It’s still a hugely sensitive and inflammatory subject which few in Belgium dare to talk about. In the summer of 1942, the local police assisted the Nazi forces as they rounded up Jews in raids across Antwerp. These Jews were deported and many died in Hitler’s death camps. The grim episode is the subject of The Last Jewish Summer, a feature documentary which Thom M. Vander Beken is pitching at CONNEXT.
In 2018, a famous Belgian historian, Herman Van Goethem, rector of Antwerp University, published his groundbreaking book ‘The Year of Silence.’ This exposed the way prominent authority figures, among them city officials, police chiefs and even the mayor, helped the Germans to arrest and deport the Jews in the city. Amongst historians, this was hardly news, but the general public was shocked.
“I thought this was fascinating because, of course, we all really grow up here in families who don’t really talk about what happened in the past, especially not in the war,” Vander Beken explains his own interest in the subject. “I was triggered and I started to look for people to interview. As you can imagine, everybody told me it would probably be very difficult to find Jewish families who would want to talk about this traumatic chapter in their history.”
As it turned out, finding Jewish families willing to speak on camera was “the easy part.” Much tougher was tracking down Flemish people whose relatives had been involved in the arrests and deportations who were ready to give interviews. Most preferred to keep silent.
“It’s a big taboo still. When people said they were willing to talk to me, I very quickly noticed that people didn’t really seem to understand how bad things were back then.”
The director has thought hard about this reticence regarding the shameful incidents in wartime Antwerp. “I think it’s because [although] we watch films about the war and films about the Holocaust, we always get a romanticised image of that. You don’t really grasp the horror and the pain that went on. For people, it’s just something from the past – they [the Jews] were arrested, they were deported and they never came back.”
In his feature documentary, the director sets out to challenge this complacent reading of history.
“It’s author-driven…it’s not going to be just talking heads and archive put together,” Vander Beken explains his approach to his film. He is building a set of a living room in a Belgian house. This will be used by all of the six main characters. Three are Jewish. Their families were arrested and deported. Three others are the sons and grandsons of the men involved in the arrests.
One especially poignant image which the filmmakers have found is of a young Belgian-Jewish couple on their wedding day. “It was the last Jewish wedding in June 1942,” the director explains. “This image just captures perfectly what it is all about, ordinary people like you and I who basically wanted to do the normal things in their lives but who were isolated, vilified and then arrested and deported. There is nothing more joyful than your wedding day but to see a wedding dress with a yellow star makes it very visually clear how bad the situation was.”
Amazingly, the couple, Malvina Löwenwirth and Kopel Brandstätter, both survived the war. The director was able to meet and interview Malvina who died only last year, well into her 90s.
The project has already received some production funding from the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF). It is being made through production company Quetzalcoatl. The producer is Marc Goyens who also worked on the director’s earlier documentary I Know You Are There.
“We are now in the process of looking for co-producers. I hope at CONNEXT to draw some attention to the project and talk to people who may be interested in co-producing.”
Vander Beken describes himself as “a documentary filmmaker living in a virtual world.” It isn’t his only project at CONNEXT. He will also be presenting his VR film The Interview. Made through Minds Meet, this is set in an immigration office and will put the viewers into the shoes of the immigration officer, confronting them with choices which can determine someone’s life and future.
“I thought if I could use VR, I could put you into the room where this decision is being made and, by using the interactivity that VR allows, force you to make the decision yourself,” he says of the agonising situation which so often faces immigrants as they seek leave to remain in country that is not their own. The project is now complete and the director will be showing three short clips during the Antwerp event. “It’s a topic which needs a bit of context and discussion,” he suggests.
