Thursday 29 January 2015

20,000 Days on Earth

‘20,000 days on Earth’ and Nick Cave has ceased to be human. He’s just one of those guys with his head in the clouds, swimming along nicely with his lyrical tide. But this film, shows another side to Nick Cave. A side of values and of honesty and of being human, despite his best efforts.

nickcave.com

smh.com.au
 The film masterfully merges reality and some inventive staged reality in a collage of performance archive, some very cinematic re-constructions, some extraordinarily sinister discussions in a car and a rather open interview with Cave. It seems that this in itself, is a statement about the kind of person Nick Cave is, he is his past, he is his music career, he is, who is he is – and that’s it.

 
sweetarchiveblog.com


The most beautiful moment for me is when Cave admits his deepest fears.
‘What do you fear?’
‘Losing my memory’
And when asked why, his simple answer is ‘memory is what we are’…and he’s right. I don’t think anyone’s ever got it so right.




theguardian.com

Throughout the film we are treated to a world of Cave’s memory. We hear about his relationship with his father, the kind of illusive yet doting parent you seem to find in any dance film or x-factor back-story only this time it is genuinely heart-wrenching to hear. We visit what seems like our film-makers archive, filled with Nick’s past, where he takes us through performances of the Bad Seeds and points out a particularly vivid memory of a German man urinating on the guitarist. If Nick’s greatest fear is losing his memory, he need only visit here to catch the tide back to his life in Brighton.

nypost.com
He is not a man of particular emotion, at least not visually but there's clearly a hell of a lot going on upstairs. He never seems fully present in any conversation. It’s almost like he is formulating lyrics in his head at the very same time that the moments before him become the memories he so adores. We see his persona spring to life at seeing and sharing the stories of his past, vividly recreated for us through archived images and film and yet simultaneously, Cave lives every one of his days in existential crisis, but manages by getting his head down, shutting out the world and writing something beautiful with it. 

blogs.indiewire.com
He is, on reflection, more human than we thought. He’s made mistakes, he’s grown up, he’s fallen in and out of love and ultimately he quite happily loses himself in a world where memories of all of this cease to be memories at all, they are turned into lyrics, put to music and actually begin to feel real again. The great thing about a seemingly candid interview with a star is that you see things you never knew, you find out that actually, beneath all of those well-known anthems, is a person and ’20,000 Days on Earth’ succeeds in saying something quite profound about the art of songwriting, as well as celebrating Cave for the oddball genius of a great that he is. 

collider.com

Wednesday 28 January 2015

'Days of Hope'

Days of Hope follows the stories of many who are waiting to cross from Africa to Europe for work as well as some who have already made it across, only to find it is not quite as blissful as they'd imagined.

Ditte - dfi.dk
Director Ditte Haarløv Jensen manages to capture some extremely intimate moments with her contributors, aided by the stunning quality of some close range cinematography from Minka Jakerson. The two ladies really know how to identify with what makes us human, focussing on the face, the eyes, the stories. The shots linger long enough for us to find meaning in everything, whether it be a phone call where all parties insist that they are fine or when a young girl prays for her mother's happiness. This clarity in pacing I suppose is an additional bonus considering that there is no voiceover to help us along.

I do have one negative thing to say in that, I found it difficult to keep up with the contributors as we switched from location to location. I actually lost track of how many there were which makes me feel almost guilty that I too am forgetting them. But due to the fact that I was reading the subtitles, I sometimes failed to really take in the face, which meant that it became difficult to sometimes tell who was who.

However, there are moments within the film that really stand out and will consider to swim in my mind for some time. The first, is the mobile phone footage of the washed up bodies of those who didn't make the crossing across the ocean. The person operating the camera is not shy of going too close and so we are faced with some horrific images that really drive home the feeling of desperation.


Thelma - serenoregis.org
The second moment, is when Thelma prays so devoutly for the well-being and happiness of her mother. The camera is invisible to her. She is alone, with Go and we very much feel the intensity of her faith as an audience. 

The third moment is the celebration of a birthday within the immigration centre. It is touching to see so many men wishing another well at a time when all of them, fear for their futures and need nothing more than to find work for themselves. And yet they share their wishes and they play music and they sing happy birthday. That for me really showed the spirit of these young men that make the journey to Europe for work.


Harouna - bullittfilm.dk
And so, we see the horror, the desperation, the faith and courage and we see the relentless spirit that these men and women carry forward throughout their lives, despite such endless hardship, to provide for their families.

A really great film about an issue I know very little about but have always wished to learn. I look forward to seeing some of Ditte's other works in the future.

To read the Q&A with director Ditte, click here: http://watchinabitotheatrenstuff.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/days-of-hope-q.html

Days of Hope + Q&A

'Days of Hope' & Q&A with Director Ditte Haarløv Jensen
The Frontline Club
Monday 26th January
twitter.com/frontlineclub
Q) How did the film come together, walk us through the process. How many hours did you shoot…?
It was a long journey. I mean it took 3 years, with shooting on and off. To Mauretania I went twice, Italy I went once, only two weeks actually so that was really compressed, having to find a place and people and shoot within that time span. Copenhagen I had a lot of time because that’s where I’m based obviously. And it was also the most difficult place to film. All in all I don’t even know how many (aside) do you know? My producer is here by the way
Producer: Many hours.
Many hours in languages I did not understand. So there was a long editing process first off, of getting things translated and then of course, trying to narrow down, finding out what is the story here.


bullittfilm.dk
Q) What did you have in mind when you first started? What was the idea that led to the making of the film?
The idea actually came to me many years before I started the film. The idea started when I met a guy just after I finished at the Danish Film School. This was in 2007. He told me how he had come to Europe across the sea and through the city of Nouadhibou where I later went. His last job in Nouadhibou had been as a grave digger at the catholic cemetery where he would dig the graves for the people who had not made it across the sea right, so his friends who had rolled ashore, dead corpses. He would dig their grave and make money to make the journey himself. So when he told me that story I thought wow, this is, that would be a wild way to make a film and to tell the story without having to be on the boat yourself and having to be very specific and very hardcore.
Meanwhile I started making another film and many years passed. So when I came back to this story which had stayed on with me, the reality was different. So, the sea had sort of closed, because the Spanish coastguard had started patrolling and all that. So, reality was different.
I off-tracked a little bit maybe but that was how it started anyways.

