Index – Culture – Born in Auschwitz, his whole family suffers

The all-night documentary shows how family traumas are passed down from generation to generation and if they can be eliminated. The protagonist of the film, Angela, was born in December 1944, a few days before Christmas, in the Auschwitz death camp, one pound. Because Jewish newborns have a gas chamber or the infamous dr. Deadly attempts by Joseph Mengele awaited, and the baby’s mother had to hide from the Nazis in the barracks for five weeks until the camp was liberated on January 27, 1945.

The miraculous story, which is the starting point of the film, was brought to life by the creative team at On the Spot with special footage and animation. The animation team made an attempt at the beginning of the film to show, from a fetal perspective, what effects an unborn baby from Auschwitz might have felt in its mother’s womb.

Previously, a whole season on On the Spot was about the birth, from the Gaza Strip to Ethiopia. In this, Pulitzer Prize-winning filmmakers Prima Primissima and Golden Nymph on four continents investigated the impact of the circumstances of our birth on our lives and the birth of their own child at the end of the journey. A few years later, in Season Children of the Enemy, they were filmed with adults who came to the world in the darkest times of the 20th century, they were in the wrong place at birth, from the Vietnam War to the Siege of Sarajevo to a North Korean prison camp. Now they go even further with the story of the birth of Auschwitz, as the protagonists of the film are Angéla, who was born in the countryside, and her daughter, Kati, who is trying to stop the trauma of three generations that has left its mark. throughout his childhood.

With their mother and daughter, who lived in Canada, the filmmakers shot in five countries for five years. After more than forty years, they returned with them to their homeland, Hungary, Germany, Israel, and Poland, where they were also received by Pope Francis after a historic visit to Auschwitz.

In the film, the protagonists step out of their comfort zone, even if it is often painful, to face the shadows and traces of the past in the present, in order to shed the trauma of Auschwitz that spans generations throughout the lifetime.

“We will always be grateful to the two protagonists, Angela and her daughter, Kati, for being able to continue their often difficult and painful journey for five years. What’s more, for years we had no idea who would need this movie until Spektrum saw the fantasy in it from home and then ART from Western Europe. It’s a very strange feeling that this movie has been made for as long as our son. We filmed about the inheritance of trauma and its healing, but along the way we also learned a lot about ourselves, about the meaning of spoken and unspoken words, ”the two creators, Eszter Cseke and András S. Takács, told Index.

Premier: Spectrum, Wednesday, January 27 at 10 p.m.

(Cover image: András Takács and Eszter Cseke. Photo: János Bődey / Index)