East of War

White-tiled rooms, neon light, black and white photographs on the walls from the exhibition Vernichtungskrieg (War of Extermination) about the crimes of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front. Against this backdrop, Ruth Beckermann filmed a hearing of former soldiers about their experiences beyond normal warfare. An uncompromising film about remembering and forgetting. "Ruth Beckermann's documentary about Hitler's war veterans lasts two oppressive hours: Two hours about cowardice, weakness, ignorance, about fellow travellers and incorrigible perpetrators, two hours about a vanishing minority that does not look for blind excuses, two hours about a generation that has fled from itself into a collective amnesia." (HUBERTUS CZERNIN, 1996)