Stalags (2008) - full transcript

Documentary film about pornographic Stalag fiction books popular in Israel until the time of the Adolf Eichmann trial.

"There was nothing unusual
in the way they lined up

"holding their heads up nigh.

"Nothing unusual except for the fact
these soldiers were women.

"Two platoon of female SS brutes

"in tight pants, shiny boots,

"and jackets stretched
over blooming breasts.

"Under the caps
cropped haircuts were visible,

"but the hair was fine and
the necks delicate and feminine.

"'Holy Jesus; someone muttered.

"Real dames with asses and breasts."

STALAGS



I first saw the Stalags
in a second hand book store.

Booklets with colorful covers

and illustrations of busty SS women
torturing tough men.

It costs 140 shekels.
-140 shekels?

Yes. Look.
-This costs 140 shekels?

And people buy them.

They're no longer available.
They're from the 60's.

Stalag plots are all alike,

Variations on the same theme.

The time: World War ll.

The Allies constantly bomb
Nazi forces.

The protagonist is an American or
British pilot whose plane is hit

he parachutes onto
occupied European territory.

He is taken captive and placed
in a camp, a "Stalag".



"Stammlager" in German,
which means permanent camp.

To his surprise he discovers
that the guards

are sadistic SS women
who rape and torture him.

The few Stalag books still around
are purchased by a secret group

of collectors addicted
to this literary genre.

I found one of these books
at my father's house.

It was a great shock to me,

really severe.

Look, you don't...

in this context you don't talk
with people about feelings.

That whole sexual, emotional
and warlike charge

produces a strong sexual stimulation.

You want to be there.

Reading the description
of the hero in bed

with his mistress,
in Stalag 217, I wanted to be him.

I wanted to be there
with that guard, that officer,

sleep with her and love her
and feel her as a woman.

I mean, I would even...

try to come on to one of them.

Personally.

I would stay in that camp
until the war ended,

I wouldn't want to escape.
What to? To my military service?

To combat?
I wouldn't want that.

But with Nazis?
-That wouldn't bother me.

Nazi women!
-It wouldn't bother me.

I saw them as females,
not as Nazis.

The plot ends with the hero
who'd been tortured and raped

defeating his guards,
raping and murdering them.

But in fact the protagonist

has been strongly attracted
to his tormentors all along.

An aficionado with no qualms
about his own attraction to Germans

is Eyal Liani.

I was a police inspector.
Now I'm retired.

Susanna, it's Liani Eyal.
How are you?

As you know, Im going to be
in Germany the few next days.

So call me.

Good day and kisses.

Being a reserves officer
in the Israeli army

while she... her grandfather
was an SS officer,

I get turned on thinking
of this gentile German,

that I fuck her
on behalf of the six million.

Fuck her in a way that...

have anal sex with her,
or use force... it turns me on

and it really turns her on.

I imagine her grandfather

when I look at her face
and I say: You killed Jews,

but look what this Jew
is doing to your granddaughter.

I'm no pervert.
Just an Israeli enjoying life.

Everyone read Stalags
in the early 1960's,

not just a handful of collectors
with a German fetish.

They were sold at the Tel Aviv
central station.

In Stalags we didn't look for content

or anything of the kind.
We were looking for...

the erotic parts.

I didn't really know
about erotic stuff.

I knew nothing about fucking
until I was 14, 15, 16.

I didn't know there was
such a thing.

But everyone read them,
so I did too,

to seem informed.

It doesn't smell. Does it?
They had that smell.

Here: "The Nazis could torture him."

As much as they liked.
They could do anything.

Masters of the world.

Start here, with the Nazis.

Without the eroticism.

The nipple paragraph
is one I'll never forget.

"Rada Anthony Tchlochova was
staring at her own reflection

"in the window
looking out into the dusk.

"Rada Tchlochova
smiled and sighed."

"Gave a light sigh..."
-"A light sigh."

"She squeezed the man's groin."
-"His groin". She touched his balls.

You knew what "groin" was
when you were 11? -Sure.

"When she was through
with the man,

"the whole plank was
spotted floury white." -What?

I don't know. -What is this?
-Floury? -Floury.

