Auschwitz Foundation Prize
Selection Escales Documentaires, La Rochelle 2019
In October 1942, Hanuš Hachenburg, a young 13-year-old Czech Jewish orphan, was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto.
Designed by the Nazis for propaganda purposes as a “model camp,” thousands of Jews were locked up there, including many artists, intellectuals, and personalities whose disappearance could pose a problem. The Nazi administration gathered them in this fortified city that resembled a “Jewish reserve” in a Europe where they were being exterminated.
In one of the barracks, about forty young boys decided to resist by creating an underground newspaper and proclaimed the creation of an imaginary and fraternal republic where every child was free: the Republic of Škid.
It was there that Hanuš Hachenburg wrote We Need a Ghost, a short play for puppets, a satirical work of astonishing lucidity.
Hanuš died in a gas chamber in Birkenau a few months after writing his play and his work would not be discovered until 70 years later by a Strasbourg academic.
The Ghost of Theresienstadt tells the extraordinary story of this work and its author. By giving voice to former comrades of Hanuš, and by exploring archives that attest to the vast enterprise of mystification that was the Theresienstadt ghetto.
Baptiste Cogitore
Through my films and books, I have been working for about ten years on the notion of collective memories, places crossed by History, and national narratives. I am particularly interested in art as a means of resistance to barbarism and as a tool for transmitting memory.
Claire Audhuy |
Conseillère historique |
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Grégory Rodriguez |
Image |
Grégory Pernet |
Son |
Emmanuel Prost |
Dessin |
Jef Guillon |
Animation |
Grégoire Terrier |
Musique |
Diane Bucciali |
Chant |
Eric Taryné |
Mixage |
Laurent Dené |
Producteur |
Une coproduction Alsace 20 - Sancho & C°
Association suisse des Amis du Doc. Korczac
Centre National du Cinéma
Eurométropole de Strasbourg
Fondation pour la mémooire de la Shoah
Région Grand Est
Région Normandie
Rodéo d'âme