'Murderer's House' - University of Victoria

comments, “Ein kleines Mädchen. Kein strammer Junge” (Sanders-Brahms, Film-
Erzählung 53). 34 Lene‟s comment suggests that she has been indoctrinated by gender-
based Nazi ideology that assumed that women were inferior to men.
Next follows a shot of Lene who turns to the midwife saying, “Es ist mir so
fremd” (Sanders-Brahms, Film-Erzählung 53). 35 The action shows a second shot of the
newborn baby lying in blood and the narrator‟s voice-over comments, “Als sie mich von
dir abschnitten, Lene, fiel ich auf ein Schlachtfeld” (Sanders-Brahms, Film-Erzählung
112). 36 This statement is accompanied by a haunting piano melody in the higher
registers. The concurrent presentation of the image of the bloody child and the utterance
of the word “battlefield” evokes images of the death and suffering caused by the war. It
could also be read as a criticism of contemporary gender-based social conventions which
dictate that it is acceptable to show the blood of men on the battlefield, whereas women‟s
blood is considered private and therefore unfit to be shown in the public forum of film.
The final scene of the sequence consists of a black and white documentary aerial
panning shot of a bombed out German metropolis which is probably Berlin. The shot is
several seconds long and underscores the magnitude of the destruction which Allied
bombing raids inflicted on German cities and civilians during the Second World War. As
the melancholy piano melody continues, the narrator‟s voice-over comments, “So viel,
was ich noch gar nicht sehen konnte, war schon kaputt” (Sanders-Brahms, Film-
Erzählung 113). 37 The piano accompaniment of the last two scenes emphasizes the
34 “A little girl. No fine [strong] boy” (Sanders-Brahms, Film-Erzählung 53).
35 “It‟s so strange to me” (Sanders-Brahms, Film-Erzählung 53).
36 “As they cut me from you, Lene, I fell onto a battlefield” (Sanders-Brahms, Film-Erzählung 112).
37 “So much of what I couldn‟t yet see was already destroyed” (Sanders-Brahms, Film-Erzählung 113).
49