(Sorry I’m a little bit tired because I travelled from Copenhagen today with my son who woke up at 7o’clock this morning and slept whilst you were starting to see this film.)


Q) It was a really beautiful film, it was amazing. Loads of questions but I’ll try and limit it to 2. The first is just, what’s happened to them all? Second is, one of things I really find amazing is just how it was cinematic in the sense that no-one seemed particularly aware of the camera , but you must have been pretty close. I mean, I’ve worked in those kind of places before and did you have to talk them through that? How did that work, did you have to say hey don’t talk to me? And, look sad… how did that evolve?
Of course, it took a lot of time being with people. I mean, as I said filmed a lot right. So, there is a lot that isn’t in the movie. But I do spend a lot of time with the people I film. I mean they are my friends right and that’s why also they’re not aware of the camera because they’re speaking to me there with them. Although there is also a cinematographer in the room, who is incredibly gifted yes she’s a very good maker.
So what happened, Harouna, he actually went to Morocco and he tried twice to cross the ocean. The first time they were stopped before getting into the borders and the second time he actually came into a boat but it capsized. Luckily he had a life vest on because he doesn’t know how to swim. So he came back onto some rocks and was hanging there and the police took him to jail and beat him up and then he was out again. And now he’s actually back in Mali. For one month he’s been back in Mali. 6.33
In Italy I, I don’t know where they are. Many of them are still in Italy though, that’s what I know. Without documents. What happens is they get a resident’s permit for a year, so they’re out of the camp and when that expires they just keep on hanging in as long as they can really.
Austin, the bottle collector in Copenhagen, he’s in Sweden with the woman you saw him with, who is his wife. He’s still waiting for his papers. You might sort of, doubt, that he will get them but hopefully.
And then there is Thelma, the young girl in the film, whose mother is a prostitute, I made another film about. She is luckily out of the brothel where she was living with her mother and now she, she’s studying, which is very good. And her mother is also, she moved away from that place to another, still going through a lot of hardship but managing. Yep.


Q) What was it like filming in Mauretania, did you have any security issues, did you have to prepare much in advance before you went there to film? What was it like? 
It was a little bit rock and roll like. It’s kind of like the wild west. But it was also, yes there were security issues in the sense that they don’t like people filming there. I was called to the police station many times just for taking the camera out in public. So I had to film within the people’s homes as you saw in the film, that’s where most of it is recorded right. I had a paper from some, ministry of cultural affairs but it didn’t really help me at all whilst I was in Nouadhibou because the ministry of culture was in the capital city so that was too far away and in Nouadhibou it was the sheriff of Nouadhibou who was ruling so.
But I was very lucky that I had been in touch with the catholic priest, and told I met the guy that told me that initial story and he was the one who told me, just come, come there’s plenty of stories to tell even though the sea is closed. So, he also invited me to stay at the catholic mission when I was there. When I arrived we went out for dinner and we found out that his sister was teaching my little sister at the boarding school in Swaziland where she was studying. So his sister, was Nigerian, so this Nigerian woman was teaching my Danish little sister who lived in Mozambique and was studying in Swaziland. So, that was a nice connection to make.
So the first sermon I went to, where he was preaching, the whole migrant community in Nouadhibou, this is Ditte, she might be white on the outside but she’s black on the inside. Talk to her and tell her your story. So, I was very lucky in that sense that he really opened up the migrant community for me.


Q) How common is women in effect falling into prostitution because it was, there was clearly a lot of implication in that in several telephone calls, that that was the hint behind it? Secondly, in Mauretania is there any indication of economic trends which have made the migration need worse or probably not better. I say that because there have been reports for many years of the fishing being decimated, particularly like in Somalia by offshore industrials and also, whether you heard anything, amidst allegations made by a major representative of a major European country that certain countries in Europe are in effect, bribing officials in the transit countries to block sailings. Did you ever hear anything of that? 
serenoregis.org
I’m going to take the last one first. No, I did not hear about anything like that directly but for sure, there was a deportation centre that was funded by Spain probably in co-operation with the EU. That was not a secret, that was very obvious. That was how it was. And for it to look good, the Mauretanian government authority needed to have migrants there of course. So that was how that worked.
In regards to the economic situation with the fishing being emptied out for the little everyday guy, fisherman, I mean that is what happens all along the African coast no? There aren’t many possibilities of making a living as an ordinary normal human being. So, so that makes people want to travel more, obviously. I mean many of the captains, they made a living by actually taking people over to the other side right, whilst fishing.
And in regards to prostitution yes that was mainly how the women would get by, I mean there wasn’t another way for a woman really. And in Mauretania, in Italy and in Denmark yes.


Q) How did you find your contributors and are there any that didn’t make the cut who also have quite interesting stories?
The stories outside the film are always so much more interesting than what you see here. I mean reality far surpasses anything that I could ever show in a film. It’s a crazy world. I have many more characters but I ended up with these because they were the ones that were closest to my heart. So I suppose in that sense I feel I have represented my experience as good as I could.

