'Murderer's House' - University of Victoria

narrator‟s sadness at the destruction of her homeland that took place around the time of
her birth.
This montage of birth and destruction serves two narrative purposes. The first is
expository in that it historically contextualizes Anna‟s birth during an aerial bombing
raid. Lene‟s personal struggle to give birth is historically situated during a battle of
nations being waged above and around her. When Hans later remarks to his wife that her
life has been relatively easy while he has been fighting, she answers him, “Weiβt du, wie
das ist, bei Fliegeralarm ein Kind zu kriegen?” (Sanders-Brahms, Film-Erzählung 67). 38
Through the juxtaposition of a fictional re-enactment of Lene‟s very personal experience
of giving birth with documentary footage of Allied planes bombing German cities,
Sanders-Brahms destroys the illusion that the “private” sphere traditionally inhabited by
women can be insulated from the forces of history and politics.
The second narrative function of the sequence is to confront the historical record
with a re-creation of women‟s gendered experiences of war, namely the effect that the
“total war” strategy of bombing of civilian populations had on women and children.
During the Second World War, governments responsible for bombings on either side of
the conflict did not give civilian populations any special status. Rather civilian
populations became intended targets. Through the birth/bombing montage, Sanders-
Brahms supplements and enriches the public historical record with a fictional re-creation
of her mother‟s gendered experience of the Second World War. This sequence offers the
viewer an insight into a part of Germany‟s wartime history that is often neglected by
mainstream narratives of history. As McCormick suggests:
38 “Do you know what it‟s like to give birth to a child during an air raid?” (Sanders-Brahms, Film-
Erzählung 67).
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