User Reviews

For this documentary, Ruth Beckermann entered an exhibition about war crimes in Vienna 1995 with her camera team. She recorded the opinions of the visitors, mostly former soldiers, some of them admitting that they had seen similar scenes themselves, and condemning them, others denying any connection, and still others even justifying the war. In this way an authentic picture emerges about how the former soldiers viewed their own involvement, and beyond that, how Austrian society at large viewed the Second World War in the late 1990s. The Austrian situation is interesting in that Austria, unlike Germany, was able to present themselves mainly as victims, and did not take responsibility or undergo the same kind of re-education as Germany. Now, in the early 2020s, mostly everyone interviewed in the film will already be dead. This makes one realize even more how precious the voices of real people experiencing that time, and how precious documentaries like this one are.