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katherine_b at 04:37pm on 07/02/2004
katherine_b at 04:37pm on 07/02/2004I've just got back from the cinema. (For those of you not currently picking yourselves up off the floor, I go to the cinema about once in every blue moon, if that often.) If it helps, though, I went for a reason: last year a film version of the events of the Rosenstrasse was made, and I felt obliged to see it as a part of my research.
Interestingly, the only controversy about the whole event and the process of memorialisation that has followed it has been about this film. This is very unusual, as generally there is a great deal of argument about where the memorial should be located, what it should represent and who it should represent. There was nothing about that for the Rosenstrasse, which makes it particularly interesting. T
Forgive me, this will be a VERY long rant. Best avoided perhaps, unless you like to hear me rant.
First of all, you'd really want to know the history of the Fabrikaktion, or you'd be in the dark from the first historical moment. Before we get to history, however, we are thrown into a scene of jewish mourning by Ruth Weinstein, the traditions of which are blithely disregarded or dismissed by her daughter (Hannah), son (Ben) and daughter-in-law. There is also rather confusing tension between Ruth and Hannah's boyfriend Luis, but that will be (rather inadequately) explained later. Suffice it to say that Luis is not Jewish.
A stranger arrives at the mourning, who turns out to be Ruth's cousin. She is rebuffed by Ruth and then happens to decide to chat to Hannah, giving her a photo of a young Ruth (the girl we saw in flashbacks) and an older woman. The cousin (whose name I can't remember, but this is her last scene, so don't worry about it - oh, I just looked, it's Rachel) tells Hannah that this mysterious woman saved Ruth's life.
After telling Luis that she loves him (which, boys and girls, is called foreshadowing), Hannah decides to go to Berlin to find this woman - Lena Fischer, which, of course, will be easy, 'Fischer' being such a common name and all. No, that wasn't me. That was a line in the film. We never get to see Ruth's reaction to this, but as Ruth had formerly threatened to disown Hannah if she didn't give up Luis, I'm not sure she cares much anymore.
In Berlin (and I want to stay in the hotel that over looks the Potsdamer Platz, darn it!) Hannah begins her search, which is as difficult as wet-blanket-Luis assured her it would be. Finally, however, Lena is found and, surprise, surprise, is both alive and coherent in her old age. Hannah spins a line about being an American journalist (darling, I can do a better New York accent than that!) and turns up on the old woman's doorstep.
It takes the 90-year-old Lena at least fifteen minutes too long to notice that Hannah's accent fades away like snow on a dyke the moment she is through the door, although maybe this is our way of being told that dear old Lena is getting on a bit. So Hannah pulls out a recording device and sits down to listen while Lena dives right in at the deep end, talking about her husband and the way she saved his life (with no prompting, you understand - just comes out with it). By the way, the film jumps between the 1930s and the 2000s with barely a heartbeat. There isn't much to the modern storyline, except for an argument between Hannah and Luis in which she accuses him of being selfish, so I won't mention it again until the end.
And here we dive into the badly-explained historical portion of the film. Jews are being loaded into the back of a truck, the stars on their coats very visible. (The actual history of the Fabrikaktion is this: in the middle of February, 1943, Hitler was upset by the number of Mischlinge (Jews married to non-Jews) who continued to live in Berlin and receive ration cards, etc. Goebbels was thus given the task of organising teams to clear the city. On the 27th and 28th of February, the Jews were taken from their workplaces to different holding places all over Berlin, preparatory to being loaded onto trains and taken to the East (eg. Auschwitz) never to be seen or heard from again.)
Then we are seeing into a room where a young girl (young Ruth) hides behind a door while an SS guard looks in to see that he hasn't overlooked anyone. Okay, first rant here. The Fabrikaktion did NOT go into homes! It went into businesses! Sheesh! Anyway, so young Ruth is left alone and see that her favourite toy has been flung on the floor. She goes to the window and watches the people being loaded into trucks, then runs away before she gets caught. Around the corner, same thing happens. And then a third time. Okay, we get the idea! Enough already! Absolute waste of at least five minutes there! Then she ends up in front of a major Nazi building (of course!) where she runs into Lena. Lena hides her star by handing the girl a folder and tells her to go somewhere safe before sending her running off again. In one final 'let's see people gathered into trucks' scene, Ruth sees a young man who is tearing of his star to throw it in the bin. He does the same thing for Ruth, who gets the star out of the bin and pockets it, for reasons that will come back to annoy us all later.
