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ABSTRACT
In his autobiographical documentary film The Flat (2011; הדירה), Arnon Goldfinger retraces his German Jewish grandparents’ relationship with Leopold von Mildenstein (1902–1968), a former SS officer and Judenreferent, through mnemonic objects and testimonial artefacts. Both as a filmmaker and on-screen subject, Goldfinger approaches his grandparents’ keepsakes and mementos with a keen eye for minute details and lost traces – not unlike a crime investigator who collects, analyzes, and interprets forensic evidence. As memory and materiality become interdependent co-producers of memory work, Goldfinger reminds us that although ‘matters’ or objects are full of memories, they do not speak for themselves; they can only ‘illuminate their human and social context’ through our interactions with them. It is precisely for this reason that Goldfinger’s memory archive – Gerda and Kurt Tuchler’s flat in Tel Aviv – seems devoid of history. Whereas every nook and cranny is filled with heirlooms, the entire apartment is replete with an ever-present void of a silenced familial past. Ultimately, the process of gathering facts, examining records, and visiting eyewitnesses proves difficult yet transformative for Goldfinger who is forced to grapple with intergenerational memory conflicts that continue to reverberate in present-day German and Israeli society.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Freeman, Nienass, and Daniell, “Memory | Materiality | Sensuality,” 5.
2 Bayer, “After Postmemory,” 116.
3 Prager, After the Fact, 182–3.
4 Appadurai, “Commodities and the Politics of Value,” 5.
5 Munk, “Arnon Goldfinger’s The Flat,” 30.
6 Hirsch, “The Generation of Postmemory,” 114.
7 Goldfinger in discussion with the author, Tel Aviv, May 2015. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Mr. Goldfinger for his generosity and patience answering all my queries.
8 Ibid.
9 Lemmons, Goebbels and “Der Angriff,” 2.
10 See also von Lang and Sibyll, Eichmann Interrogated, 26.
11 E.g. SS Officer Files, U.S. National Archives, Washington D.C. Furthermore, a CIA file on Leopold von Mildenstein is accessible in the “Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room” (https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/519b7f97993294098d512ec8).
12 Herf, “Nazi Germany’s Propaganda,” 733.
13 Ibid.
14 Williams, “Mirrors without Memories,” 392.
15 Ibid.
16 Nora, “Between Memory and History,” 1.
17 Schlunke, “Memory and Materiality,” 253.
18 Comolli, “Machines of the Visible,” 135.
19 Bruzzi, New Documentary, 16.
20 Nichols, Introduction to Documentary, 182.
21 Friedman, “The Transmutation of Testimony,” 195–6.
22 Cohen, The Tremendum, 10.
23 Friedman, “Witnessing for the Witness,” 92.
24 Hirsch, “Surviving Images,”10.
25 Ibid.
26 Hirsch, “The Generation of Postmemory,” 114.
27 Hirsch, “Surviving Images,” 9.
28 Giaccardi and Plate, “How Memory Comes to Matter,” 70.
29 Ibid., 73.
30 Brown, “Thing Theory,” 4.
31 Freeman, Nienass, and Daniell, “Memory | Materiality | Sensuality,” 4.
32 Giaccardi and Plate, “How Memory Comes to Matter,” 83.
33 Brown, “Thing Theory,” 4.
34 Latour, We Have Never Been Modern, 39.
35 Latour, “On Actor-Network Theory,” 373.
36 Woodward, Understanding Material Culture, 3.
37 Burke, “Co-Memorations,” 106.
38 Miller, “Materiality.”
39 Anderman, “When to Tell, How to Tell, Whether to Tell.”
40 Latour, “The Berlin Key,” 10.
41 Small porcelain figurines that were produced by W. Goebel Porzellanfabrik (now: Hummel Manufaktur; https://www.hummelfiguren.com/).
42 Goldfinger, email to author, January 7, 2018.
43 Goldfinger, “Ihr Freund, der Feind.”
44 Goldfinger, in discussion with the author.
45 Goldfinger, interview with Aleisa Fishman.
46 Hockey, Penhale and Sibley, “Environments of Memory,” 141.
47 Horton and Kraftl, “Clearing out a Cupboard,” 41.
48 Goldfinger had been shooting for over two months, when he realized that the task was too daunting for a single filmmaker. Talia Galon, a cinematographer who lived nearby Gordon Street, joined the project filming on location whenever he was not available.
49 ‘[T]here were times that people threw things away (especially my mother …) and I could not be aware of it.’ Goldfinger, email to author, January 7, 2018.
50 Ibid.
51 “Testimony of Kurt Tuchler regarding his experiences in Germany, 1933-1936.”
52 ‘On the 7th of August 1933 representatives of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the Zionistische Vereinigung für Deutschland (ZVfD) reached an agreement with the Ministry of Economics in Berlin to enable Jewish emigrants to Palestine to transfer their property in foreign currency.’ Barkai, “German Interests,” 245.
53 Weiss, “The Transfer Agreement and the Boycott Movement.”
54 Bar-On, “Israeli and German Students.”
55 Goldfinger in discussion with the author.
56 Bayer, “After Postmemory,” 120.
57 Shapira, “The Holocaust,” 52.
58 ‘In the spring of 1933 four people gathered on a platform of Berlin’s railway station ready to board a train for Trieste, where they were to take a ship bound for Palestine. What made this group unusual was the fact that it was composed of two couples, one Jewish, the other Nazi […]. Yet, the two couples were travelling with the sanction of both the Nazi (National Socialist German Workers) Party and the Zionist Federation of Germany […]. The Nazis boarding the train were Baron Leopold Itz von Mildenstein and his wife […]. His Jewish travelling companions were Kurt Tuchler, an official of the Zionist Federation of Germany, who was also accompanied by his wife.’ Boas, “A Nazi Travels to Palestine,” 33.
59 Early, “Five Questions.”
60 Ibid.
61 Arnon Goldfinger, email to author, January 7, 2018.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Charlotte Schallié
Charlotte Schallié is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies at the University of Victoria, Canada. Her research and teaching interests include representations of the Shoah in literature and film, oral history, visual storytelling, Jewish identity in contemporary cultural discourse, and Holocaust education.