"She took the man's pride
between her fingers." -His pride.

"And she whispered..."

"in broken English..."
his pride soon to go limp.

"And she whispered in broken English:
this is mine"'.

Look at that picture. What sex!

In puritan, conservative Israel
of the early 60's

this was the prominent
pornography available.

It could very well be that
the first time you masturbate,

given that this is the only
sexy literature around,

and literature is the best object
for masturbation if you're 12,

you don't even have
to be reading while you do it.

It activates your imagination.

Bentzi, what are you doing in there?

Taking a bath. -Turn the radio down.
You're not alone here.

In the all-time hit teen film,
"Lemon Popsicle"

the protagonist is seen
holding a Stalag book.

I would climb on the kitchen table
and then... I climbed onto the chair,

then over to the table,
from the table to the pantry

where the most
interesting things would be hidden.

I knew that thing happened...

I just knew it. I heard about it,
I read there was a Holocaust

and I understood it was a part
of something hidden,

or a part of something
people need to read about

and such things really did happen.

Most Stalags are at
the National Library.

The covers note that the books
were originally written in English

by Americans depicting
their captivity by the Nazis.

The authors' names
remained the same:

Mike Longshot; Ralph Butcher
and Mike Baden.

I was certain that this author,
say, Mike Baden,

is real,
and he had really been there

in that camp,
a soldier, a pilot.

He was captured,
fell in love,

and went through everything that he
describes in genuine factual terms,

his personal experience.

This cabinet contained
pocket books and Stalags.

As you see, it's very ugly.

They deteriorated here until I
found and salvaged them years later.

I thought they were translated books.

I see myself as an investigator
of mysteries

in Israeli popular culture
that no one even imagined existed.

I found the Stalags by simply
looking up in the catalogue

any book titled "Stalag"
and there are plenty.

Look. Here, the computer
gives you "Blood Stalag",

"American Stalag", "Hitler Stalag",
"Hindenburg Stalag",

"Death Stalag",
"Special Stalag" and so on.

Baden, Mike.

Here. Baden, Mike. See?
21 titles next to his name.

Look. Mike Baden.

"Here Comes the Sweet Undertaker"
by Mike Baden. Hebrew: E. Keidar.

Here there's an explicit note -

"The author is the translator".

Somehow it was known
that the translation was fake.

The translator is the author.
it's written outright.

Stalags were
original Israeli creations.

The cover illustrations were taken
from American magazines

with no sexual or sadistic contents.

The local writers hid behind
fictitious names

and wrote in the style
of translated literature.

The high, artificial
language of these books,

with sentence structures
similar to English,

making use of the complexity
of the language.

They sensed this was the way
to convince people that...

it was in fact a translation.

The only way to create
sex appeal for these books

in order to attract the Israeli
readers, was to use English names,

and they were very creative.

These people will eventually
talk about it

but the fact
that they still haven't done so

shows you that this taboo
or this sense of the filthy past

or of a stain on their history
still exists.

Obviously, the man who
wrote this knows literature.

He knows how to write prose.

I knew him.

I even read his eulogy.
Maxim Gilan.

Poet Maxim Gilan died in 2005.
He was a radical-left activist.

He edited lsrael's first
porn magazine, "Bull".

In the early 60 's,
when the Stalags came out,

he made his living
translating erotic literature.

Therefore, in bohemian circles
he was considered a Stalag-author.

His mother was a German Jew.

The relationships
between women officers...

there were
no female officers in the SS.

There was no such thing.

German women officers...

It remains unknown whether Gilan
actually wrote Stalags.

In 1962, "Ha'olam Haze" (weekly)
published an item

in which
journalist Uri Aloni exposed

the creator of the genre.

"Mike Baden is Eli Keidar"

The publishers wanted
publicity for their Stalags.

So they cooperated,
whether explicitly or off the record.

That's how we met.

He was near to the bohemia.

He never really mingled
with actors or bohemians,

but he did hang out
on Dizengoff Street.

He'd answer a question,
but wasn't eager to chat.

Rather restrained.
Always well groomed.

Moving gingerly
so his clothes would stay neat.

A character.

Interesting, in fact.

