Conceived and produced by the SS, the propaganda film THERESIENSTADT: A DOCUMENTARY FILM FROM THE JEWISH SETTLEMENT AREA was made in 1944.Kurt Gerron, who was known for his work in cinema and on various Berlin stages during the 1920s, was coerced into directing it and many of his fellow prisoners were forced to participate. Starkly contrasting with the official anti-Semitic propaganda, the purpose of this film, of which only fragments were preserved, was to trivialize the Nazis’ policies of ghettoization, concentration and extermination for an international audience and the Red Cross. The film will be screened as part of a seminar at HU’s Department of Cultural History and Theory alongside THERESIENSTADT SIEHT AUS WIE EIN CURORT (Theresienstadt Looks Like a Spa Resort, Nadja Seelich and Bernd Neuburger, 1997) and Harun Farocki’s AUFSCHUB (2007). (bk) Guest: theater and literary studies scholar Veronika Zangl (Poetik nach dem Holocaust. Erinnerungen – Tatsachen – Geschichten, 2009). (29.1.)
