*m otif from M iloš Bajić’s draw ing People Num bers Representation of the Holocaust in the Balkans in Arts and Media Nevena Daković (Ed.) Representation of the Holocaust in the Balkans in Arts and Media Conference Proceedings Representation of the Holocaust in the Balkans in Arts and Media Dom omladine Beograda, 2-3 October 2014 Editor Prof. Nevena Daković, PhD Faculty of Dramatic Arts, University of Arts, Belgrade Reviewers Nadège Ragaru, PhD NRS researcher at Sciences Po CERI, Paris Prof. Mišel Pavlovski, PhD Saints Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje Prof. Mirjana Nikolić, PhD Faculty of Dramatic Arts, University of Arts, Belgrade Conference Proceedings Representation of the Holocaust in the Balkans in Arts and Media is a part of the project supported by International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia. Partners on the project are: Diskurs (Belgrade), Center for Culture and Cultural Studies (Skopje), Faculty of Dramatic Arts (Belgrade), Belgrade Youth Center (Dom omladine Beograda), and the Shoah Memorial (Paris). Conference Proceedings Representation of the Holocaust in the Balkans in Arts and Media Editor Prof. Nevena Daković, PhD Diskurs Faculty of Dramatic Arts - Institute for Theatre, Film, Radio and Television Belgrade, 2014 PREFACE t is our pleasure that Diskurs initiated the Project Representation of the Holocaust in the Balkans in Arts and Media followed by this Conference Proceedings, especially having in Imind relatively small number of media and artistic texts on this issue. The Conference Proceedings consist of fourteen selected scientific papers on various topics. The Conference Representation of the Holocaust in the Balkans in Arts and Media represents an attempt of mapping the corpus of different arts and media texts, their systematisation as well as recognition of its function in constructing a multidirectional memory of the Balkans’ past. Thus, this topic obtrudes as socially important and demands the new insight. The ultimate objective of the Project is to create an insight on the role of protecting the institution of the memory in modern states at the Balkans, by providing the support to production of contemporary, and nevertheless by preserving and systematising the existing media texts on the Holocaust on the Balkans. Nourishing and affirmation of the Cultural Memory, directly via media texts present also an important step for keeping up the tolerance and stability in the region. Without financial support of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia we would not, for certain, be able to publish this Conference Proceedings including fourteen selected papers, out of more than forty assorted papers. We would like to seize this opportunity and thank for the partnership and cooperation to the Faculty of Dramatic Arts from Belgrade, Centre for Culture and Cultural Studies from Skopje, Belgrade Youth Centre (Dom omladine Beograda) and The Shoah Memorial Paris, for putting the Conference on with such important topic, to deserved position on the social and cultural map of Serbia and the region. Hoping that this Conference Proceedings will successfully manage to offer new insights, topics and discussions and bring new cognition and perspective of our joint past, and that the Holocaust shall never happen again and won’t be forgotten at the same time. Diskurs Contents Contents Nevena Daković (IM)POSSIBLE WITNESS: THE REVELATION OF THE HIMMELCOMMANDO 1 Gergana Doncheva THE MODEST PRESENCE OF THE HOLOCAUST AND JEWISH PEOPLE IN BULGARIAN CINEMA: FACTS AND REASONS 9 Mishel Pavlovski Loreta Georgievska Jakovleva Holocaust SITES OF REMEMBRANCE IN Macedonia: How DO WE LEARN ABOUT THE Holocaust, OR What SHOULD BE REMEMBERED TO PREVENT IT FROM HAP- PENING again 19 Milena Dragićević Šešić Ljiljana Rogač Mijatović FROM THE Contested PAST TO THE Neglected PRESENT: THE Cultural PoLitics of MeMoRy of BeLgRaDe’s staRo sajMiŠte (the oLD faiRgRouND) 35 Mirjana Nikolić THE ART OF RADIO DRAMA AS A REPRESENTATION OF THE HOLOCAUST: SEARCHING IN ASHES, RADIO BEOGRAD (1985) 49 I Contents Dragana stojanović Vera Mevorah Portraits AND Memories OF THE JEWISH Community IN SERBIA BEFORE THE Holocaust: FACING THE INSCRIPTION of THE Holocaust IN THE POSTMEMORY MEDIA REPRESENTATION CONTEXts 54 aleksandra Milovanović Images OF JASENOVAC: RethinKING USE of ARCHIVE footage AND VOICE OVER NARRATION IN Documentary FILMS 68 Boris Petrović THE Anthropological AND Ideological READING of Holocaust IN “HRANJENIk” (THE FED ONE) 80 Zlatko Popovski THE Holocaust AND THE Cultural Memory: THE ROLE of THE MEDIA AND THE Arts IN THE Holocaust PROFILING 89 Nataša Delač ReMeMBeRiNg the Novi saD RaiD: fiLM “the MoNuMeNt” By MiRosLav aNtić REMEMBRANCE OF THE Novi