'Murderer's House' - University of Victoria

Hence, Sanders-Brahms suggests that Lene‟s objective explanation of the rape to her
Anna helps both mother and daughter keep the trauma of the sexual assault in check so
that they may focus on surviving their long journey home.
The third and arguably the most significant way that Lene supports her daughter
is by teaching her to speak, by empowering her through language to give form to her
gendered experiences. In an interview, Sanders-Brahms revealed that she feels that the
“greatest cultural deed in mankind –for the very survival of mankind […] – is that
women teach their children to speak” (Buitenhuis et al. 71). The director claims that if
women did not pass the knowledge of how to speak from generation to generation, it
would be very difficult for human beings to become human (Buitenhuis et al. 71). As
will be discussed in Chapter 5, the first image of Lene in Deutschland, bleiche Mutter, is
accompanied by a voice-over commentary which emphasizes the importance of women‟s
speech: “Meine Mutter. Ich habe schweigen gelernt, sagtest du. Von dir habe ich
sprechen gelernt. Muttersprache” (Sanders-Brahms, Film-Erzählung 112). 87 On a
concrete level, Lene is Anna‟s first language teacher, teaching the child her “mother
tongue.” However, on a symbolic level, the mother teaches the daughter the importance
of narration, that women can improve their position in patriarchal societies only when
they speak openly of their gendered experiences. The “Räuberbräutigam” fairy tale that
Lene recites to Anna tells of a female heroine who manages to stop further acts of
violence against women by telling publicly of what she has seen. The miller‟s daughter
is able to gain control of the slaughter she has witnessed by telling of it in a public forum.
Through her careful control of the story and her presentation of evidence in the form of
87 “My mother. I learned to be silent, you said. From you I learned to speak. Mother tongue” (Sanders-
Brahms, Film-Erzählung 112).
115