Interspersed with other scenes, we see those who were collected in the Fabrikaktion being sorted into groups (Mischlinge to the Rosenstrasse, the others elsewhere), where they get to know each other, get abused, play chess, get shouted at, etc.
Lena herself goes in to ask a high-ranking official about her husband, who didn't come home from work. BTW, the Nazis are lucky Al Quaida weren't around then, because their security was abysmal! No guards outside the building, and two men behind desks who ask Lena where she's going without seeing her identification and send her on her way when they're satisfied. Uh, right...
Anyway, the officer tells her that he will help her - but only to get a divorce, as there's no reason a pretty German woman should be married to a Jew. Same old anti-Semitism. Lena pretty much tells him where to go (yeah, right! She'd live through that!) and leaves to try her luck in another office, who tells her to go back to the one she's just come from. Frustrated, she leaves and jumps on the U-Bahn, which just happens to go past the Rosenstrasse (actually, they didn't, but let's not get overly picky here). Seeing a group of woman, she goes and - surprise! - finds that Jews are being held there.
In the meantime, young Ruth has already found her way into the Rosentrasse (no, I don't know how she did it either) and asks a Jew where her mother is. They find her, in rather improbable circumstances, and Ruth's mother gives Ruth her wedding ring as a keepsake and tells her to find a nice woman who will take care of her before sending her away.
Outside, while the other women all stand there looking pathetic, Lena goes up to the guard and tells him that her husband has the ration cards and she would like them back. The guard says that his wife does all the shopping, and although he doesn't believe it, he's nice (*indignant snort*) to go and ask about them for her. He comes back and tells her that her husband, Fabian, says he left them at the factory, thus telling Lena that her husband is in that building. Then, as if on cue (or perhaps out of frustration that they didn't think of that stunt themselves), the woman begin to chant for their husbands.
Lo and behold, Klara Singer's husband pops his head up above the black-out that has been painted on the window, sending the women into a frenzy. While the guards in the street below look helpless, a guard appears in the window with Klara's husband and beats the Jew out of sight, silencing the women (and the audience).
A moment later, and Klara's husband, along with other men (including one who was feverish and kept screaming) are loaded into a truck, which is driven right past the women, who chase it and bang on the sides, screaming and yelling. The woman have no idea who is in the truck, but all think it might be their husbands and fathers.
Night falls and most of the women disperse, but a loyal band stick around, and Ruth finally has the chance to meet Lena. Lena, Frau Goldberg (a sweet old lady) and Klara urge Ruth to go home, but Ruth says she has no key, and there are no more neighbours to let her in anyway. Frau Goldberg tells her that here is not safe, but Ruth hugs Lena and asks her to take care of her. Lena is astonished, but takes Ruth back to her house and lets her sleep in her bed. While Ruth sleeps, Lena finds a key and the star.
That night, in the height of stupidity, Lena takes Ruth's star, sews it to her own clothes and tries to get into the building. The SS guard asks her if she didn't get the star from her dress-up box, and Klara ousts her as an Arian. Very stupid plot point. Predictable as all heck. All we get is the fact that Ruth was a little upset about Lena not being there and makes her promise never to leave again, which will later make Ruth look like a selfish little sh*t, but never mind.
The next morning, the group outside the building has increased to about 75 people. Klara arrives in an agitated state with a postcard that has been thrown from the train on which her husband is being transported east and was mailed to her. One of the women says that Klara has no chance of getting him back, but if she wants to try, she could go to the SS headquarters in another part of town. Lena offers to go with her.
At the SS headquarters, the women are shown to a high-ranking officer, who mocks them and says that anyone sent East will die (which is utter crap, as a number of Mischlinger were returned from Auschwitz to Berlin as a result of the Rosenstrasse protest).
