'Murderer's House' - University of Victoria
'Murderer's House' - University of Victoria
'Murderer's House' - University of Victoria
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(McCormick, Politics 203), Lene appears to passively accept her victimization in that she<br />
fails to make any attempt to publicly protest it. Instead she remains silent about the<br />
suffering she has endured and does nothing to ameliorate her situation. She does not<br />
even tell her husband Hans about the rape. However, upon viewing Sander‟s film<br />
BeFreier und Befreite I understood it was very uncommon for German victims <strong>of</strong><br />
wartime rapes to attempt to receive any kind <strong>of</strong> legal recognition or compensation for the<br />
trauma they endured. As stated in Chapter 3, in her research for BeFreier und Befreite<br />
Sander discovered only one case where a rape survivor filed a claim to be <strong>of</strong>ficial<br />
recognized as a war victim (Sander and Johr 168). Thus, one could argue that even if<br />
Lene had brought her rape to the attention <strong>of</strong> the authorities, it would have been virtually<br />
impossible to bring her aggressors to justice and very difficult for her to receive any sort<br />
<strong>of</strong> financial compensation.<br />
A fourth example <strong>of</strong> Lene‟s passive reaction to male aggression can be found in<br />
the scene where Hans takes Lene to the dentist‟s <strong>of</strong>fice to seek a cure for his wife‟s<br />
partial facial paralysis. The dentist advises the extraction <strong>of</strong> all <strong>of</strong> Lene‟s teeth in order to<br />
stop the paralysis from spreading. When Lene objects to the procedure saying “Ich will<br />
nicht”, the dentist addresses Hans, refusing responsibility for the spreading paralysis and<br />
Lene‟s possible death if he is not given permission to pull her teeth (Sanders-Brahms,<br />
Film-Erzählung 86). 88 Hans avoids responsibility for the decision by delegating it back<br />
to the dentist. Hence this scene illuminates not only women‟s subordination to male<br />
hierarchies but also the power dynamics that rule male discourse. Hans‟ automatic<br />
acceptance <strong>of</strong> the dentist‟s drastic solution indicates a power hierarchy: the doctor‟s<br />
status and opinion are weightier than Hans‟ and Lene and her wants rank at the bottom.<br />
88 “I don‟t want that” (Sanders-Brahms, Film-Erzählung 86).<br />
119