Belonging

At the initiative of the Austrian Empress, Maria Theresa, ethnic Germans began settling in the Danube basin from the 18th century. In many Eastern European countries, they lived together with the locals up until World War II when their Germanness became a pretext for violence that only a tenth of its victims survived. This captivating journey into recent history revisits the silent trauma through a series of painful memories of witnesses who hover over the question of whether belonging to a nation means being held accountable for the acts that have been committed on its behalf. Their voices emerge from behind the visual band of witnesses to these events – houses with paint chipping off, the cold landscape, and abandoned and forgotten cemeteries.  “The question of belonging is universal – it consists of the desire to define oneself in relation to others. It is also something that we did not choose. It is a primary need, but also a fleeting, fragile, and – depending on the context – convincing idea.” T. Lukač