Somehow in between
The life of the journalist Karl PfeiferA documentary directed and produced by Daniel Binder, Mary Kreutzer, Ingo Lauggas,
Maria Pohn-Weidinger and Thomas Schmidinger
A, H, IL 2008 (87 min., german with english subtitles)
87 min, Screening Format: DVD and BETA SP© Fotocredit: Johannes Zinner
Karl Pfeifer was born in 1928 in Baden bei Wien,
Lower Austria. His parents, both Hungarian Jews, had immigrated to
Austria during the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy. “Thanks to the Austrian
antisemitism”, as he puts it, his family managed to escape to Hungary
in 1938, after the Nazis took power and the population of Baden forced
some Jews of the city to clean the streets on their knees. Pfeifer was
ten years old then. By logical deduction he realizes: there is no God
if this is done to God’s people. Four years later, in 1943, the
Hashomer Hatzair, a leftist Zionist youth organization, managed to get
the last children transports out of Europe - and Karl reached
Palestine after an odyssey through Rumania, Bulgaria, Turkey and
Lebanon. He lived in a Kibbutz, together with mostly orphan children of
all over Europe, whose parents had already been exterminated by the
Nazis, and later fought in the Independence War of Israel. In the early
1950ies he decides to return to Austria, “probably the biggest mistake
in my whole life.”
But he does never bear living in Austria
for a longer period. Constantly he leaves the country, and works in the
Hotel trade and in different jobs in Italy, Switzerland, England, even
New Zealand. But he always comes back to Austria. Why? “You see, I
suffer from low blood pressure. In Austria, I get upset at least once a
day and my pressure goes up. It's good for my health.”
In the
1979 Karl Pfeifer, who then was member of Amnesty International, gets
in contact with the Hungarian democratic opposition and starts to
support them. The Hungarian state expels him four times. About one
hundred sheets about him were being kept at the secret service. He
starts working as a journalist. Till today, he is 81 years old, he
writes for Hungarian, Austrian, Italian, British, German and Israeli
newspapers. He never rests.
The no-budget project of documenting
his life was started by a group of 5 young men and women in 2005, who
founded the “Society for Critical Research on Antisemitism” for this
purpose. All of us come from different backgrounds: political science,
cultural studies, sociology, history, social anthropology. The common
goal was to produce a documentary film that shows the divers
experiences in the life paths - across Europe and the Middle East - of
Karl Pfeifer. On the basis of an interview, the film accompanies Karl
Pfeifer to the important places of his life: in Austria, Hungary and
Israel. Places that influenced his life significantly, in the private
as well as political sense. Places in Europe where he was attacked by
antisemites. Places, where his political views where sharpened. To
follow the life of Karl Pfeifer means to follow the path of the
Austrian antisemitism. "Did you ever think of committing suicide?" a
young student once asked him "Suicide? Never. Murder? Yes", Karl
Pfeifer
giggles.
The DVD (german with english subtitles) can be orderd by contacting the film team: kontakt@antisemitismusforschung.net (15 € + 4 € shipping = 19 €)