1 DON'T CALL IT HEIMWEH A 60 minute documentary by Thomas ...

A 60 minute documentary
by Thomas Halaczinsky
DON’T CALL IT HEIMWEH
The Greek call it nostalgia, the unappeased yearning to return - in German
“Heimweh”. The road movie 60 minute documentary “Don’t call it Heimweh” tells
the story of 82 year old Margot Friedlander and her life long journey in search
for home and identity.
For almost 60 years Margot Friedlander lived a good life in New York City. Born
as a child of an upper middle class family 82 years ago in Berlin, Germany, she
immigrated to the United States in 1946 together with her husband Adolf
Friedlander.
They settled in Queens where they lived for more than twenty years. As for so
many other immigrants for them America was the country of unlimited
possibilities.
Margot and Adolf had survived the Holocaust during the Third Reich in
Germany. Both of their families were brutally murdered. When they came to
America they had only one chance to escape the despair that overshadowed the
lives of so many who had survived. They had to look forward and to rebuild
their shattered lives.
They didn’t want to talk about their pain that they considered to be private, but
that also bonded them together. Adolf in particular didn’t want to look back
and he never wanted to visit Germany again. Margot
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espected his decision and except for a very few short visits during the last 60
years they didn’t set foot onto German soil.
When her husband passed away five years ago, Margot lost the person who had
given her strength and a sense of purpose in her life. Seventy eight years old
she had to set out to redefine herself and to find once again her own identity.
She joint a memoir writing class at the 92nd street Y in New York City and
inspired by the class started to write her story. With it came a feeling of anger,
and a deep sadness paired with the longing for “going home” or Heimweh, as
the Germans would say, a truly conflicting feeling for a Jewish woman who 60
years ago as a young girl survived Nazi Germany hidden by Germans in Berlin.
“Don’t call it Heimweh”, demands her cousin and childhood friend Gene, who
had escaped Germany before the progroms had started. But for Margot the
immediate Holocaust experience was different than for most others. Rescued
by Germans and eventually betrayed by Jewish catchers she kept an affinity for
Germany throughout her life.
Margot Friedlander, her mother and her younger brother Ralph lived in Berlin
until 1943. The parents had divorced in 1938 and the father had left the family
and escaped to Belgium where he later was caught and deported to Auschwitz.
In 1943 only very few Jews were left in Berlin, the Nazis were determined to
arrest every Jew and to make Berlin Judenfrei (free of Jews) as they called it.
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Margot’s mother had found a place for her and her children outside Berlin to go
into hiding, but somehow the plan had leaked and on the day the family was to
depart, her 16 year old son Ralph was arrested in their apartment. Margot was
not home at this time. When she returned to the apartment she found the door
sealed and neighbors told her that her brother was arrested. Then she found
out that her mother had turned herself in to the GESTAPO, because she couldn’t
let go of her young son. She had left her handbag with the neighbors together
with a last message for Margot: Try to make your life.
Margot, just 21 years was determined to survive. She took off the star of David,
dyed her hair and put on a Christian Cross to blend into the “German Berlin”.
Night by Night she found a place to stay. Often she had to leave because the
people who granted her shelter wanted her to return the favor. Sixty years
later she hardly remembers any names nor places. Throughout the time she was
concerned that her Jewish look might betray her, she was particular unhappy
with her nose. Against all odds she met someone who was willing to help. A
married man, who was interested in her, organized a plastic surgery for her. A
former assistant of world famous plastic surgeon Prof. Joseph who had invented
a standard procedure for nose correction surgery, conducted the procedure in a
make shift operation room in the middle of the air raids in Berlin 1943.
In spite of her nose surgery and her new look Margot was betrayed by Jewish
collaborators, who knew her from before. She was arrested in 1944 and
deported to Theresienstadt where by pure luck she survived. It was there that
she met a man again, who she had known more than five
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years ago, when she worked as wardrobe assistant at the Jewish Kulturbund,
Adolf Friedlander. On the day of liberation she married Adolf still in
Theresienstadt. In 1946 they immigrated to New York.
It was not an easy decision for Margot to go back to Berlin and revisit the place
where she had endured endless humiliation and where her family was
murdered.
Rather than exploring the historical facts and replaying the all too well known
archival footage, the film is set in the present. It observes Margot as she tries to
resolve the conflicted feelings that are part of her story.