How did I find them, I mean, through the priest, father Jerome. Just through walking the streets basically a lot. Harouna was actually from just walking around and yeh meeting him. And then in Italy, that’s actually a pretty crazy story, in Italy I wanted to go to Lampedusa but Berlusconi he had closed it down, and declared a state of emergency at that point because so many people were arriving with the boats. So, no journalism affiliated people could go there. Instead, I had to go to Sicily and Sicily just privatised the whole businem, asylum centres. So what happened is I found this place and it was a mafia boss who had gotten it. And the mafia boss, he didn’t really care about the place, he just cared about the…money that he could get per person that was in there. So, I was in a really weird way, was free to walk in and start filming and nobody asked me any questions. So that’s what I did.

cphdox.dk
And in Copenhagen, that was the hardest place which is really a contradiction in terms of, because I had, before that I’d made a film about homeless people in Greenland which used to be a Danish colony as you might know, living in the streets of Copenhagen. So I had a lot of knowledge about street life, homeless life. I’d also made a film about this Nigerian woman that you meet in the movie who was a prostitute in Copenhagen so I felt I knew the whole area. I was really looking forward to make the story in Copenhagen but there it turned out it was difficult because the men, the homeless men, living in the streets and collecting bottles, they were so ashamed and so angry at the same time that it was just really difficult to approach them and get them to tell their story. That’s one of the characters that’s actually is edited out. A guy that I ended up paying because I thought ok, I’m taking your time, so I have to pay you. And it just ended up really badly because then he was just saying things he thought I wanted him to say so.
No I met Austin also in the street and I think he agreed to participate because he had that wife in Sweden, so he was in a way, a little more home safe than the other guys after all.


dfi.dk

Q) You mentioned the 2 week very compressed filming time and I was wondering if that was a decision on your part or whether it was the authorities that restricted you to 2 weeks?
No that was the financial restriction. I went with my cinematographer and we needed a place to stay and all that.


Q) Who did you have in mind when you started making this movie? Did you have policy makers in mind? What’s the influence really that you want to have?
I really do not think so far. I don’t know if that’s good or bad but I always start a film by being touched myself by somebody’s story and then I take it from there. I guess deep down, I am a human being that sort of feels there’s a huge injustice in this world that I would like maybe make my little part in shifting a little bit. So, that’s my indictment if you call it like that, I don’t really know.


rotaserituais.com
Q) Thanks for the movie. Big question but from what you hear, what do you think is the solution to this? Do people tell them it’s not good over here?
I think the people that travel, they know that it’s not as good as, they know there’s a financial crisis in Europe, they know it’s not paradise on Earth. They have to, they just need to dream, to believe that they can make it, that they can have a better life because what they have behind them carrying on their back is, is heavy duty no? They need to give their family, their children a future.
What I believe is that we should share the wealth of this world a little more equally right then I don’t think people would have to risk their lives like they do crossing the ocean for a, for life as a prostitute or a bottle collector.
How that wealth is to be distributed, I don’t know, I’m not totally sure.

Q) As Franz Fanon said many, many years ago, ‘the only feeling of certainty for a black body is the feeling of uncertainty’ and I think you really showed it in your movie. You answered many questions I wanted to ask but one was also, did you speak to anyone staff that was receiving the people, that was hosting the people or did you just speak to the immigrants?
I mean I was in the centre right, right in the asylum centre and I spoke to the people there but they were not really receiving, they were just there.
I mean, they’re just doing their job, they don’t have any broader, broader feeling or experience of the whole interconnectedness of it all. They’re just happy they have a job in a country that is in a recession right.

Q) I really loved the film, I thought it was beautiful. One of the things that I found really moving were the little conversations back home to children and there were lots of references to children who were being left behind. I just wondered if you spoke to any of those children or any of the partners that were left behind. Because you kind of picked up a lot of resentment and anger with a couple of the women. But I just wonder, the effect that was having on the children and how much they understood and could comprehend.
Yeh, no I did not speak… I did not speak with the family, families, left behind but it was very important for me to have that there of course, because that’s what it’s all about. That’s why these people are moving right. But I felt that Thelma, the young girl you see in Copenhagen, is sort of the living picture of all those left behind. That’s why you see the consequences that it has even when you succeed in getting your child to Europe, it might not be just as blissful as you thought.

Q) Thank you for the film it was very powerful. I just wondered if it was difficult to get funding for something of this subject? And what the obstacles were and whether people were very happy to get involved.
Ditte: Maybe that’s a question for my producer
Prod: (INAUDIBLE)…..  No Microphone.
This scheme, was a scheme where we could work quite freely. We already have television on board and the Danish film institute came onboard in sort of a package that is all about, trying to walk new ways. So, people who were very preoccupied with trying to find other ways of describing this situation rather than n an anonymous journalistic way. So we had, we didn’t have a lot of money but  we had a great amount of freedom in making the film as we wanted to make it, you could say.

youtube.com
Q) What do you think the motivations were for those who chose to participate in your film?
Really I think most of all, they just wanted to hang out with me. I mean I make it very clearly when I film that I’m not going to give them a ticket to Europe. I can’t help in that way. I do not pay, the one time I did it turned out really badly. So it’s a matter of a hard feeling right, I mean, it’s a matter of meeting somebody where you feel ok here’s a connection, somebody I really want to spend some time with.
Then of course, I do help as much as I can right, as the person I am. For Lisa the prostitute, the mother of Thelma, who’s been living in ??London?? for many years, I’ve always been helping her with her connections with the authorities and things like that. Where I can help, I, I try to be as good as a social worker can be.
But that is it. I mean, I do make it very clear that I cannot, give them something.

