Lecture by Prof. Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann, The Hebrew University
An Aseptic Holocaust: Rethinking the Limits of (the Limits of) Representation in The Zone of Interest
Summary of the lecture:
The film The Zone of Interest reignited the discussion about the possibilities and limits of representing the Holocaust. Many critics agreed that Jonathan Glazer's cinematic portrait of the commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife successfully tells the story of how the crime against humanity that was the Shoah was possible, without showing it. The reality of the camp remains invisible, but horror images are evoked primarily through the sound. But are these images so present that we no longer need to show cruelty and violence? Given the experience of October 7, for example, must the discussion about the limits of representability be reviewed? The lecture raises the question of the extent to which the Holocaust has become an aseptic history without violence reviewing it in the context of the history of cinematic memory.
About the lecturer: Prof. Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann, The Hebrew University
Associate Professor for Visual Culture, Media and German Studies in the Department of Communication & Journalism and the DAAD Center for German Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research interests include German film history, German-Israeli film relations, cinematic memory of the Holocaust, the use and appropriation of historical film footage, and digital and social media memory. He authored the German-language books “Übergänge. Wege durch eine deutsch-israelische Filmgeschichte“ (Neofelis, 2014) and „Geschichtsbilder im medialen Gedächtnis. Filmische Narrationen des Holocaust“ (transcript, 2011). He co-edited the German-language volume “Kino in Bewegung: Perspektiven des deutschen Gegenwartsfilms“ (Springer, 2011) and „Docudrama on European Television. A Selective Survey” (Palgrave Macmillan 2016). He is co-leader of the collaborative research project “(Con-) Sequential Images. An Archeology of Iconic Films from the Nazi Era” (2021-2028), funded by the German Research Association and consortium partner in the Horizon Europe project "MEMORISE: Virtualisation and Multimodal Exploration of Heritage on Nazi Persecution". Previously he was part of the Horizon 2020 project "Visual History of the Holocaust: Rethinking Curation in the Digital Age".
January 13, 2025, from 6:15 PM to 7:45 PM.
Event poster