SAD RAID 96 Lazar jovanović Representation of THE Holocaust IN COMICS AND GRAPHIC Novels 103 II Contents Biljana Mitrović Places OF SUFFERING, SITES OF Memory AND Digital MEDIA 114 tijana Lukić REINTERPRETATION OF THE PAST IN THE DIGITAL MEDIA staRo sajMiŠte iN the New MeDia sPace aND the RoLe of Music iN the RECONSTRUCTION of COLLECTIVE memory 123 Paul Bernard-Nauraud AUSCHWITZ AND ITS “After-Images” AN Approach to THE Visual Arts AND Art History 129 III Nevena Daković, PhD1 Faculty of Dramatic Arts, University of Arts, Belgrade Serbia (IM)POSSIBLE WITNESS: THE REVELATION OF THE HIMMELCOMMANDO2 “ils n`avaient pas figure humaine. c`étaient des visages ravagés, fous”, ont dit les détenus qui ont pu les voir. a une détenue qui lui demandait comment il pouvait supporter pareil travail, un membre de l’équipe répondit : “Évidemment, je pourrais me jeter sur les fils électriques, comme tant de mes camarades, mais je veux vivre [...]. Dans notre travail, si on ne devient pas fou le premier jour, on s’habitue.” (...) Façon de parler. certains se jetèrent simplement dans le feu, qui croyaient pourtant être habitués (Didi-Huberman 2003: 13) araphrasing Theodor Adorno, Serge Daney (1992) in his master essay claims that after Alain Resnais and his Nuit et Brouillard (1955) there could be and "Pthere is no fiction about the Holocaust. The idea of this paper is to chal- lenge Daney and, at the same time, rescue from undeserved oblivion old ex-Yugoslav film Himmelkommando/Nebeski odred/Celestial Squad/The Sky Battalion. I would like to argue that this film text represents the very possible fiction of Holocaust in the post prohibition, post 1956 era. Made in 1961 this remarkable artwork cleverly moved the limits of repre- sentation of Holocaust. Being no real fiction, even less Daney`s rejected image of the post aesthetic it becomes much sought after permitted representational form and format. Its semi or half documentary structure of rich metaphorical value responds to “Within cinema the modern obligation to pronounce the stop on the image and the embargo on fiction. The aim was to tell another story differently where mankind was the only character and the first anti-star. The aim was to give birth to another cinema ‘which would know’ that to give the event back to the fiction too early is to remove its uniqueness, because fiction is that 1 [email protected] 2 This paper has been created as part of the project Identity and memory: transcultural texts of Dramatic Arts and Media, executed at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade (project no. 178012). 1 (IM)POS- SIBLE WIT- NESS: THE REVELA- TION OF freedom which disperses and which opens itself in advance to the infinity of the variation THE HIM- and to the seduction of the true lies.” (Daney 1992). The arguments for the exceptional status of Himmelkommando marking the conceptual MELCOM- shift from prohibition and taboo to permission and responsibility are threefold: MANDO • The narrative features the autobiography and auto fiction furnish and guarantee the documentarism and authenticity of the depicted experience, • Thefigure of the witness survivor - who according to Levy is not and could never be the true one) - is transformed into true witness-homodiegetic narrator dying at first and then be resurrected and surviving, • The film`s hybrid style of symbolism, expressionism and realism coalesce into hyperrealism and the modernist text that structurally repeats the traumatic experience of the witnessing (Hirsch 2004). From text to theatre, from theatre to film The film Himmelkommando is made after brilliant, nowadays classic drama of Đorđe Lebović and Aleksandar Obrenovic, above all recognised as the textual re-enactment of Lebovic`s per- sonal traumatic survival of Auschwitz. „The world of the survivors who levitate as shadows between life and death, terror and freedom, long physical recovery and prolonged psychological trauma” becomes the „initial point of his drama“ (Klaić, 2007) presented with the uncanny calm of someone being both the witness and the victim. Through the text the author relives the tragic chronicle of life and the thoughts of the living dead, of those (who) sentenced (themselves) to suicide in the world between life and death, being dispossessed of everything but the instinct for survival (Agamben 2006: 140). Slobodan Selenić sees drama as the demarcation line in the history of the modern Serbian drama emphasising its stylistic hybridism and autobiographical (possible auto-fictional) aspect. The text contains „data of most certain authenticity, deeply lived through scenes filtered through author`s personal experience“(Selenić 1977: XXI). Petar Marjanovic argues the text to be the first Serbian realistic drama