Q) How did you feel when you saw the goat? And it looked like some sort of witch doctor where they were praying using the body parts, so I was just curious.
That was it, it was sort of a sacrifice no? For his journey to go well. And I felt absolutely fine, filming that goat. Because it was really, it was a sacrifice and the whole deal was that the meat of course also is being sacrificed to the people in the community so it came of good use.
And it works beautifully. Of course, it has a bit of a shock effect in the film but that’s obviously the intention since it’s so difficult to create any drama in a film about people waiting. That was the hugest challenge in this film, you know nothing happens, people are just waiting, so at least I got a goat.

Q) Thanks very much it was a wonderful film. I think as a black person, as an African, for us, the only solution we have is to completely and utterly leave Europe, go back to Africa and build our own continent. That’s the only solution we have. There’s no other solution and I think people are prepared to die for that. When we looked at the colour valley incident in France, I think as you can see, some of us have just lost hope completely, where they kill, they leave and then they come back to die. I feel you’re going to get two strains. One, where we say we need to leave, we need to get out of this hellhole and the other one is, well we’re going to take as many people as we can with us. I think that, that’s the way it is. Thank You.
That is, yeh, that’s a way to see it.

Q) What kind of structure did you have in mind and how did it come together in the end? Did you have any storytelling technique that helped you get, move the story along?
Totally just by doing. It was really difficult actually to create the story. It was created in the editing. I did have an idea of free independent rules so to say, but that didn’t work out at all. So, it just happened because that was the way the story wanted to be told. The sort of intertwining of the different places.

Q) How did you decide on the order?
Maybe because that’s the order that I visited the different places. And moving back and forth made sense, because they were all sort of reflecting back on one another. Like, the characters are also reflecting back on one another.

grundtvigs.dk
Q) Thank you. My question is regarding your experiences and perhaps what you didn’t film. Did you experience amongst the refugees in Europe, significant resentment towards Europeans for the situation they were in? Also, one of your contributors said the only work was selling drugs or having sex. He viewed it as morally wrong, or at least bad. Did you come across anyone who cared less about the morality and was keen to just work regardless? If so, did you chose not to include them for any reason?
No I don’t have really any moral restrictions when I’m filming. I tried that once and it really didn’t work because good and bad are so much, intertwined.
I mean, as I said before, in Copenhagen it was difficult because people were so disillusioned and they spent so many years in Europe and had gotten nowhere basically, except from the street right. So for me coming with a camera, that was of course, a little privileged white woman, coming there to make it big in Hollywood as they saw it. Which was not really the case but I can understand their point of view. And that’s what I had to sort of, fight with or put up with. So, understandably enough, that was a resentment. They were just trying to survive. And it wasn’t easy.
Otherwise no, I think, no resentment except from the Mauritanian government because they were so racist towards the black African community. So they sort of felt that I was doing something with them and they were very scared that I would point the finger at the Mauretanian government.

HOST: Thank you so much for being here and sharing so much information about the making of the film. If anyone wants to find more information about the film you can visit the bullet film website, is that the best place?
Yeh or just write me an email if there’s any questions you forgot.



Visit the bullitt film website here: http://bullittfilm.dk/
And for Ditte's own website here: http://www.dihajo.com/
And for more about the Frontline Club here: http://www.frontlineclub.com/

Tuesday 27 January 2015

Susan Pollack - the most humble, honest, eloquent & disarmingly kind person I have ever met

For all those who have scrolled past posts this week in the lead up to HMD, for all those who have thought to themselves, why do people care this much? Here's your answer.

These men and women, the survivors I have met and the families that were left behind, who didn't make it beyond the ghetto, beyond the fence of Auschwitz or the other side of the factory wall, who were left to battle the unthinkable temperatures in forests and on death marches. Men and women who could so very easily have been me or you, or more accurately your grandparents.

I have had the absolute privilege to hear from some truly amazing people. Ordinary people who survived unthinkable acts of inhumanity and unimaginable horror. Ordinary people who share their past, in the hope that we, may stand up for our future.

One of these amazing people, is Susan Pollack. I feel I have become friends with many holocaust survivors I have worked with but Susan is the one I picture when I share my experiences. When I sat across the room from these people, here in the UK, in Israel, in the US, knowing I had been to the places they speak of, I had seen it with my own eyes, their life stories became much more than stories, they became lessons to be learned. Susan Pollack is one of the most humble, honest, eloquent and disarmingly kind people I have ever met. To think that she has lived through such dark times, that she agreed to travel back there to tell me about such horror in the living room of her own home, and moments later is refusing to let me leave her house without a cup of tea or some cake… just says a little about the kind of lady she is. She is one of the only people I physically continue to write to and I cannot tell you how grateful I am that she entrusted her story to me, in such vivid detail and with such a vibrant belief that we much stand up against hatred and prejudice to create a just society for ourselves.


It did not end with the end of the holocaust. The lessons are still there to be learned...


In May 2013 I had the privilege of speaking with holocaust survivor Susan Pollack at her London home, where she shared with me her memories of life throughout the war. Her story is not only remarkable because she endured so much suffering, nor because she survived, but remarkable because Susan even after such an ordeal carries such spirit, such goodness. Susan believes that we must remember her story and the millions of others, to ensure genocide on the scale of the holocaust cannot happen again. We must learn from it to ensure a good and just society.

Below is the transcript of my few hours with Susan. The file names refer to video clips and is for my reference only.

Alternatively you can view parts of Susan’s story in ‘After Auschwitz’, a documentary made by myself, which also features survivor, Freddie Knoller. The film is available to view online for free here:
Full version (58mins) https://vimeo.com/94738448
Short version (27mins) https://vimeo.com/101650543

I will shortly be releasing the transcript for Freddie’s interview too. Until then, I leave you will Susan Pollack.

