BERLIN (Reuters) – Against a darkened TV sound stage, a woman testifies before judges on a bare black platform about how her boss at the Auschwitz Nazi death camp, Boger, killed a newly arrived boy.
“The boy stood there with his apple. Boger went to the child and picked him up by the feet and dashed his head against the barracks wall,” the woman recalls as the camera pans across Boger, sitting behind her, his face impassive.
“Since then, I have never wanted a child of my own.”
Her testimony is one of several by defendants and witnesses re-enacted in “The Investigation”, a new film by German director RP Kahl based on a play of the same name that dramatises the trials of 22 Auschwitz personnel in Frankfurt from 1963-65.
Testimonies at those trials give just a small glimpse of the suffering experienced by the estimated 1.3 million people sent to Auschwitz in Nazi-occupied Poland as part of Adolf Hitler’s “Final Solution” to annihilate European Jews.
“What particularly intrigued me about the play was its ability to depict Auschwitz without the need for total immersion in its unimaginable reality,” Kahl told Reuters in Berlin.
Kahl said he had opted for a more contemporary cinematic style to appeal to younger viewers: “We filmed in a television studio with multiple cameras to create an immersive visual experience. We aimed to avoid creating a historical drama.”
With an eye to the 80th anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation by Soviet troops on Jan. 27, Kahl said he hoped his movie would make it easier for a new generation to engage with the Holocaust as the number of survivors dwindles.
“The Investigation” is also a reminder of the importance of maintaining a liberal, democratic society and the constant vigilance needed to prevent a recurrence of atrocities like Auschwitz, he said.
“The film conveys the message that we all have a role to play in shaping our society and preventing such horrors from recurring,” said the director.
Six months after its debut in Germany, the four-hour film will be shown to Israelis in Tel Aviv on Monday, the 80th anniversary, while its international premiere is set for Jan. 31 at the Rotterdam festival in the Netherlands.
(Reporting by Swantje Stein; writing by Miranda Murray; editing by Mark Heinrich)
