Sun., January 28, 2024
History of the Universe | Documentary
Friday, January 26, 2024, 11:05 pm
History of the Universe
Resistance in the concentration camp – The Mauthausen photographer
Few concentration camps have as many photos from their active period as Mauthausen. This is thanks to a group of Spanish prisoners who, risking their lives, hid around 20,000 photos of evidence of SS crimes. Young Francisco Boix hid negatives and smuggled them out of the camp – he was later called as a witness at the Nuremberg trial of major war criminals. Boix photographed all the new arrivals for a so-called “identification service” but secretly documented the camp and the inhumane working conditions. He found Anna Pointnerin from Mühlviertler as an accomplice – she also risked her life and hid the smuggled photos out of the concentration camp until after the end of the war. When the Americans arrived in Mauthausen in 1945, young photographer Francisco Boix was waiting for them and filmed with a Leica camera that the young Catalan had stolen from the SS. He was called as a witness in the main Mauthausen trial. It is a story of resistance and courage – fascinating and shocking photographs and archival documents, interviews with Spanish resistance fighters, contemporary witnesses and international historians paint a realistic picture of cruel camp life – but also a picture of courage and optimism.
Director: Barbara Necek
German adaptation: Andrea Lehner
Sunday, January 28, 2024, 11:05 pm ORF 2
Documentary
Tell who?
“Who are we going to tell all this to?” This was one of the central questions of the prisoners at the Mauthausen extermination camp, especially on the day and after their liberation on May 5, 1945. Using the example of five survivors, Ernst Gossner tells how they perceived their liberation, especially how they found the path back to a civilized life differently. Or maybe never. But it's much more: about the transport there, the horrible realization of what that place meant for those interned, the fear of death, the impossibility of believing in God afterwards, the nightmare that became reality, which has an impact forever and ever. is reflected in them Stole sleep from the prisoners or stole it when the terror was truly over.
Gossner tells his film in a calm, almost laconic tone – and perhaps that's why it's all the more moving. The focus is entirely on former inmates, only complemented by archival images. The structure and additional factual information provide a narrative voice for OFF: quotes by Jakovos Kambanellis from his book “Freedom Came in May”.
Produced in collaboration with the ORF film/television agreement.