The next morning (it's about the 3rd of March now) the women gather again, but Klara is not among them. Lena takes Ruth to find out what happened to her and discovers that Klara has killed herself now that she has no more hope. Furious, Lena takes Ruth to see Lena's own parents, Baron and Baroness von Eschenbach. She finds her brother Arthur there, who has lost half of his leg. Lena goes to beg her father to intervene on behalf of Fabian (her husband, if you've lost track). We find out that Baron von Eschenbach banned Lena from his house because she married a Jew, and that he had also volunteered to pay Fabian's fare to America when Hitler first came to power if Fabian would go without Lena. Can anyone say 'guilt trip'?
Arthur, however, is quite resourceful, and also, having witnessed some of the worst atrocities against the Jews in the East, wants to help his brother-in-law. He first goes to see a friend (they even call each other by familiar titles) and this friend, after being shocked by the photos Arthur has of Jews being killed, arranges a chance for Lena to meet with Josef Goebbels.
Okay, this is where I got furious and the film got bloody stupid. The courage of the woman (who have been shot at, nearly driven over, and suffered through bombing raids) is ignored completely and the reason the men were freed is because Lena Fischer seduced Josef Goebbels.
So who else is surprised that historians were raving mad at this? It nearly made me sick, I have to say! Despite my nitpicking, I'd been willing to swallow the rest of the film as a slight variation on the facts. I even knew this ending was coming, and it still made my irate!
*takes some deep breaths*
Okay, I'm calm - for now.
Anyway, Lena returns to the Rosenstrasse, having, presumably, laid back and thought of Fabian. I would like to point out now that there are only about 100 women in the Rosentrasse at any one time. In reality, figures differ between 700 and 1,500. Would it really have been that hard to at least have another hundred or so? It looks pretty pathetic as it is.
After a moment, the door opens and Nathan Goldberg comes out into the cold March morning. There is a joyful reunion between he and Frau Goldberg (the nice old lady from before). The door opens again and again, and more men come out.
The next scene has perhaps a dozen women waiting, including Lena. Arthur limps up (he has a false leg and a cane) and asks what happened to Fabian, as his release was the main point of the whole deal. I simmer again. Then, surprise, surprise, the door opens and Fabian appears. More women appear. Only Ruth's mother does not come out.
Ruth asks Arthur about her mother, and we pan up to see the deserted building as Hannah's voice demands to know how Lena got away with not telling Ruth about her past. Lena rather weakly says that Ruth was only eight, and Hannah bites back with the fact that Ruth was eleven when she left, thus implying (I think) that Ruth twigged to the fact that Lena was telling porkies. Lena goes on about how much she misses Ruth and how it hurt not to tell her the truth.
So the film grates to an end, in which Lena gives Ruth a ring that has some significance, although what I'm not sure because I think I was comatose with boredom by then. I can tell you it was NOT the ring Ruth's mother gave her, but that's about it (Ruth's mother's ring had no stone on it, the one from Lena has a pretty emerald). Anyway, Hannah goes back to New York and has dinner with Ruth, who notices the ring on her hand and gets all teary. Hannah recites a rather tripey line Lena told her about taking her courage in both hands, which Ruth then negates by giving Hannah the ring and telling her to have it.
The next scene is the wedding of Hannah and Luis, all having been forgiven and forgotten off-camera. There are two surprises here - it is a very Jewish wedding (and it has earlier been established that Luis detests all Jewish traditions), and Lena is NOT there. In fact, we don't see Lena again, and as she is fictional, there is no text on the screen telling us about the rest of her life or anything like that.
Well, that's it. I was angry and aggravated, although I won't deny that I didn't get a little teary in the emotional scenes, usually at the same moment as I was cursing them for getting their facts wrong.
One interesting point about the day, though: there is a litfassaeule at either end ot the Rosenstrasse (ie. a tall thick column, usually used for advertising) which were erected about 10 years ago by a class of students in Berlin who were studying the protest. I was astonished, when I visited the street on Monday, to see that these were in perfect condition and free of graffiti. Not today. One was fine, but the other had a thick cut down it, and one of the informative paper sheets had been torn off. It will be interesting to see how long it takes before it is repaired.
