Section: POLSKIE HORYZONTY: The Female Gaze

Wir sind Juden aus Breslau

We are Jews from Breslau

Karin Kaper, Dirk Szuszies
Germany, 2016, 108 Min

They were young, and felt at home in Breslau until the National Socialists came to power, bringing with them death, persecution and exile. Fifteen survivors feature in this multifaceted portrait of a generation.

Karin Kaper Film

Prior to the Second World War, Breslau was home to the third-biggest Jewish community in Germany. The Nazi seizure of power meant persecution for these young Breslau Jews, some of whom managed to escape, very few of whom survived the concentration camps however. Fifteen contemporary witnesses provide insight into a generation in this work that, by drawing on oral testimony from individuals now based in countries as diverse as the USA, Great Britain, France and Israel, illustrates the dispersion that occurred amongst the Breslau Jews in the post-war period.

Some of the protagonists resolve to undertake the journey home, where they encounter a group of German-Polish youths, thus building a bridge between the past and present, with a revival of the local Jewish community in Wrocław currently underway. This is no longer a German Jewish community however: after the war German-Jewish returnees were given a hard time by both the Soviet military and then the authorities of communist Poland, as a result of which many of them emigrated. JG

Filmformat
DCP | Farbe / colour & s/w / b/w
Drehbuch
Karin Kaper, Dirk Szuszies
Kamera
Dirk Szuszies
Ton
Karin Kaper
Schnitt
Dirk Szuszies, Tobias Rahm
Musik
Bente Kahan, Simon Wallfisch, Patrick Grant, Carlo Altomare
Produzent
Karin Kaper
Produktion
Karin Kaper Film
Kontakt
Karin Kaper Film
Karin Kaper
Naunynstraße 41a
10999 Berlin
Germany
Tel.: +49.30.6150.77 22
kaperkarin@web.de
www.karinkaper.com
Karin Kaper, Dirk Szuszies

Karin Kaper, Dirk Szuszies -  

Karin Kaper
– born 1959 in Bremen, Germany. Trained as an actress at the Bremen “Bildertheater”, she went on to co-found the ZATA theatre in Munich, where she featured in several theatrical productions. Since 2000, she has focused her professional attentions on production, directing and independent film distribution.

Dirk Szuszies 
- born 1956 in Dortmund, Germany. He studied pedagogy and sociology before going on to work as an actor, starting in 1979. Until the late nineties he worked as an actor, director and author in the independent theatre scenes of both Berlin and Munich. In 2004, he co-founded a film distribution company together with Karin Kaper.

Movies
RESIST! TO BE WITH THE LIVING (2003, doc)
DIALOGUES ‘99/II (2004, short)
HALLO, NACHBAR, HOPPLA (2008, doc)
ANOTHER GLORIOUS DAY (2009, doc)
ABER DAS LEBEN GEHT WEITER (2011, doc)
BERLIN EAST SIDE GALLERY (2015, doc)

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