I'm a writer.

I wrote for a living.

I wouldn't have written a single
line without being paid.

I used to avoid
talking about the books.

I wasn't at the forefront.

I'm an anxious person,
I fear I'm not good enough.

That I haven't got what it takes...

I always prefer to stay
on the sidelines.

I was told by my parents
that I was bad.

I've been living with that image
since I was 6 years old.

Even at a safe family moment
I could be slapped.

I was never secure.

When I realized
my parents were unpredictable

and that I should be careful
around them,

somehow even when they smiled
I cringed.

I wanted nothing from them.

They talked and I wrote.
I did what I wanted.

I could write in my own
style, imagination, creativity,

I tried to dramatize
as best I could.

That was my style.

After failing as a journalist,

Keidar tries his luck
at popular literature.

A publisher shows him
an American magazine cover:

An image of SS-women. The way
to the first Stalag was paved.

We were adventurers.
We were the vendors

like sellers in the market,
not storekeepers.

We took the woman, who is
usually a symbol of subjection,

the rape victim etc.,
and turned her into the dominatrix.

We gave her male subjects,
American officers,

American pilots,
the pinnacle of manhood,

turned them into wimps,

and raped them.

When a young boy
read such a book,

we'd ask him:
what impressed you most?

He'd say: when the American
was caught in bed

with the female officer,
and she received 50 lashes

and his genitals were
smeared with honey

and tied to a bag of wasps.

The first Stalag to be published
was "Stalag 13".

The edition was sold out
at newspaper stands

and became
an unprecedented best-seller.

At least 80,000 copies
of "Stalag 13" were sold.

It is the equivalent
of a million copies today.

My credibility amazed people.

Many thought I had been
in that camp myself.

Like many of his peers Keidar
grew up in the shadow of trauma:

his mother had lost
her whole family in the Holocaust.

Every other day
she thought she was dying.

And every other day
she thought I was dying.

She kept talking about death.

She constantly claimed,
at the tiniest thing...

if I refused her
or argued with her

or did not listen to her,
she would...

pretend she was dying.

Say, "I'm dying."
and blame me for killing her.

"Colonel von Schultz
dismissed army morals

"everyone obeyed her.

"the punishment for the
slightest dissidence was death.

"Mike Baden was a prisoner,
he knew that hesitation

"might cost him his life
or at least,; a public whipping

"or a week
of solitary confinement.

"There was no sense
in suffering.

"He hated her. "

A child absorbs this atmosphere
and is affected by it,

I must have been.

It took me years to get rid of it.

Kiedar's background
and the provocative images

produced the winning formula
of Stalag-writing.

Following the success
other books were published:

"Stalag 3", "Stalag 190 "
and "Stalag 217".

The best Stalag was
"l Was a Stalag Commander",

the first one told
from the commander's perspective,

that of a raving sadist.

He describes, indifferently,

his abuse of
his male and female prisoners.

It's as though this commander

sees himself merely as
doing his job as best as he can.

A kind of Eichmann.

Obviously the author thought
of Eichmann while writing,

someone who follows orders.
A bureaucrat.

True, he performers horrific crimes,

but only since
someone has to do the dirty work.

In this place

where I stand before you,
judges of Israel,

to accuse Adolf Eichmann,

I do not stand alone.

With me here

at this time

stand 6 million prosecutors.

The first Stalag came out
just after Eichmann 's trial began.

The sadistic, pornographic
depictions in the Stalags

were read by a public that heard
the shocking testimonies

of Holocaust survivors
for the first time.

The Eichmann trial itself

was one of the boosters
of this literature.

It simply...

made a racket

and gave us extra momentum.

Alongside the weekly coverage
of the trial

"Ha'olam Haze" ran regular
ads for Stalags.

At the time I was in contact
with "Ha'olam Haze".

They were hungry for publicity

so this was a respectable chance
to publicize this book

for a token price.

I think this was
the first push and drive

that hurled us into
an unexpected whirlpool.

Young Keidar did not partake
in the commercial success.

Like many youngsters,
he wanted to see the world

and tried to sell the Stalag
formula to the Germans.