Sorry, not much fun today. Tomorrow is my 'me' day (ie. I become a tourist, not a student) so I'll probably have fun stuff to tell you then.
Interestingly, the only controversy about the whole event and the process of memorialisation that has followed it has been about this film. This is very unusual, as generally there is a great deal of argument about where the memorial should be located, what it should represent and who it should represent. There was nothing about that for the Rosenstrasse, which makes it particularly interesting. T
Forgive me, this will be a VERY long rant. Best avoided perhaps, unless you like to hear me rant.
First of all, you'd really want to know the history of the Fabrikaktion, or you'd be in the dark from the first historical moment. Before we get to history, however, we are thrown into a scene of jewish mourning by Ruth Weinstein, the traditions of which are blithely disregarded or dismissed by her daughter (Hannah), son (Ben) and daughter-in-law. There is also rather confusing tension between Ruth and Hannah's boyfriend Luis, but that will be (rather inadequately) explained later. Suffice it to say that Luis is not Jewish.
A stranger arrives at the mourning, who turns out to be Ruth's cousin. She is rebuffed by Ruth and then happens to decide to chat to Hannah, giving her a photo of a young Ruth (the girl we saw in flashbacks) and an older woman. The cousin (whose name I can't remember, but this is her last scene, so don't worry about it - oh, I just looked, it's Rachel) tells Hannah that this mysterious woman saved Ruth's life.
After telling Luis that she loves him (which, boys and girls, is called foreshadowing), Hannah decides to go to Berlin to find this woman - Lena Fischer, which, of course, will be easy, 'Fischer' being such a common name and all. No, that wasn't me. That was a line in the film. We never get to see Ruth's reaction to this, but as Ruth had formerly threatened to disown Hannah if she didn't give up Luis, I'm not sure she cares much anymore.
In Berlin (and I want to stay in the hotel that over looks the Potsdamer Platz, darn it!) Hannah begins her search, which is as difficult as wet-blanket-Luis assured her it would be. Finally, however, Lena is found and, surprise, surprise, is both alive and coherent in her old age. Hannah spins a line about being an American journalist (darling, I can do a better New York accent than that!) and turns up on the old woman's doorstep.
It takes the 90-year-old Lena at least fifteen minutes too long to notice that Hannah's accent fades away like snow on a dyke the moment she is through the door, although maybe this is our way of being told that dear old Lena is getting on a bit. So Hannah pulls out a recording device and sits down to listen while Lena dives right in at the deep end, talking about her husband and the way she saved his life (with no prompting, you understand - just comes out with it). By the way, the film jumps between the 1930s and the 2000s with barely a heartbeat. There isn't much to the modern storyline, except for an argument between Hannah and Luis in which she accuses him of being selfish, so I won't mention it again until the end.
And here we dive into the badly-explained historical portion of the film. Jews are being loaded into the back of a truck, the stars on their coats very visible. (The actual history of the Fabrikaktion is this: in the middle of February, 1943, Hitler was upset by the number of Mischlinge (Jews married to non-Jews) who continued to live in Berlin and receive ration cards, etc. Goebbels was thus given the task of organising teams to clear the city. On the 27th and 28th of February, the Jews were taken from their workplaces to different holding places all over Berlin, preparatory to being loaded onto trains and taken to the East (eg. Auschwitz) never to be seen or heard from again.)
Then we are seeing into a room where a young girl (young Ruth) hides behind a door while an SS guard looks in to see that he hasn't overlooked anyone. Okay, first rant here. The Fabrikaktion did NOT go into homes! It went into businesses! Sheesh! Anyway, so young Ruth is left alone and see that her favourite toy has been flung on the floor. She goes to the window and watches the people being loaded into trucks, then runs away before she gets caught. Around the corner, same thing happens. And then a third time. Okay, we get the idea! Enough already! Absolute waste of at least five minutes there! Then she ends up in front of a major Nazi building (of course!) where she runs into Lena. Lena hides her star by handing the girl a folder and tells her to go somewhere safe before sending her running off again. In one final 'let's see people gathered into trucks' scene, Ruth sees a young man who is tearing of his star to throw it in the bin. He does the same thing for Ruth, who gets the star out of the bin and pockets it, for reasons that will come back to annoy us all later.