While this film is rooted in history it is not a historical film. Much more it is the
attempt to show the individual necessity to transcend the experience of pain
and suffering when one grows older and has to come to a conclusion in life.
Margot’s journey to Berlin reveals how much modern day Germany still
struggles to relate to its horrible history. In Germany’s new capitol Berlin the
traces of this attempt are clearly visible.
Determined to tell her story Margot visited schools and engaged in a dialogue
with the people of Berlin - a city that tries to keep the memory of the past alive
and at times struggles to keep any notion of a new Anti-Semitism under
control.
With this film its protagonist Margot claims part of her German identity that was
taken from her more than 60 years ago. “This is why I made this film”, says
filmmaker Thomas Halaczinsky. “As a German we tend to
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look at our past as something that has been concluded, a closed chapter in a
history book. The fact is that many lives are still vividly affected by history.
Living in New York as a German I am facing the history of my country almost on
a daily basis, because you meet so many people who either escaped Germany
lost their loved ones there or came here after the war. When in 2005 Germany
will face the 60 anniversary of the end of
Hitler fascism we Germans will once again look back at the events as concluded
History. “Don’t call it Heimweh” is a personal film about the ongoing reality that
was caused by this past. I am interested in the
emotional conflicts and the way someone like Margot lives with it rather than
corroborating known facts.”
This approach called stylistically for a film that is closer to a visual narrative
than to a fact driven documentary. As we travel with her back to Berlin her story
read by her as an off screen narration takes off. It is her inner voice of
memories that meets the visual realty of Berlin today as if to attach her story to
the images of modern day Berlin. This is where past transcends into the
present.
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Key Personnel
Thomas Halaczinsky, is an accomplished producer and director. He was born
and raised in Germany and has lived since 1991 in New York City.
Mr. Halaczinsky has produced several feature films here and abroad, amongst
them “ Facing the Forest”,(1993), directed by Peter Lilienthal shot on Location in
Israel. In the US he produced the feature film “Zoo”, 1999 and line-produced
“Cross-Eyed” in 1997.
As a documentary filmmaker he has produced and directed numerous nonfiction
films shown on Television here and abroad.
Most recently he completed the first segment of a compilation film about elderly
women in the US, entitled “I am…” that premiered at the Jewish Women’s Film
Festival in New York City, 2002.
Prior to that he produced and directed the lead segment for a TV-special about
Stanley Kubrick’s film “2001 – A Space Odyssey” reaching the year it projected
for German/French culture channel ARTE.
For his participation in the Emmy winning documentary about war crimes
against women in former Yugoslavia “Calling The Ghost” that debut on
HBO/Cinemax he won an ACE award in 1996 in the category international
documentaries.
Mr. Halaczinsky made his directorial debut as a co-director with “Der
Himmelsschluessel” (Key to Heaven) a film about a 90 year old women and the
impact that catholic religion had on her life. Directed by Karl Heinz Rehbach and
produced for renowned “Kleines Fernsehspiel” ZDF, Germany.
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Francisco Dominguez, camera, was born and raised in Argentina, he now lives
and works in Berlin, Germany. Francisco Dominguez studied camera at the
“Deutsche Film & Fernseh Akademie, Babelsberg as a graduate student of
acclaimed director of photography Michael Ballhaus. He was an assistant of
Michael Ballhaus at the production of “Gangs of New York”. He has
photographed several feature films and documentaries, that include: “Berlin
Generation 2000” for German Televison and “Veeja Nights in Berlin” also for
German Television.
•Sabine Krayenbühl, editor, a native of Switzerland, has worked both in the
United States and Europe, editing documentaries and features. Her recent work
includes: the 2004 Academy Award nominated documentary ”My Architect”,
directed by Nathaniel Kahn and featuring the work of Louis I. Kahn, the feature
“Heartbreak Hospital”, starring Patricia Clarkson and John Shea; “An American
Love Story”, a 10 part series for P.O.V. directed by Jennifer Fox and broadcasted
by PBS, Arte and BBC; ”Jugodivas”, an exploration of art, music, identity and the
war in Yugoslavia, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival; and “Frau2
and Happy End”, a feature produced by Studio Canal-Plus and BMG
International which enjoyed a successful theatrical run in Europe. Sabine
Krayenbühl is a distinguished graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Contact: Thomas Halaczinsky
684 Fifth Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11215
Phone: 718 788.5309
info@tudor-productions.com
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