Expansive Grounds

 “Expansive Grounds” is a documentary by Gerburg Rohde-Dahl. The film is about the filmmaker’s process of self and social understandings occasioned by the construction of the Berlin Memorial to the Murdered Jews in Europe.

From the installing of the first slabs in the center of Berlin in September 2003 through the autumn of 2007, two years after its opening to the public, the filmmaker documented the Memorial. She interviewed many visitors to the Memorial, its initiator, Lea Rosh, its architect, Peter Eisenman, and her own sister, 12 years elder.

Born in 1938, the filmmaker enjoyed a very happy childhood in occupied Poland from 1940 to 1945, during which time her father was an enthusiastic member of the NSDAP, the party of the National Socialists. Horror infiltrated the memories of her happiness when after the war she learned about the existence of the Concentration Camp Stutthof just 50 kilometers from where she spent her childhood.

Documenting the Memorial and interviewing its visitors leads the filmmaker to new insights about her own attitude towards the past, her father’s role during the Nazi era, the significance of collective guilt, her own feelings of guilt, and about the convictions she formed during the 1968 era.

“Expansive Grounds” reflects upon the impact of the Holocaust on German and personal life. The core of the film is the inner process initiated by this Memorial. 

A German story of everyday life.

DVD for private use available at absolut MEDIEN GmbH.

DVD with educational rights available at FILMSORTIMENT.de.