Had I been in the US,

I would now be writing
for "multi level" companies.

At the rate I wrote,
with my creativity and capacity

I'd become a multi-billionaire
at the age of 20.

Who knows? The sky's the limit.

I would end up where
others wouldn't even dream of being.

My imagination,
my inspiration would be endless.

Here I was constrained.

Narkis was left without a writer.

Then I made an agreement
with a friend,

I'll gladly tell you who:
Miron Uriel,

he worked for Social Security.

I told him, you can quit your job.

And he started...

He bought himself
a little typewriter

and churned out books.

I know
he listened to the trial.

He was definitely
aware and affected by it.

At times we took...

it was from Crematorium 3.
We took the burnt ashes

and in the winter

we had to use that ash
to pave roads...

Was it human ash?
-Yes, it was.

The trial was one of his sources.

He used and integrated it
in his writing.

This is Mr. Simhon.

The most famous man
in the country.

The Stalags became a phenomenon.

In the most popular radio
show of the time, "The Simhons",

an episode was dedicated to them:
"The Stalag Blow".

Noah Simhon comes home
and sounds off.

Tzfira, is dinner ready?
-It is.

Any mail?

Yes.
-Is Nava home?

Nava's home.

Let's eat, then.

In one of the episodes,
Noah Simhon comes home,

sits down, and finds
his daughter Nava

holding a book under the table.
Reading clandestinely.

He asks her, what are you reading?
A book, daddy.

I see it's a book.
But what book?

Then he snatches it.
He takes a look at the cover,

and says "Stalag"!

He then opens it and sees...

"The soldier stood up
and stared at bare breasts."

He hits the ceiling.
Noah Simhon, a founding father,

holding a Stalag!

What? Bare breasts?
Is this what my Nava reading?!

That was our life too.

Who would dare bring a Stalag
home to his Jewish mother?

Following this success,
others published their own Stalags.

Competition was such that
a new Stalag came out every day.

Each more extreme and shocking
than the previous one.

Nahman Goldberg wrote
"The Monster of Horror Stalag",

describing cannibalism and incest.

After all I didn't invent
the genre. I joined it.

You read the first one,
and saw how the plot works.

It's always the same story
in slight variations.

The whip is different,
the boobs are different.

We added juicy descriptions,

making it sexy.

We embellished the cruelty,

to make it more attractive.

Goldberg created the sub-genre

called "Israeli
avengers in Germany".

In his books,
"The Shortest Day",

and "The Missile Mari Missed"
Israeli avengers in Germany

hunt Nazis and have sex
with beautiful Arian women.

Goldberg actually described
his own life in Frankfurt

where Israeli Jews ran
questionable clubs

and played
Germany's sex and crime scene.

One of the struggles amongst
Israelis running the clubs

was stealing girls from
each ether's establishments.

This was also the ground
for much violence and fighting

amongst the Israelis themselves.

I remember one Israeli who had
never seen a concentration camp,

but whenever he dealt
with the authorities, the police,

to get some business permit,
or the municipality etc.

And ran into difficulties,
he'd grab his sleeve,

"I'll show you where I was
in the war", as if he had a number.

Naturally it didn't come
to rolling up his sleeve.

He'd be told:
"No, no. Don't do that."

Usually he got what he wanted.

These Israeli exploits in Germany
were known in Israel.

Stalag publishers hurried
to translate the sensation

into a sub-genre whose national
heroes take vengeance on Nazis.

In Germany Keidar knew nothing
of the Stalag's success.

I took the books and tried
to translate them to German.

I knew someone who worked
in the university there.

He read them and called me a liar,
saying I couldn't have written them.

Having failed to sell this format
to the Germans,

Keidar worked at a night club
owned by an Auschwitz survivor.

This inspired his book:
"Here Comes the Sweet Undertaker".

He hated them
from the bottom of his heart.

He was ready to get back at them
right there with a machine gun.

This is really the Stalag
behind the Stalags:

the writer of the Stalags

opens the curtain

and lets his readers see
what he really thinks.

Jews having sex with German women,

wanting to rape them,
and actually do it.

Jews? Israelis?
Who are so moral?

