Three thousand, three hundred forty-two women: that's how many were trained as guards at the concentration camp Ravensbrück. What kind of women were they? And how do you deal with the knowledge that your own mother was a guard at Ravensbrück? Or your mother's mother?
Several million people lost their lives in the Nazi genocide. The few survivors were irrevocably traumatized. Is it possible to comprehend the unimaginable experiences they lived through? And how do you deal with the knowledge that your mother was imprisoned at both Auschwitz and Ravensbrück? Or your own grandmother?
WHAT REMAINS is a film about the effect of the past on the generations that follow. It portrays two families, one "victim" and one "perpetrator" family. They are both united by a sense of grief over events they have neither directly experienced nor can entirely imagine, one family for the cruel fate and the other for the cruel actions of their mothers and grandmothers. This intimate documentary reveals how the past remains ever a part of the present even when its effects manifest themselves differently for each individual.
Length: 57 min.
Language: Deutsch
Subtitles: English / Spanish
Digi Beta,16:9
Year of production: 2008
a film by
gesa knolle and birthe templin
a co-production of silvia loinjak filmproduktion with birthe templin, gesa knolle and
hff ‘konrad wolf’ potsdam camera rasmus sievers und yoliswa gärtig sound design immo
trümpelmann editing sabine strunk music petros michalas producer silvia loinjak
concept and director gesa knolle and birthe templin