No. 19 (2021) LOVE, IT WAS NOT (Ahava Zat Lo Hayta) Perth; Jewish Film Festival March 3rd.

 

Film No. 19 (2020)  March. 3rd.  2:30 PM  Cinema 5  LUNA,  Leederville. 

How can a woman be smiling in a concentration camp uniform? (The question posed by a fellow prisoner many years since the war as questions were asked about her loyalty).

In 2016 young Israeli Film maker Maya Sarfaty won the best documentary award for The Most Beautiful Woman at the U.S. Student Academy Awards. At 32 minutes, the film fitted into the short film category. In 2019 Maya completed a feature length version of this intriguing story. For Maya, the story has always been a fascination and her technique of using cut out effigies pasted onto well used photographs of the bleak Auschwitz terrain, woven between eye-witness accounts, makes for an intriguing feature.

The story is simple, but the complexities of love between an SS soldier and a Jewish girl beginning in 1942 in the confines of Auschwitz was real. A young officer of the SS, Franz Wunsch was on duty when the first female prisoners arrived at the notorious death-camp. Eye-witness accounts say he had a keen eye for Helena Citron from the beginning. Helena became ill with typhus and was hours away from being ushered into showers which certainly meant death. Franz nursed her to good health. What now?

The jigsaw of how the relationship unfolded is told mostly by those who were there. Some of those on camera owe their lives to Helena. Wunsch often pulled Helena's friends from death lines. Some of the revelations are surprising. Helena is either a saint or a traitor. Did she ever clearly show her hand when it came to her true feelings for Wunsch?     

Finally there is the trial, 30 years later, of Wunsch in Vienna for war crimes. Helena is summoned to give testimony as a witness. How is she viewed by those interviewed after she gives evidence? Is it at the trial we find out what her real emotions were in those dark days in the bleakest place so far described in human existence? Helena has divided opinion through time. This film never tries to influence viewers' and it tells a good story imaginatively. If you've never heard of Wunsch or more importantly the outcome of his trial, don't do any research if you are keen to see the film. 9GUMS.