Germans are scum,
but Jews cannot really hurt them,

they're too moral.

No, Jews can indeed do this,
says Eli Keidar.

They want to and they can
and they do.

So they're no better than Nazis.

The book,
explicitly depicting incest

between the Jewish hero and
his German mother was banned.

An even more notorious Stalag
was published at the same time:

"I Was Colonel Schulz's
Private Bitch".

Then came Gutman,
an arrogant type.

He said, "Your Stalags are
pornographic to a certain extent,

"I'll outdo you by far."

He published a book
which I haven't read to this day,

but I'm told it was
written in very bad taste.

Pornographically it crossed
the lines, beyond normal.

The most famous Stalag
of them all was the one that...

It became a classic
just for its title:

"l Was Colonel Schultz's
Private Bitch".

The book must have been
based on a real story

about a Nazi officer
who abused a Frenchwoman.

Every copy of the book was traced

and destroyed
by the Israeli Police.

Dozens of policemen are fighting

a malignant apparition
in our life:

pornographic literature.

Under a literary guise

thousands of books
are sold

written by experts
of sexual urges.

2 years
after the first Stalag appeared

having outraged
Holocaust survivors,

the phenomenon was
about to be terminated.

I tried to forget them because
I found them to be plain filth,

but they were around
for a long time.

I was chair of a commission
that had to read those books

in order to voice our opinion.
It was very difficult.

"Ha'olam Haze", where Stalag
ads appeared every week

alongside reports of the trial,
gave the scandal full coverage

and devoted
two back covers to it.

We handled Stalags

when they were
the center of attention.

The weekly's front page sported
Eichmann's face and a noose,

while its back cover showed
a Stalag copy.

Alongside the Eichmann trial
going into posterity,

it got a rather high profile
and almost equally popularity,

people were interested in this
pornography case.

An essential ruling was
expected from the judge

on the principle question of:
What is pornography?

Forcing people not to see
something they wish to see?

Or to see what they do not wish
to see? This whole idea is warped

and patronizing.

Imagining some moral authority
setting standards for others.

Publisher Gutman said
the books were harmless.

these war accounts
meant to educate

about the Nazis' crimes.

Everything written there
had never happened.

There had been horrific things
under German occupation,

but not that. That writing was
a figment of sick Israeli minds.

I think that in reality
there were similar situations

and even much worse
than those described

in the worst of Stalag books.

I didn't invent the plot, it existed.

Those things did take place.

All I needed to do was reveal it.

Expose the story
to the eyes of the world.

The prosecution was most shocked

by mixing Holocaust horror
and Jewish-German sex.

I don't think for a single moment

that I created the least bit

of anything

that directly harmed anyone
by reading the book.

The judge convicted Gutman

for publishing "l Was
Colonel Schultz 's Private Bitch

In 10 minutes a friend agreed

to write a book titled:
"Schultz's Bitch"

to profit from the aftermath
of the banned book.

If I'm not mistaken,
I sold three editions.

Finally the market was saturated
and publication of Stalags halted.

I created an epidemic.

Things came to a point

where these books
no longer sold.

If 300-400 copies of a book
were sold, that was a lot.

"fame is fleetin".

Did Stalags portray a reality
silenced by the establishment?

Most booklets described
women torturing men.

"l was Colonel Schultz 's Private
Bitch" depicted the contrary:

a man torturing a woman.

Did the book hit a truth
closer to reality?

When a Nazi officer or policeman
happened to catch some female,

wouldn't he rape her?
You mean to tell me he didn't?

Those Nazi beasts
didn't screw Jewish women?

They raped
and murdered and killed.

In any book about the Holocaust
you'll read that they raped women.

How did youth
perceive the pornography

and harassment
depicted in Stalags?

For an Israeli child in
the 1960's, these are Jews.

He doesn't think of Poles
or Frenchmen.

For him, the inmates are all Jews.

The victims of abuse are
his parents,

His grandparents.
Potentially, himself.

The only way not to be subject
to such abuse

is to be the abuser himself.

The youngsters' attitude towards
the Nazis has always been ambivalent.

In certain situations

it wasn't obvious with whom
Israeli youth identified.