SUSAN POLLACK INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT


MVI_2229
I’m Susan Pollack. I was born in Hungary, in a small little village not far from Budapest, about 20mins journey from Budapest by train. This Felsogod, the name of it is Felsogod, is on the Danube. I don’t exactly know the number of the population there but it’s relatively small. And we lived there.

Tell me a little about your childhood. So, what was life like before the war?
Yes I was born in Felsogod and I lived there. I had a happy childhood. It’s a village, a town in history where children have been brought up as being part of the economic necessities. Which means that I was expected to take the ducks out, I was expected to clean the stables. We had a business, most people were self-employed in those days, to serve the customers. We had a coal and wood business. And clean up, be helpful in the kitchen. It was a good life and I liked it. T was a good life.
I went to a local school, primary school there in Felsgogod and that was really my childhood. I had friends from the village where I lived and it was a happy, happy childhood. Yeh.

And when did you first start to notice any anti-Semitic feeling towards you? Did you ever feel targeted?
Well ant-Semitism, how did it manifest itself in Felsogod? There were only about, I would think about, 18 Jewish families living in that village. We had own little synagogue, just a very simple synagogue and that is where we went to pray, on Saturdays and sometimes Friday evenings. But in, I was born in 1930, September.
I don’t remember any anti-semitism in my very early childhood. That’s not to say it wasn’t there. But I myself hadn’t been affected by it. That feeling, that sort of behavior, anti-semitism GREW in time. But again, it did not effect our lives that much because, perhaps we deluded ourselves. We felt oh well, they are just ignorant, malicious people. And the graffiti on the wall, accusations about certain things, we didn’t take much notice of it.
But as the times went on, as the years grew closer to the 40s, e certainly have had a clear indication of  that there was a growing anti-Semitic and fascist parties emerging on the political scene. I have, at the time I wasn’t so aware of it, In 1922, just to take back, in 1922 before my birth, there was already a legislation against the Jews; that the Jewish people, the Jewish students could not enter further education. It was reduced to a certain number, comparable to the percentage [of] the Jews [that] lived in Hungary for instance.
And my brother, I had a brother, an older brother, he had enormous problems looking for a future profession or career. But we thought, ok, it will blow over, it’s just a temporary thing. And as the years went by, as I said coming closer to the 1940s we had many legislations against us yes. That deprived us of social activity. My father could not keep his little business open. In the late 1940s we had been excluded from many other activities. And that’s how my education in Hungary, was also curtailed by a great deal. So it kind of grew, grew with the years.
And of course in 1939, when the outbreak of the war occurred, Hungary became part of the ‘axis’ alliance and everything changed for us.

(The Axis Alliance was the alliance between Italy, Germany and Japan during WW2. They shared mutual aims in territorial expansion and the destruction or neutralization of Soviet communism. Hungary joined in Nov 20th, 1940)



What’s the first thing you can remember affecting you directly? Was it not going to school? What made it hit home that YOU were being targeted. You were being singled out?

Well, I was singled out… the awareness of anti-Semitism, how did that affect my life?
I realized quite early on, in my early childhood that, ‘you Jews’ well it was graffiti on the wall, ‘you Jews go to Palestine’ ‘You Jews, we don’t want you here’. But I had a secure background, I had a secure home life and it wasn’t disturbing me to a great extent. And I went to a local primary school with all the other kids.
But when I was finished with the primary school, in the 40s, in the early 40s no school would accept me. So the only school that would, in a close-by town, it was a big market town called Vác had still a Jewish school open but that school could only take in – I think they had only a few Jewish teachers – they’d only take in, all the Jews, all the Jewish students so, we were crowded out, in that school. In the classroom there were about 80 students, 1 teacher, it was crowded out. I was at the back of the classroom and I heard nothing and I learned nothing.
And then eventually my father managed, somehow with great difficulty I would think, to find a school for me in Budapest, we were segregated, meaning few Jewish students in that state school had been, kept at the back of the class, with two empty rows between us and the rest of the class. The same thing happened outside in the playground, we could not play with the rest of the students. We were segregated.
So my education was perhaps zero you could say, I learned to yes, read and write, but little else.
So gradually, gradually I was were aware, and of course we wore the yellow stars outside, for Identification. And we heard, I heard incidents when young children, particularly at the railroad, had been arrested by the Hungarian Gen damme, just for being Jewish. And many of them have never been seen again. We shall never know where they were taken to. So arrests had been practiced already.

Now I’d like to let you tell us your story, going on from this, and if there’s anything I’d like to know more about, I’ll come back to it.
I just want to state, the difficulty of getting reliable information, trustworthy and reliable information. Trusting the government, trusting the local council, which we realized early on we could not do.  Because particularly after 1939, all news came from Nazi Germany and we were desperate to find out, ‘is anyone, is any country going to rescue us? What can we do, where can we go?’ And as there was no information available, we turned to setting up a séance table, calling spirits. And as I said, my brother, myself, my parents sat, with inverted glasses asking ‘are we going to survive, as a family’, because we felt the terror increasing. Not realizing what was already going on elsewhere. Because obviously everything was kept in secret. And as human beings, respond to hope, we felt it will come to an end, it must come to an end.
When the Russians entered the war, we had hoped that they’ll conquer soon but it wasn’t to happen.

