A ‘prequel’, made in the summer of 2003 whilst researching a feature film about the Hamburg reserve police battalion 101, which was involved in the murder of 1.7 million Jews in occupied Poland during “Operation Reinhardt” in 1942/43.

Fifteen hours of material, filmed on a simple Mini-DV camera and originally intended as a visual aide-mémoire to further develop the feature film, became a valid piece of filmmaking in itself. Besides showing the places where the battalion was deployed and stationed, the work also documents the death camps at Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka as well as the concentration camp Majdanek near Lublin.

LAND OF ANNIHILATION examines just how far it is possible to transpose the crimes of the Nazi regime to the medium of film. It also analyses how the suffering of Polish gentiles during the occupation has engraved itself in the minds of people today and tries to find out what the annihilation of a centuries-old Jewish culture has left behind. .

DEUTSCH