There was often a figure invented
by Auschwitz survivors

and embodied
in the person of Mengele.

A young man, tall, lean,

handsome, elegantly dressed.

There was something very sexy
in this character.

Very virile, attractive, strong.

The exact opposite of the beaten Jew
led to the gas chambers.

I recalled people looking
for SS boots in Jaffa,

when these were sold
on the flea market.

Wearing them
enhanced your manhood.

When I see a Nazi parade
I'm impressed.

It radiates an intoxicating power.

It profoundly affects
your psyche.

It is amazing. You see even rows,
straight, impeccable uniforms,

superb precision.
This army marches valiantly.

If you're suppressing sex,

in a society where
many issues are suppressed,

many of them Holocaust-related,

because of the hundreds of
thousands of survivors,

and your parents can't tell you
what they had been through,

you breathe the thick air
of suppression,

and then this happens, too.

For some, these books offered
information about the Holocaust

at a time when very few
sources were available.

After the founding of the State,
in the 1950 's, survivors came

comprising about
half of the population

but their voice was unheard
and their story untold.

During World War II

we all ignored what was
happening to the Jews.

There were rumors,
some information

but the general tendency
was to simply ignore them.

They were ignored.

And afterwards, there was some...

perhaps not gloating
but something similar.

The old-timers here said,
"Why didn't they come here?

"This is their own fault.

"They could have emigrated
in time, as we did."

There was absolute alienation.

Also, there were always
questions asked,

what did you do
in order to stay alive?

How come you survived?

People were very reserved,

since people thought
that only the cruel survived...

Survival of the fittest.

Namely, that only those capable
of stepping on others survived.

People were unaware
of the role of mere chance.

I had an Auschwitz number

and it disturbed me terribly
to show it to everyone...

they all spoke to me about it.

So I went to have it removed,
first thing.

Only one man

dealt almost entirely with Jews,

with them
and with their extermination.

This man is Adolf Eichmann.

The public attitude changed
only after the Eichmann trial.

This was actually the...

watershed, when suddenly
many people in Israel

heard for the first time
what had really taken place.

I was there

for about 2 years.

Time there is not like
it is here on Planet Earth.

K.Tzetnik was the first to tell
the Auschwitz story in Hebrew.

They wore...

I have it here.
-That's what you wore there.

This was a man
who had been in Auschwitz

and stayed alive to tell
the Auschwitz story.

He was the only one here,

for at least 10 years.

Their name was...

their number, "K.Tzetnik" (KZ).

The Eichmann trials exposed
the identity of Yehiel Feiner-Dinur

who hid behind his pseudonym ,
"K. Tzetnik ".

He must have decided not
to tell the story as Yehiel Feiner

from his own personal
point of view,

but as the bearer of that
KZ number.

"K.Tzetnik" was the
acronym KZ,

short for Konzentrationslager,
(concentration camp).

This is a literary stance, writing
as the "everyman" who was there.

Since I went through it
with them, I could speak for them

as though I were all of them.

I see them.

They look at me.

I see them.
-Sit down please.

I saw them.

No, Mr. Dinur.
-Yes?

Listen to the prosecutor.
Listen to me.

No, Mr. Dinur.

Quiet, quiet...

Please remain seated.

Everyone please remain seated.

Remain seated.

The trial raised
for the first time

the Holocaust
as a public theme.

K. Tzetnik's fainting
was one of its high points.

What do you feel about
Adolf Eichmann now? Now.

The last time you saw Adolf Eichmann
was when you were testifying.

No hatred, but hatred
about human being.

I was...
I was afraid about myself.

Then came everything, then I saw,
I'm capable to do this?

I'm capable, exactly like he.
Not god.

It's not a god, it's not a Hitler,
it's not a Heidler,

it's not
Adolf Eichmann.

It's me.

The trial' made K. Trzetnik
The best known writer.

K.Tzetnik was a very
special individual.

I'm not saying I really
understood him, completely.

He wrote a book titled
"The Dollhouse".

He described a brothel
with Jewish prostitutes

run with frightful sadism,

even sexually.

He published "The Dollhouse"
in 1953,

about a decade before
the first Stalag.

