Based on her book “999 – The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz”, author and director Heather Dune Macadam tells the story of Edith Grossmann and other women who were deported to Auschwitz in 1942. At the time, the Slovak government under President Tiso was collaborating with Nazi Germany, with the latter claiming to want to settle all deported Jews in newly occupied Poland with the purpose of putting them to work. The train journey ended in Auschwitz, however. With the help of interviews with contemporary witnesses, accumulated over a period of 30 years, the film paints a picture of life in the camp. In their accounts the women speak of harassment, hunger and violence, at times of a sexual nature, that they experienced as female camp inmates. The result is a chronicle of the Auschwitz and Birkenau camps, the evolution of the war and the effects thereof on the treatment of the camp inmates, the death march and, finally, the liberation of the few survivors. Alongside the accounts of the inhumane and deadly living conditions, the women also recall moments of solidarity and revolt, how some planned acts of sabotage, how they helped and saved one another and tried to retain hope.
Text: Charlotte Kühn
English: Peter Rickerby
Following the screenings on 21.6. at Bundesplatz Kino and 23.6. at Thalia Babelsberg there will be a Q&A with the director Heather Dune Macadam.
Additionally, on 21.6., Stephen Hopkins, DOP und Associate Producer will be present.
999 - THE FORGOTTEN GIRLS is part of the educational programme of JFBB. Contact: Charlotte Kühn c.kuehn@jfbb.info.
