Session 2

Spanien!
Peter Nestler, Zsóka Nestler y Taisto Jalamo
Federal Republic of Germany, 1973, 43 min, 16 mm transfer DCP, B&W, German 

Von Griechenland
Peter Nestler, in collaboration withReinald Schnell
Federal Republic of Germany, 1965, 28 min, 16 mm transfer DCP, B&W, German

Zigeuner sein
Peter Nestler y Zsóka Nestler
Sweden, 1970, 47 min, 16 mm transfer DCP, B&W, German

Shot in Spain, Finland, Sweden, and West Germany, Spanien! is a film about internationalism and solidarity, using personal testimonies from former members of the International Brigades who joined the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War and from members of the Workers’ Commissions (Comisiones Obreras).

Von Griechenland describes the political situation in Greece in 1964-65, two years before the coup d’etat which led to the military dictatorship. Peter Nestler said about the film: “It was a tense period when we got there. I filmed the demonstrations and at the same time we were looking for the traces —the historical traces— of the times of the German occupation and the resistance movements against the Germans.”

One of Peter and Zsóka Nestler’s most important works, Zigeuner sein confronts the persecution of the Roma and Sinti peoples in Germany under Nazism and its persistence after the war: “In the sixties I learned of this constant injustice, was made aware of it, especially by the works of the painter Otto Pankok, whom I met in 1965, and by the social work of Birgitta Wolf, by the writings of Hermann Langbein, who was one of the main witnesses in the Auschwitz trial. I learned about the uninterrupted discrimination against the minority in Germany and Austria, where everything revolved around reconstruction, about economic advancement. The war crimes were put to rest, and the many perpetrators, former SS members and criminal police officers, as well as the ‘racial hygiene researchers’, returned to their offices and positions, continuing to discriminate and exclude the Sinti and Roma for decades.” Peter and Zsó­ka Nestler con­s­cious­ly used the derogatory term “Zigeuner” (Gypsies) in the title in 1970 to ex­pose the vi­o­lence that it en­tails. Their film be­gins with the words: “Those whom we call ‘gyp­sies’ call them­selves ‘Ro-ma,’ which means ‘peo­ple.’ Many of them feel afraid when they hear the word ‘gyp­sy.’ They fear it could all hap­pen again."