"Elsa of Dusseldorf reigns
almighty at Pleasure Bloc.

"Her body is slender

"she emphasizes this
by wearing tight riding pants

"Jodhpur style,
tucked into her boots.

"After hours of amusement
when the soldiers left the camp,

"Elsa would pace around
like an aroused predator.

"The girls trembled.

"After the Germans,
it was Elsa 's turn,

"a turn from hell into damnation.

"She would grab one of the girls,
drag her to her own cabin,

"pounce on her and sniff
the man who had just left. "

K.Tzetnik did what
many people do as victims:

they identify in a perverted,
strange way with...

their victimizer
and absorb some of his violence.

That's why his stories
were pornographic, in a way.

Unfortunately the Nazis managed
to create such a reality.

K.Tzetnik always claimed,

that he didn't write anything
he hadn't experienced or known.

If you tell dryly, factually,

about the sexual abuse
of Jewish girls

who were turned into
camp whores for the Germans,

you are documenting
a part of what happened.

But the way he describes
what a Jewish girl felt

when a German soldier lay
on top of her, abused her sexually,

you turn this encounter as any
pornography internalizes violence,

you make it stimulating.

"By Daniella's bed the German
hangs up his coat in the closet.

"Out of the screaming mass,
his hoarse voice rises

"whimpering in her ear.

"Her eyes are closed.

"The Neanderthal mummy's
face crowded her own.

"She senses his odor.

"He claws her body like a crab.

"Schultze presses
his long rod at her. "

He described
only what he saw.

So he's being scolded:

"You told the truth
and now we'll condemn you."

I don't see any sense in that.

He caused enormous harm

because those were the first
books about the Holocaust here

and that became the trademark.

Only in the late 90's, Dan Meron

dared publish an unprecedented
critique of K. Tzetnik's writing.

He dominated this niche.

And people didn't dare to object,

saying "no" was stigmatized:

saying "no" to "Mr. Holocaust",

the one who represents
the survivors.

I swear to God...

That my testimony at this trial...

That my testimony at this trial...

Will be the truth...
-Will be the truth...

The whole truth...
-The whole truth...

And nothing but the truth...
-And nothing but the truth.

If you read Auschwitz
memoirs today,

everyone writes about arriving
at the Auschwitz platform

and the shouts "Schnell!" (hurry),

and Mengele standing there
performing selections.

Now, people arrived knowing
nothing about such a man.

They never saw him before,
nor would they, afterwards.

Could Mengele have...

stood there 24 hours a day for
years doing this single-handedly?

No. After all he was also in charge
of hospitals, experiments.

So there were SS men
standing there. Did we know who?

But Mengele, too,
became a symbol.

In other words, selection
at Auschwitz meant Mengele.

So memoirists, so-called,

write that Mengele stood there
sending people right or left.

Did they know it was Mengele?
No.

Do I remember what he looked like?
No.

K.Tzetnik, in a way,
opened the door to...

using the Holocaust in this manner.

I think that the creators

of this Stalag genre learned a lot
from K.Tzetnik who preceded them.

When I began to think
of K.Tzetnik

I realized that like my peers
I recall books making the rounds.

Where were they from? Don't know.
They were passed on amongst us.

These were yellow booklets with
illustrations, mainly the covers,

called "Stalags",
pornographic literature

that dealt with events in the camps.

So we had either K.Ttzetnik
who was legitimate

or Stalags, that were not.

Both dealt with the same theme.
The camps.

Who were the camp victims?
Jews.

Who were the people we grew up with?
Half of them were survivors.

I grew up with children
of survivors.

This generation,
initiated by Stalags and K. Ttzetnik,

confused the two genres.

They recall that Stalags
depicted sex forced by Nazis

on Jewish women,
while most of them didn't.

The Stalags were not titled
"Tales of Auschwitz".

I knew Auschwitz
and the camps existed.

Perhaps some people
described in Stalags

were saved through
services rendered.

People survived through
sexual favors? -Yes, it's proven.

Don't you know?
There were whorehouses.

They were accused:
"How did you survive?"

Men were asked,
"Were you a Kapo?"

And women,
"Were you a whore?"

