Because of That War

An affecting 'talking heads' documentary which traces the stories of four Israelis: Yehuda Poliker and Ya'acov Gilad, two rock musicians bound together not only by their music, but also by their common experience as the offspring of survivors of the Nazi extermination camps; and those survivors themselves - Yehuda's father Jacko (from Salonika, taken to Treblinka), and Yaakov's mother Halina (from Warsaw, taken to Auschwitz as a teenager). The film is punctuated by renderings of songs, both live and studio performances, which reflect the traumas of dealing with the aftermath of the Holocaust, and some of which use the work of Halina, a writer and poet. It is a thoughtful and thought-provoking film which, despite the harrowing sequences (Jacko breaking down recalling the death of one of his brothers - his whole family was wiped out; Halina describing, in a lengthy sentence with a group of students, her experience of the camps and the 'death march') maintains a considerable control, which allows space for difficulties and ambivalences to be expressed without losing sympathy for its witnesses. As much is said here on what it means to live so continuously and intimately with death, loss and guilt, as is understood, unspoken, about the need for love.