(CAMERA CUTS OUT, SO WE ASK SUSAN TO BACKTRACK JUST A LITTLE)

So after the outbreak of the war in 1939, with all the great conquests that Germany had made right across Europe, we realised that perhaps our fate is doomed. So we turned to setting up a séance table. A séance table with spirits, asking what is going to happen to our family, are we going to survive as a family unit, will the children be alright and such questions. Our hope was responded ‘yes and the allied forces will be quick’.
And the Russians after 1941 they came, they will liberate us somehow, give us the freedom, that we did not have anymore. So that was the feeling, the feeling was a sense of abandonment, a sense of great fear of the unknown.  As I said my schooling was practically zero. We were asked to identify ourselves when outside, on everything I wore outside as a young child. I sewed on the yellow star on our clothing, And we waited. There was nothing we could do, we just waited which we hoped would be a short period of time, but it wasn’t to be.
Well, I learnt that we were the very last ones actually, in Hungary, the Hungarians were the very last community, Jewish community and the Romas included, who were transported. And how that happened was. There were some rumours, rumours emerging quite regularly without any reliable sources that we are going to be resettled somewhere in the East, but the council just shrugged their shoulders, ‘well we don’t know anymore than that’. So this was getting more and more regular and we had a life that wasn’t supported anymore because my father had stopped working and we had difficult economic situation at home.
One fateful day, actually it was in 1944, that we had a call up, a letter from the local council saying that that rumour now has been substantiated and come and we’ll discuss it. That resettlement programme. So by then they didn’t trust the Hungarian authorities but nevertheless they though, we’ll find out.
All the men had been called, 18 Jewish families who lived there. Then shortly after we had been called, the rest of the family, to say goodbye to my father. And I had seen him being brutally beaten up in front of my eyes and herded onto a lorry and I [haven’t] seen him since.
We weren’t allowed to use the public transport anymore, even with the yellow star (referring to trams for Jewish citizens only). We sent a Christian Hungarian lady from the village to take a basket of food to him and she came back with the information that, ‘just as well you didn’t see your father’ or your husband to my mum, ‘because he was almost unrecognizable’. They were so brutal to the men particularly. So whether it was the starvation that affected him, or physical torture, I don’t know. And so we realized then, that our fate is doomed.
Shortly after in 1944, one of the architects of the holocaust came and occupied with a relatively small army/troop. Within 6 weeks we were transported. We were transported, that was in 1944, May, at first to a ghetto in Vác where I went to that Jewish school and the Hungarian van damme said, just take the food that you can prepare. Came to us one evening ‘start baking the bread because in the morning we’ll call on you’. And that’s what happened. And we took just the bare essentials that we could carry. I was only a little girl and I so I carried, there was no luggage, we put everything into a sheet, and that’s how I carried my sewing machine. I was pretty good, I was 13, younger than that, on my back. Because I thought I would be able to support my family in a strange family, wherever that resettlement takes place. So I carried that, the bread, the food, bare essentials.
We were taken to Vác and stayed there for a few days. From there we were taken to an internment camp, a large disused mine. It was outside that we stayed, outside and I think it was raining at times and somehow we managed to erect a tent above our heads with one of the sheets we brought. And had the food that we brought. Occasionally we attached ourselves to various queues, some queues that would offer some bread which we never received. Other queues had supposedly given exemptions to those who had converted to Christianity but that didn’t affect us because we had no intention, nobody ever converted and nor would it actually stand up because of the Nuremburg laws that go back I don’t know how many generations. So, it was tough to put it mildly, very tough.
(Nuremberg Laws: At the annual party rally held in Nuremberg in 1935, the Nazis announced new laws institutionalising many racial theories prevalent in Nazi ideology. The laws excluded German Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of "German or related blood." These laws were both an attempt to return the Jews of 20th-century Germany to the position that Jews had held before their emancipation in the 19th century; although in the 19th century, Jews could have evaded restrictions by converting, this was no longer possible.)

And we slept on the ground, then we walked, we were marched to the trains, the cattle trains, the box cars. And we kind of breathed a sigh of relief having left this mine. It was a very hot day, I remember that quite clearly. It was a very long walk and we were pushed into the carriage. Jam-packed with about 80-100 people. All women, children, elderly. And close the door, and we were suffocating in there. It was very hot. We were suffocating but kind of felt hopeful that ‘thank goodness we left this place’. The train was going and going and many of us died of thirst, lack of water, lack of fresh air, especially the elderly, the babies. And when the doors opened, of it was fresh air hit our faces and suddenly we kind of  came alive….Not all of us. And we arrived in Auschwitz.


What was Auschwitz like?

What was it like in Auschwitz? A place of terror, indescribable terror where shouting and big dogs were watching your every move. We just stood and waited.
Instructions came. I learnt Dr, Mengele and his trenchmen, because some of the Hungarian prisoners were whispering to me, don’t say you’re younger than 15, because that meant straight to the gas chamber. I didn’t know it then of course. When a Nazi asked my age, I said 15, and he pushed me to one group. My mother went to the gas chamber. She was in her 40s, tired and worn, anguished and very despondent.
My brother went to 1 group, …. ??inaudible???
A German woman said, take off your clothes, [we were] stark naked and shaved our hair and threw some disinfectant on our bodies, after the trains. Marched us into a big barrack with all girls. About 1000, in that big wooden barrack.
We were on the top level, there were three levels, bunkbeds. About 8-10 girls were sleeping in there, with one blanket among us. We were shivering, although it was hot.
Hardly any food given and that was all. Starvation, not hunger, starvation, that was eating every cell of one’s body.

MVI_2231
Starvation there, no food given out. We may have had coffee with no sugar, a piece of bread, like sawdust that we had to save because in the evening we had dishwater, soup.
I started losing weight very rapidly. But at first, we could lose ourselves in a fantasy game. So from 1 girl to the next, we remembered our home life and what will you have for breakfast we asked. A piece of bread with jam, with butter and maybe an egg. And so, you could taste it and you remembered. It’s a sort of psychological device . But that requires energy and very soon we did not have that.
That’s all we could do. We were taken to be examined stark naked in front of Dr. Mengele. 4 doctorates, I learned later. He inspected our naked body and those who didn’t meet his standard, couldn’t do slave labour, were sent to the gas chamber. We knew that. Girls who’d been there knew. We could smell the burning flesh.