Interspersed with other scenes, we see those who were collected in the Fabrikaktion being sorted into groups (Mischlinge to the Rosenstrasse, the others elsewhere), where they get to know each other, get abused, play chess, get shouted at, etc.
Lena herself goes in to ask a high-ranking official about her husband, who didn't come home from work. BTW, the Nazis are lucky Al Quaida weren't around then, because their security was abysmal! No guards outside the building, and two men behind desks who ask Lena where she's going without seeing her identification and send her on her way when they're satisfied. Uh, right...
Anyway, the officer tells her that he will help her - but only to get a divorce, as there's no reason a pretty German woman should be married to a Jew. Same old anti-Semitism. Lena pretty much tells him where to go (yeah, right! She'd live through that!) and leaves to try her luck in another office, who tells her to go back to the one she's just come from. Frustrated, she leaves and jumps on the U-Bahn, which just happens to go past the Rosenstrasse (actually, they didn't, but let's not get overly picky here). Seeing a group of woman, she goes and - surprise! - finds that Jews are being held there.
In the meantime, young Ruth has already found her way into the Rosentrasse (no, I don't know how she did it either) and asks a Jew where her mother is. They find her, in rather improbable circumstances, and Ruth's mother gives Ruth her wedding ring as a keepsake and tells her to find a nice woman who will take care of her before sending her away.
Outside, while the other women all stand there looking pathetic, Lena goes up to the guard and tells him that her husband has the ration cards and she would like them back. The guard says that his wife does all the shopping, and although he doesn't believe it, he's nice (*indignant snort*) to go and ask about them for her. He comes back and tells her that her husband, Fabian, says he left them at the factory, thus telling Lena that her husband is in that building. Then, as if on cue (or perhaps out of frustration that they didn't think of that stunt themselves), the woman begin to chant for their husbands.
Lo and behold, Klara Singer's husband pops his head up above the black-out that has been painted on the window, sending the women into a frenzy. While the guards in the street below look helpless, a guard appears in the window with Klara's husband and beats the Jew out of sight, silencing the women (and the audience).
A moment later, and Klara's husband, along with other men (including one who was feverish and kept screaming) are loaded into a truck, which is driven right past the women, who chase it and bang on the sides, screaming and yelling. The woman have no idea who is in the truck, but all think it might be their husbands and fathers.
Night falls and most of the women disperse, but a loyal band stick around, and Ruth finally has the chance to meet Lena. Lena, Frau Goldberg (a sweet old lady) and Klara urge Ruth to go home, but Ruth says she has no key, and there are no more neighbours to let her in anyway. Frau Goldberg tells her that here is not safe, but Ruth hugs Lena and asks her to take care of her. Lena is astonished, but takes Ruth back to her house and lets her sleep in her bed. While Ruth sleeps, Lena finds a key and the star.
That night, in the height of stupidity, Lena takes Ruth's star, sews it to her own clothes and tries to get into the building. The SS guard asks her if she didn't get the star from her dress-up box, and Klara ousts her as an Arian. Very stupid plot point. Predictable as all heck. All we get is the fact that Ruth was a little upset about Lena not being there and makes her promise never to leave again, which will later make Ruth look like a selfish little sh*t, but never mind.
The next morning, the group outside the building has increased to about 75 people. Klara arrives in an agitated state with a postcard that has been thrown from the train on which her husband is being transported east and was mailed to her. One of the women says that Klara has no chance of getting him back, but if she wants to try, she could go to the SS headquarters in another part of town. Lena offers to go with her.
At the SS headquarters, the women are shown to a high-ranking officer, who mocks them and says that anyone sent East will die (which is utter crap, as a number of Mischlinger were returned from Auschwitz to Berlin as a result of the Rosenstrasse protest).
