| RATING: | 100% |
| FORMAT: | DVD |
An intriguing document about the very worst effects of White supremacy from an articulate old White lady who is not in denial and still in possession of most of her wits and memory.
One of Adolf Hitler’s personal secretaries, Traudl Junge’s fascinating reminiscences make her an articulate and expressive historical goldmine. We see Hitler as a likeable man in private: The human being behind the monster we simplistically prefer to see for fear that we might see that he shares some characteristics with ourselves. Only with hindsight is she perspicacious regarding her former employer and the youthful political naivety that led her to work for such a man.
All racism presents a blind spot (against the incursions of reality) in refusing to see the wood for the trees. The stillness at the eye of such a hurricane allows one to evade the fact that racists exist within a self created political and emotional tornado. Volitional ignorance protects those who trade on unearned racist privileges; offering a continuance of racism in all but name. Nevertheless, ignorance is no excuse, and Frau Junge’s well earned depression when she learned of the Holocaust resulted from a silent complicity with evil that she has spent a lifetime coming to terms with.
This is the most fascinating talking head you will ever see as well as a great insight into how institutional racism actually works. It does not fall into the trap of exonerating Germans for the Holocaust by making simplistic statements about it being all the Nazi’s fault. After all, the suppression of the conscience that was necessary to enable the murder of so many was entered into willingly by millions of ordinary Germans and other Europeans.
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