MVI_2233
Had you heard of Auschwitz?
I could have never imagined that babies, young children, elderly people would be led into gas chambers. Even if we had heard, would we have believed it?
We should have known and the news had come out from Auschwitz at that time. There were two escapees from Auschwitz specifically to inform and influence us Hungarians of what was coming, to allow to. However, difficult decisions might have been. I mean where could we go? Who would take us in?
1938, there was a conference where many states had been called by Roosevelt in, Évian-les-Bains
, France, to discuss that matter.
That’s history, we didn’t know about that. Which country is going to offer a place of rescue? Not many did.



MVI_2241

Just describe what you felt in Auschwitz for me. What did it feel like?

Auschwitz was a place of terror. Terror but total complete deprivation of any individual thinking, of any kind of self-expression. It was total dehumanization, which meant that there was no complaints that ‘I can’t do this’ or ‘I won’t go there’ or ‘I’m hungry’. There was no expression. Losing your humanity completely, losing your needs, your desires, because the total complete overtaking of it by terror. Of being beaten up, of being tortured, of being disgraced maybe in front of the group before you’re shot, which we had seen. That was the life in Auschwitz.
It was overwhelming fearfulness, day and night. I can’t describe it in any other way, that was the feeling. The feeling that you want to reduce yourself in a little dot. Not to be seen, not to be heard. Practically not to exist. That’s what was Auschwitz, because nobody existed, there were only numbers, numbers on the arms which I don’t have, being a child, we were dispensable, from day to day.
Human beings didn’t count, didn’t count. We were just nothing, nothing, and so children, young people, we realized that very soon, almost immediately, almost immediately.
The terror has got a way of pervading, of entering the mind, it’s like when you hit a dog and it cowers in the corner. That’s how we were. I can’t analyze with anything else.
That’s it. When I was paraded in front of Mengele, stark naked, I didn’t want to be seen. But I knew, some instinctual idea came to mind to pinch my cheeks so they’re red, push out my chest although I was starving, so I looked big. So he could see and I disappear quickly from his eyes. And that was the act to being terrorized completely, because you knew the consequences. Yeh.
Terror was displayed in Auschwitz as a warning. Don’t try anything foolish, not that we could you know, we had no guns and we wouldn’t know how to operate that and where would go? Even today. There was no way to escape. 3 or four people have managed, by an amazing route but they were just the exceptionals.
We were guarded, electrified, the fences were all electrified and even if you could manage to put yourself outside, who’s going to support you? We can speak of a silent majority, ask questions, majority silent, whose side do they take? You never know. How can you be sure, if you walk in somewhere? Will they hand you over? Many did in the countries.
It’s a world that hasn’t been seen [since] and I hope it will never be experienced by anyone. Yeh.


MVI_2231
And so you did slave labour?
On one occasion, I was lucky. Selected for work and was sent to Guben, a German town where I did some simple electronic work testing equipment. If the light was green, ok, if it was red, it’s not. That sort of thing. We weren’t there long and quality and quantity of food improved.
Allied forces came closer, we had to evacuate and we were told to start marching. 1944, bitter winter, no clothes or shoes, we just marched. We’d scrape for food on country roads if we thought there could be a frozen turnip hidden there. Those who could not keep up, were shot along the way. That was the long weeks of March, into Belsen.



What was Bergen-Belsen like?

What was Belsen like? A place of death, a place of incredible suffering that we haven’t devised the language yet to express. The moaning, the giving up of life. All kinds of erm terrible, Typhus was raging and other infectous diseases [were] raging. There was no distribution of food. There was absolutely no hygiene, There was nothing. Nothing. Just suffering. Pure suffering.
So when the British liberated us on April 15th, there was no juberated outcry, because it meant nothing. Very few had the energy even to talk. I myself, I was crawling out, outside because, apparently that was common. We didn’t want to die inside.
The British liberators were very good at organizing the rescue mission. Small ambulances criss-crossing, picking up bodies that showed signs of life. And that’s how they picked me up.
They called in local Germans to clean-up, to wash us. And they placed me on a clean sheet, in a bed.
Belsen is total devastation. Most people died. I had been told that place will be burned.



What happened to you after liberation, where did you go to recover?
I went to Sweden, being a neutral country, they allowed about 1000 sufferers to go there to recover there. So, that’s where I was sent and that is where I got on my feet, in Sweden, a very good country for us, very helpful. I have wonderful memories from there, wonderful people I’ve met there, later on. And a gradual, the slow gradual rehumanisation actually started to kind of emerge in me. I was there until 1947, in Sweden. So that was, particularly a family who was particularly kind. They used to take me home for their Christmas holidays and though I could not communicate so well, as I never learned to speak Swedish, their kindness has always remained in my heart.
Unfortunately I so much wanted to see them again, but when I was better I was sent to Canada. I wanted to go to Israel but I wasn’t well enough. So I was sent to Canada so I wasn’t able to go and see them, which is a great regret of mine. But those small goodnesses is really what helps people, not big things, small kindness, generosity and inclusiveness is really the spark of life.
Then I was sent to Canada. I didn’t do much after I’d recovered reasonably well. I mean I had tuberculosis but that was cured by good food and good fresh air and we were together with girls of a similar background so I didn’t have any specific psychotherapy or anything like that, but being together with these similar background girls was helpful. We didn’t need to express ourselves, because we knew what they were feeling. Losing an entire family.
And then I when I went to Canada, I met my husband there. He is also a survivor from Mauthausen, another notorious camp. And we got married. I wanted to have a family, reinstate my own family and I did. I worked and worked and worked and then years later we came to live here, in Britain in 1962 and I did many things since then. Yes.