The next morning (it's about the 3rd of March now) the women gather again, but Klara is not among them. Lena takes Ruth to find out what happened to her and discovers that Klara has killed herself now that she has no more hope. Furious, Lena takes Ruth to see Lena's own parents, Baron and Baroness von Eschenbach. She finds her brother Arthur there, who has lost half of his leg. Lena goes to beg her father to intervene on behalf of Fabian (her husband, if you've lost track). We find out that Baron von Eschenbach banned Lena from his house because she married a Jew, and that he had also volunteered to pay Fabian's fare to America when Hitler first came to power if Fabian would go without Lena. Can anyone say 'guilt trip'?
Arthur, however, is quite resourceful, and also, having witnessed some of the worst atrocities against the Jews in the East, wants to help his brother-in-law. He first goes to see a friend (they even call each other by familiar titles) and this friend, after being shocked by the photos Arthur has of Jews being killed, arranges a chance for Lena to meet with Josef Goebbels.
Okay, this is where I got furious and the film got bloody stupid. The courage of the woman (who have been shot at, nearly driven over, and suffered through bombing raids) is ignored completely and the reason the men were freed is because Lena Fischer seduced Josef Goebbels.
So who else is surprised that historians were raving mad at this? It nearly made me sick, I have to say! Despite my nitpicking, I'd been willing to swallow the rest of the film as a slight variation on the facts. I even knew this ending was coming, and it still made my irate!
*takes some deep breaths*
Okay, I'm calm - for now.
Anyway, Lena returns to the Rosenstrasse, having, presumably, laid back and thought of Fabian. I would like to point out now that there are only about 100 women in the Rosentrasse at any one time. In reality, figures differ between 700 and 1,500. Would it really have been that hard to at least have another hundred or so? It looks pretty pathetic as it is.
After a moment, the door opens and Nathan Goldberg comes out into the cold March morning. There is a joyful reunion between he and Frau Goldberg (the nice old lady from before). The door opens again and again, and more men come out.
The next scene has perhaps a dozen women waiting, including Lena. Arthur limps up (he has a false leg and a cane) and asks what happened to Fabian, as his release was the main point of the whole deal. I simmer again. Then, surprise, surprise, the door opens and Fabian appears. More women appear. Only Ruth's mother does not come out.
Ruth asks Arthur about her mother, and we pan up to see the deserted building as Hannah's voice demands to know how Lena got away with not telling Ruth about her past. Lena rather weakly says that Ruth was only eight, and Hannah bites back with the fact that Ruth was eleven when she left, thus implying (I think) that Ruth twigged to the fact that Lena was telling porkies. Lena goes on about how much she misses Ruth and how it hurt not to tell her the truth.
So the film grates to an end, in which Lena gives Ruth a ring that has some significance, although what I'm not sure because I think I was comatose with boredom by then. I can tell you it was NOT the ring Ruth's mother gave her, but that's about it (Ruth's mother's ring had no stone on it, the one from Lena has a pretty emerald). Anyway, Hannah goes back to New York and has dinner with Ruth, who notices the ring on her hand and gets all teary. Hannah recites a rather tripey line Lena told her about taking her courage in both hands, which Ruth then negates by giving Hannah the ring and telling her to have it.
The next scene is the wedding of Hannah and Luis, all having been forgiven and forgotten off-camera. There are two surprises here - it is a very Jewish wedding (and it has earlier been established that Luis detests all Jewish traditions), and Lena is NOT there. In fact, we don't see Lena again, and as she is fictional, there is no text on the screen telling us about the rest of her life or anything like that.
Well, that's it. I was angry and aggravated, although I won't deny that I didn't get a little teary in the emotional scenes, usually at the same moment as I was cursing them for getting their facts wrong.
One interesting point about the day, though: there is a litfassaeule at either end ot the Rosenstrasse (ie. a tall thick column, usually used for advertising) which were erected about 10 years ago by a class of students in Berlin who were studying the protest. I was astonished, when I visited the street on Monday, to see that these were in perfect condition and free of graffiti. Not today. One was fine, but the other had a thick cut down it, and one of the informative paper sheets had been torn off. It will be interesting to see how long it takes before it is repaired.
Sorry, not much fun today. Tomorrow is my 'me' day (ie. I become a tourist, not a student) so I'll probably have fun stuff to tell you then.
irate
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