While inspecting the insolvency estate in a dilapidated research institute, the administrator stumbles across twenty boxes of old audio and film recordings, the existence of which had long been forgotten. They document the largest political show trial in Czechoslovakia, conducted in 1952 against Rudolf Slánský and thirteen other - predominantly Jewish - defendants. The trial, preparations for which were carried out under Soviet supervision for more than a year, ended with eleven death sentences, all carried out immediately.
Director Martin Vandas makes the recordings available to a wider audience for the first time. Using additional archive material such as the memoirs of Slánský's widow, who recalls the kidnapping of her baby in Moscow and the arrest of her husband in Prague, the filmmaker reconstructs Slánský's life and the proceedings of the anti-Semitically motivated trial. Historians such as Petr Koura ensure this is placed in an international context and examine the question of whether Slánský was ultimately a victim of his own politics.
Text: Christina Frankenberg
English: Peter Rickerby
ADDITIONAL SCREENING
Thur 20.6. 16:00
KULTURMANUFAKTUR GERSTENBERG FRANKFURT (ODER) (Ziegelstraße 28A, 15230 Frankfurt)
Organized with the support of the European University Viadrina.
