“Naked Among Wolves”: The horror through the eyes of a child – Stuttgarter Zeitung

From Ulla Hanselmann "2015-04-01 08:52"> 01. April 2015 – 08:52 clock

ARD is the remake of “Naked Among Wolves” contemporary historical narrative television. The creators of “Generation War” deal this time with the Buchenwald concentration camp, Jack and his liberation.

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The three-year-old (Vojta Vomáčka) hidden in a suitcase. Photo: ARD

Stuttgart – It was the most widely read book in the GDR, required reading in schools and block the socialist myth: “Naked Among Wolves”. Bruno Apitz told in the novel, as communist prisoners in Buchenwald hide a three-year-olds in April 1945 and save them from death; simultaneously succeed in the liberation of the concentration camp. Frank Beyer filmed the heroic saga of the Defa – despite a propagandistic embellishment intense chamber piece with a monumental finale of thousands of prisoners stormed onto the parade ground to celebrate freedom.

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The historian <- - no content!>: Not only was there a three-year-olds, but 900 children and young people in Buchenwald. The Communists have held key management positions were so-called prisoner functionaries, “Kapos” who were privileged as compared to the Jewish prisoners. The comrades well secured the survival of children, but also their own: Among the 56 000 people who perished in the labor camps were only 72 German communists. The self-liberation by the Communists is a myth: although the resistance network was able to smuggle weapons into the camp, it came on 11 April 1945 even shootings, but only after the majority of the SS men had piled up, and in the knowledge that the arrival the Americans was safe.

In 2012 there appeared a new edition of the novel, which refers to the recent historical knowledge – well, ten days before the seventieth anniversary of the liberation of Buchenwald, pulls the television with the were responsible for the MDR remake of Philipp Kadelbach (director) and Stefan Kolditz (writer) for – and Nico Hofmann, restless TV preparer of recent German history can, with his production company UFA Fiction close another gap.

Contemporary Narrative Television

“The story must be told again because it is very central questions that reach into our presence today,” says Kolditz, of the fabric according to the historical status of research has been corrected. In conjunction with Kadel-Bach relentlessly realistic staging the duo that also the successful ZDF miniseries “Our mothers, our fathers” responsible, contemporary historical narrative succeeds TV: individualized, emotionally, dense and highly dramatic.

“Apitz wrong with not only the Song of the Communists, but says something more fundamental: that humanity is only possible if the ideology is overcome. Because the child is not even saved with the support of the Communist Party but against their command, “explains Stefan Kolditz why today is very topical for him the novel. The ARD film is, unlike the literary model, the political prisoner Hans Pippig (Florian Stetter) in the center of the action. The morally upright and sensitive Zimmermann takes care of the camp smuggled in a suitcase boy. But Bochow (Thorsten Merten), the head of the “International Camp Committee” wants to send the child to the next death transport to Bergen-Belsen.

Also, Kapo André Höfel (Peter Schneider), who heads the closet for the SS and whose figure is based on the Stuttgart Willi Bleicher (see page 28), feared by the child could be the resistance group and their conspiratorial plans of the SS are discovered. Only after Pippig the instructions of his superiors Höfel opposes – “if we sacrifice the boy, we sacrifice everything” – recognizes Höfel that there may be no alternative to protect the child. He is also not reveal his conviction and his dignity when he is being tortured. Especially the scenes in which the ice-cold Untersturmführer Reineboth (Sabin Tambrea) his victims extradite the sadistic torturer Mandrill, are hard to bear.

A race against time

Sent eingeflochtene historical footage of the fast approaching end Americans dramatize the agonizing withstanding the Nazi barbarism in addition – it’s a race against time. Oppressive but also Kadel Bach’s dramatic portrayal of the everyday camp life: the three-year-old Jewish child is in the “Little Camp”, the quarantine station, tucked away and surrounded by misery crammed figures that are drawn from death and disease. For Stefan Kolditz is one of the essential corrections to the template in which the Jewish prisoners and the “Little Camp” quasi played no role.

So the incomprehensible, in the child, the horror silent, met with large, questioning eyes, tangible – it turns into a symbol of humanity and hope. After the liberation Kadelbach be very different from Beyer prisoners come reluctantly to the appeal court, too exhausted to cheer. Such is not a triumphant victory of an ideology, but the survival of the pure human. But the film also shows how the Nazi henchmen in the face of defeat either the ugly face of bigotry and keep trying to kill the remaining 21,000 prisoners in the last minute or unrecognized escape. In fact, many of the responsible Buchenwald SS members have not been charged after the war or soon pardoned

Thus, the film encourages critical analysis of the history of. “We need a dialogue of different cultures of memory in East and West; has not taken place in recent decades, “says Kolditz – and hopes that the film a” can contribute shared collective memory “.

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