WERKstatt Direction – Der Untermieter

Soviet troops liberate the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp at the end of January 1945. It takes several weeks before the approximately 7000 survivors are able to leave the camp. Among them is a young man, perhaps still a child. He will remember the day of liberation as a change of state. Later he will write down this memory.

Months earlier in the same camp. A “teacher” asks the young man: “What were you thinking?”

Later. A man begins to write. Writing is his profession and at the same time much more.

Budapest in the 1960s. A woman walks across a carpet. Two people fall in love. Around them: melancholy faces.

Years later. Two men go for a walk in the forest. The word “No will fall”. It is one of the two writers: the man who began to write, who fell in love. The young man in Auschwitz. His name is B.

In 1992, the Hungarian writer Imré Kertesz wrote the novel “Kaddish for a Child Not Born”, which tells B’s story. “The Lodger” is based on this novel.

Content Notes:
Anti-Semitism
Violence
War
Death