“(I feel that) I survived the Holocaust”:
Testimony and contemporary documentary film
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12957/revmar.2024.84051Keywords:
Genocide, Testimony, Holocaust, Documentary Film, ImpostureAbstract
As a part of a research on the representation of genocide in documentary cinema, this paper aims to analyze three recent documentaries about the Holocaust in which fake survivors are the protagonists. The three cases, which caused real scandals at the time, arose during the so-called “era of the witness” and led to a discussion about the characteristics and validity of Holocaust survivors’ testimonies. The three documentaries I will analyze are Ich bin Enric Marco, W. What remains of the lie and Misha and the Wolves, which deal with Enric Marco, Binjamin Wilkomirski and Misha Defonseca respectively. Through a comparative review of these works, I intend to discuss the implications that can arise when the very characteristics of the documentary are put under tension in order to present someone who affirms a truth that later turns out to be a lie. The aim is to analyze two questions: how the cases and testimonies were represented and presented in each documentary, and what possible ethical and aesthetic consequences their "documentary form" may have.
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