: unknown, camera: Sonderführer Willy Wist, employed with the Filmeinsatztrupp OKW, shooting time: 2 May to 2 June 1942, location: Warsaw Ghetto; copy: Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, shelf mark 17.411, 35 mm, b/w, mute, 1,737 m (= approx. 63 min). Film without title and opening credits, copied with Tonkasch. Ghetto – Restmaterial (archive title), country of production: Deutsches Reich, production company: unknown, client: unknown, camera: Sonderführer Willy Wist, copy: Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, signature: M 19.675, 35 mm, b/w, mute copied with Tonkasch, 948 m. Das Warschauer Ghetto (archive title, 1942), country of production: German Reich, production company: Amateurfilm, camera: Paul Adam/Andreas Honowski, copy: Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, signature: M 3180, 16 mm, b/w, mute, 86 m. In addition, there are Asien in Mitteleuropa (archive title, 1942), Ghetto in Dombrowa und Bedzin (archive title, 1942) and Judendeportation in Polen (archive title, 1942), which are all archived and viewable at the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, Berlin.
 
7
In his study of total institutions, Erving Goffman describes this practice as "looping". In order to stage the difference between staff and inmates as a fundamental difference between two categories of people and types of people, the staff direct or force the inmates into certain situations (lack of sleep, insufficient food, physical stress, delayed decisions, generating fear, etc.), evaluate the patterns of behaviour that occur (silence, mistrust, uncooperative behaviour, disrespect, wanton destruction, etc.) as evidence of their essential otherness, and then take them as justification for their reactive measures (see Goffman 1961, pages 35–36).
 
8
Parallel to the establishing shot for what is called the "communal accommodation", a voiceover begins: "The end of the day is the right time for private life here. People still chat, read or play in front of and inside the apartments. Single women and girls make themselves comfortable in their women's home."
 
9
"10th sequence, perceived: The Jewish Self-Government – Meeting of the Council of Elders. Eppstein rises and speaks to the members of the Jewish Council sitting at the long table: "Gentlemen! Let me summarise this account: Over the course of these years, in which Theresienstadt has been transformed into a Jewish settlement, we have established self-government. It has been possible to fulfil its task, as we can probably say today in retrospect. Let us leave aside all the details about the stages of this construction, about the achievements of our workers and turn our attention to the whole. We can see that we have to care for the old and the sick, for children and young people, as well as for the men and women who work in our community. Forms of life have emerged that are not rooted in the duty to work for our community in terms of possession or origin. The fact that Jews from various districts and areas of life have come together here, including well-known scholars, artists and public figures of merit, engineers and technicians, craftsmen and other skilled workers, gives community life a peculiar character" (see https://​web.​archive.​org/​web/​20130222053705/​http://​www.​cine-holocaust.​de/​cgi-bin/​gdq?​efw00fbw000812.​gd, last accessed 01.08.2021).
 
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Metadata
Title
The Hell of Theresienstadt as a Paradise Garden in Nazi Propaganda Film
Authors
Jürgen Raab
Marija Stanisavljevic
Copyright Year
2021
Book
Theresienstadt – Filmfragmente und Zeitzeugenberichte

Print ISBN: 978-3-658-31636-5

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-658-31637-2

Copyright Year: 2021

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-31637-2_9