Someone I know thinks
her mother had sex

with a camp commander
in order to save her sister.

I don't know if that's true,
but it's a possibility.

A daughter thinks this
of her old mother.

She assumes it happened.

There's an unresolved chapter
in the story.

Everywhere in lsrael in any
neighborhood street, village,

suspicions were aimed mostly
at beautiful childless women.

Such a woman was
always very beautiful.

A very attractive woman.

People grew up knowing that.

Often, she was childless,

and going back to 16th century
witch-hunts,

it's very easy to attribute this
to such a woman,

who's very attractive and that,
for some reason, never had kids.

Say there were 50 girls
or women who did this somewhere.

That's nothing.
That is absolutely irrelevant

considering the horrific
suffering of women as mothers.

The deeper you research
and read testimonies...

I cross-reference them with the Nazi
records and many other resources.

I don't establish anything
on a single testimony.

This was just not true.
If you refer to what really happened,

there were no Jewish whores
in the Holocaust.

No battlefield whores.
All those stories are not true.

It pains me that survivors had
to hear such constant accusations.

The Holocaust was bad enough
without this accusation of women,

that they used
their sexuality to survive,

or that the Germans
assaulted them sexually.

The Stalag phenomenon ceased
2 years after it appeared

shortly after the court ruled
that the books were pornography.

But in the 90's K. Tzetnik's books
were included

in high school
matriculation curricula.

He became the school system's
main Holocaust author.

This is Block no. 24.

Young Jewish beauties
were brought here.

They were sterilized and brought
to "the Pleasure Block".

Each was allotted a cell,
and given some makeup.

She had to be on call
24 hours a day

to satisfy the lust of truckloads
of German soldiers arriving here.

They would unload them here,
at this building.

For sexual pleasure. These girls
were called "Battlefield Whores".

How does the process work?
K.Tzetnik talks about it

in his book, "The Dollhouse".

"The Pleasure Block. In these
pink barracks, no beatings.

"One spared the bodies of girls
destined to be Germans' whores."

All this interest and fascination
with women and the Holocaust,

comes up when I show a photo
of Auschwitz

with Block 24 known as
the whorehouse.

So everyone tells me,
"Here were Jewish whores".

And I ask,
"How do you know?"

"K.Tzetnik wrote about it
in "Dollhouse".

What do we know
about the Holocaust?

On the one hand they know
about resistance heroes

and on the other, K.Tzetnik.
"Dollhouse". Lovely.

"Dollhouse" was published
in the 1950's

and here it was coming true, as evil
combined with forbidden fruit.

When you confront Israeli society
with the Holocaust,

or when people dare talk
about the Holocaust and sex,

That's what you get.

There are Holocaust "experts"
to this day.

There are Holocaust pornographers.
You name it.

And Holocaust mongers.

I face them when I guide them.

A session with 16-year olds
is usually 1.5 hours long.

As soon as you start talking about
the horror, they fall silent,

Mengele's name always
draws silence and attentiveness.

"He pulled out babies' eyes?"

Eager questions that become
almost embarrassing.

I'll be frank.
In a way I make use of this.

The greatest tragedies
in K.Tzetnik's "Salamandra"

is when the 30 women
hide with their babies...

Those who recommended his books
actually read them?

How did they read them?
What did they think is in them?

How can this teach young
people valor, sacrifice,

patriotism?

It tells you how people became
beasts in hell.

I have no clear answer for this.

But I wonder how these questions
weren't asked.

K.Tzetnik's book impressed me
very much.

My kids will study it later as well.

It is included
in the high school curricula.

I chose this paragraph
to emphasize and somehow...

inform them about the different
human tragedies in the Holocaust.

These brief horrifying stories
speak mostly to children.

"K.Tzetnik - Salamandra"

The images in K. Tzetnik's books
and in the Stalags

permeated Israeli consciousness

and to this day this mixture
of horror, sadism and pornography

serves to perpetuate
the memory of the Holocaust.

I always thought

that the Holocaust should
be written about in minimal,

most modest, simplest terms.

I mean,

there are no words...

There are no big words like
"horror" that even get close.

And even then, you're only
dealing with it partially.