'Murderer's House' - University of Victoria

Thus, Sanders-Brahms creates a counter-history to standard depictions of war which
thematizes a story of women‟s survival. The director explains, “Dies ist die positive
Geschichte Deutschlands während des Faschismus, des Zweiten Weltkriegs und danach.
Die Geschichte der Frauen, die das Leben in Gang hielten, während die Männer zum
Töten eingesetzt wurden. Sie hätte längst dargestellt werden müssen” (Film-Erzählung
25). 29 Sanders-Brahms‟ recollections are of daily life during the war and post-war period
rather than of famous historical events of this era. Her film considers historical events
only to the extent that they affected her mother‟s and her own personal experiences.
Thus Sanders-Brahms‟ approach corresponds to some of the goals of Alltagsgeschichte or
the “history of everyday life” and of oral history in that it focuses attention on “the
forgotten victim of history instead of the big battalion” and attempts to “recapture the
subjective experience of people in the past” (Evans 240).
years of my life, those were the pictures, which sometimes even still surface in my dreams and which I am
trying to cope with by making this film” (Film-Erzählung 118).
29 “This is the positive history of Germany during fascism, the Second World War, and afterwards. The
history of women, who kept life going, while the men were away at the front being mobilized to kill. It
should have been depicted long since” (Film-Erzählung 25).
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