Tue, Sep 12
|Holocaust Museum LA
Film Screening: In the Land of the Perpetrators
May 1945, Germany. The Nazis have been defeated, the concentration camps liberated. But tens of thousands of homeless Holocaust survivors remain in the land of the perpetrators.
Time & Location
Sep 12, 2023, 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM
Holocaust Museum LA, 100 The Grove Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90036, USA
About
When World War II ended in 1945 with victory over Nazism, millions of POWs and slave laborers were able to return home. But for around 50,000 Jews freed from concentration camps, there was nowhere to return to. Most had been forcibly removed from their eastern European homelands by the Nazis. Many of them now found themselves in camps for Displaced Persons mainly run by the US Army. One of the largest DP camps was in the town of Landsberg am Lech not far from Munich. Between 1945 and 1950 it was home to up to 7,000 Jews, a "city within a city”.
The Deutsche Welle documentary In the Land of the Perpetrators - Holocaust Survivors in Post-War Germany” by director Hans Pfeifer visits survivors of the Holocaust who were liberated in the vicinity of Landsberg and later housed in the DP camp and in the city. They tell of their families’ fates and their attempts to establish a normal life under these extraordinary circumstances. The film also looks at the ongoing struggle of a small group of Germans from Landsberg, which has been campaigning for decades for an appropriate memorial site in their hometown, where thousands of Jews were murdered under the eyes of the German inhabitants.
In a Q&A after the screening Jakob Bresler and Joe Alexander (Holocaust survivors), Peter Limbourg (Director General of DW) and Hans Pfeifer (Documentary director) will discuss the Importance of Remembrance. The conversation will be moderated by Holocaust Museum LA's Vice President of Education and Exhibits, Jordanna Gessler.
RSVP HERE