'Murderer's House' - University of Victoria

the world, was that many women, not only women that had lived through Second World
War, but many women who had lived through other wars, in India, in Japan, for example,
or in countries like Iran, they loved the film because it showed what the women had lived
through themselves. Of course, in Iran, the film cannot be shown officially, but there are
many people who know the film. The same in Russia…And, you know, it‟s a film that
really, for many women, was a discovery because, for the first time, they saw their
experiences reflected in a film.
R.R.: It‟s certainly true that it was one of the first films that showed women‟s and
children‟s experiences of war. Okay. So, the third question is actually really along those
lines. In my thesis, I argue that your film makes our understanding of German history
richer, because it shows the war and post-war period from a woman‟s perspective, a point
of view which has, for much too long, been ignored or suppressed in traditional grand
narratives of German history. This film, in my opinion, shares a goal with oral history
because it tells a history from below. What do you think of this description of your film?
H.S.-B.: That‟s very nicely seen (put) and I agree. And this is also why the voice-over of
the child is there. Because, it‟s to show that oral history is transported. The voice of the
grown-up child tells the story to her daughter in a way. So this is really already a way of
showing oral history, oral history transported in a film.
R.R.: So, my supervisor‟s question is about the daughter. Her question was: “Which girl
in the film is your daughter?”
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