'Murderer's House' - University of Victoria

sister, Lene. Lene distracts Hanne from Rahel‟s abduction by continuing their personal
discussion about boyfriends. Lene operates under the illusion that the forces of politics
and history can be evaded by retreating into the private realm, a pretence that aids her
complicity with the status quo (McCormick, “Gender” 253). A second scene where
Lene‟s private concerns cause her to become complicit with the Hitler regime takes place
when she is embroidering a new blouse to wear for Hans‟s return on his first leave from
the army. Lene is so intent on finishing her personal project that she shows no emotional
reaction when told that the Ducksteins, the Jewish owners of the haberdashery shop
where she buys thread, have been deported. Apparently unconcerned at the elderly
Ducksteins‟ fate, she goes to the boarded-up shop and pleads with an old woman who
lives in the building to let her in. Together, the women rummage through the ransacked
shop to find the red thread Lene needs and when they cannot find it, the old woman
convinces her to take blue instead, bidding her goodbye with a “Heil Hitler!” Lene is so
intent on her “private” goal of pleasing her husband, that she unwittingly takes part in the
expropriation of Jewish property. In a voice-over commentary, the narrator takes her
mother to task for this complicity, stating, “Du hast es alles nicht gewollt. Du hast es
aber auch nicht verhindert” (Deutschland, bleiche Mutter n. pag.). 77 Later in the film, the
blouse with which Lene was so concerned is ripped off by Hans who barely notices her
painstaking needlework, and whose attitudes towards women and sex have changed
through his socialization in the army (McCormick, Politics 205). Sanders-Brahms thus
shows that her mother‟s decision to escape politics by attempting to take refuge in
private, personal, “apolitical” happiness is ultimately an illusion. The impossibility of
pulling down the blinds to escape history is revealed by the fact that Lene continues,
77 “You didn‟t want any of it. But you also didn‟t stop it” (Deutschland, bleiche Mutter n. pag.).
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