MVI_2232
How do you think survived?
Initial feelings? Right through all of these camps was self-defence. Unconsciously I have kind of removed myself from it all. I have, in order to protect myself from all the terrors, all the unbelievable hard circumstances, I removed myself and it’s like watching a horror film that did not touch me too much.
In some ways I think it’s a way of survival. I mean, I was in pain, feeling the hunger, the starvation. At the same time, I never cried. I never cried because somehow, it was so unreal and it was so unreal I though, can it be true?
Also my faith has given me help. Help in the sense that I had an image and I’ve spoken to other survivors who had similar experiences. A vision appeared to me. It’s like the sky opened up and everything was rosy. It was a wonderful experience for me. A big hope, a hope that I was noticed. The only feeling that has given me some trust and that maybe there is going to be an end to all this.
I suppose being young, being that young, the elderly people found it harder as it was more real for them. I don’t know how they survived, the elderly, not many did. Knowing that their family was murdered. I never thought about that until after. And I still do to this day. Things were so abnormal that you just had to protect yourself, be good to yourself, because there was nobody there to be good to you.
Even friendship in my case did not exist, as we went from place to place and you never knew who would be gone [the] next minute. No-one could give anything, no-one knew anything. It was that kind of a unbelievable environment.
Friendship means giving, loving, being good. That place didn’t allow it. There were instances where they did but it didn’t happen to me.



Holocaust Educational Trust Ambassadors with whom Susan works
Completely understandable though…
I’m hoping I’ve made up for it, for the lack of it, in time. I became a Samaritan here for 7-8 years, that was my therapy. As well as giving, I gained a lot from it. Other voluntary work, in hospice, various others. Mainly the Samaritans have been very helpful.
Working, I became a vodka seller, an export agent. Here, I sold Sheffield steal products in America, where my 3 children grew up proudly. I went to the States, educated myself. Got a degree in History and Roman psychology. A busy life, but I do remember. I go to schools a lot, and other places to talk about it. They made a film of me, in Belsen, the BBC. So I did a lot in that sense but it doesn’t get easier… I can live with it, but it’s tough.
It’s tough and I’m not that trusting though I hope I’m a good, kind person but not that trusting. Always a bit of doubt in my mind. And with the rise of anti-Semitism here in Europe, especially in Hungary, one is beginning to ask questions. Why, why is it necessary to hate, why necessary, especially the Jews, right across History. Accused of nasty things. What is it about human beings, are we so wonderful? A French writer Roussou ‘we’re all wonderful’ we’re not under certain circumstances. People can turn to be violent. One has to be vigilant, careful, stand up, speak up because life is short, I’m beginning to realise that now. Life is short. And the only value to behold is the goodness for each other.
That’s all I can say.



MVI_2237
Why do you remember, why’s it important to you to tell your story?

Reflecting on those time are very important to me. First of all, I am lucky, I survived but most of my family did not. So I speak for them, as well. But in addition, it isn’t just a talk about what happened, we need to look ahead for the future.
I believe in order to create a better society we need to know what people can be capable of doing and how to prevent it. Alert them of the danger of any form of persecution, bullying, scapegoating, malicious gossip about defenceless communities, that affected my life and [that’s] important to know.
Also, to realise the holocaust didn’t just happen overnight, there were lead ups long before. It needs all of us, a personal responsibility to speak up and speak loud and create a just and good society for all of us. That’s the reason I speak.



MVI_2238
And education about the holocaust, how important is that to you?
The education about the holocaust is most important. Because a) it happened in Europe, where we live. Second thing, it happened to innocent people. It happened in a country which is a progressive, educated country; Germany. Mostly, the recognition that why wasn’t there more help available. Although there was help, 10,000 children were saved in this country in Britain, but why the rest of the world took no interest. I think it’s important to place themselves in that situation. ‘First they came for the Jews. I wasn’t one of them and so gradually when it came to me, who will be there?’ It asks a question of all of us, to take responsibility and I hope that happens.

(Reference is to following poem circulated in 1950s by Protestant pastor and public foe of Hitler, Martin Niemoller – 1892-1984)
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

MVI_2239
And of course, ant-Semitism still exists doesn’t it?The realization that anti-Semitism is not a belief of the past but it has this evil way of reoccurring over time, very important. I am absolutely convinced that every generation needs to be taught, every generation must be introduced, in a way to ask them, place yourself in that situation.We won’t be around, we’re elderly people now, survivors. So it is the future generation who will have to safeguard their own interest. And so it is very important to learn about, to remember, to visit, to see it in real and to say enough is enough, shame on you.Anyone who finds for some unbeknown reasons to join any party that suppresses another, has to be condemned. I think so.


MVI_2240
What would you to say to people who stand by and watch these things happen?

Bystanders won’t always be bystanders, eventually they’ll be involved. It’s not a game that we play. That period of life, is not a game, nothing to joke about. I don’t like it when people dress up (Reference to Prince Harry) and make a mockery of it or use suffering. It’s a sick joke. See for yourself. Eisenhow said ‘there’ll always be idiots’, who will deny it.

Take pictures, go out and see it, go to the Imperial War Museum, go to Belsen. Go to all these camps and learn, and see, before you say anything.

I am a great believer in these trips going out to the camps and see it in real, what took place. Don’t allow yourself to be deluded by friends, things that are damaging not just to you, but to people around you. Yeh.

My candle for Susan Pollack - #HMD2015


And so, I feel no better way of ending my week of social media efforts with SUSAN's words, not mine. I urge you to read on until the end. I feel humanity owes her that at least, as it took so much from so many.