Hanna Lessing

"Austria - First Victim of National Socialism" - this is the core theme of the self-image of the country that first welcomed Hitler with waving flags and arms stretched to the sky: Nation, People and Race - Sieg Heil! Monuments, commemorative events and in between the helplessness of dull remembrance. What to do with the lie, where to put the pain, and why again? The war of narratives begins with the liberation of the concentration camps, with the piles of corpses - and it continues to this day. A final journey with those who were there. Which story do we tell ourselves, and which do we want to hear?

At the beginning of 1979, after more than 30 years of collective repression, a dramatized and emotional US television miniseries ensured that the German population was suddenly reminded of the terrible Nazi crimes against the Jews. What is now expressed with the hitherto unknown word Holocaust, hits many millions of people in the heart. The unexpected echo and the audience reactions were fierce. Even before the TV broadcast neo-Nazis blasted in vain transmitting towers in Germany to prevent this. From the creation and the shooting over the broadcast to the tremendous reactions, documentary filmmaker Alice Agneskirchner tells the story of this emotional television event, which led to a paradigm shift in the perception of German Nazi crimes.