The Aftermath of War

There’s no simple way to speak of the effects war has on people. Living life during the fighting and dehumanisation is bad enough. But after war there’s peace, which can be just as difficult to handle. Once gunfire ceases, the tension of war leaves a gaping hole for those left behind. They clean up the rubble, place the pieces together and try to continue with their lives, with the knowledge of all that happened during the struggle for freedom. Broken mirrors can be mended, but the cracks will always remain visible.

The women in Even if she had been a criminal… by Jean-Gabriel Périot are publicly humiliated by masses of festive, liberated people. They stand expressionless while their hair is cut, holding back tears. Beaten up and bruised, their bald heads get painted with crude swastikas. The euphoric crowds, mostly male, release years of tension and frustration upon the women’s defenceless bodies. The same bodies they lovingly gave to the German soldiers that occupied France during WWII. It is 1945, and time to find some sense in the monstrosities that occurred during 5 years of war. But first there’s a need for release. What happened during these same years is what Marcus J. Carney is searching for in The end of the Neubacher Project. He seeks answers for his Austrian family’s Nazi past. Instead he finds wall after wall of denial, lies and deceit. It’s hard to be the losing side, especially if you were part of the aggressor’s posse. But perhaps far scarier is the discovery that several loved ones have been hiding behind a facade. What do you do when your uncle claims that the killing of 6 million Jews is based not on fact but on fiction, and shoots rabbits with the same gun his father (your grandfather) got as a gift from Hermann Göring ? If your grandmother pretends to be oblivious, but it turns out she got a perfume shop from the Nazis which had belonged to a Jewish owner, by writing a letter stating she had resigned from her former job because her boss was a Jew ? Even worse, what if your mother trivialises the whole thing ? It’s just as bizarre as the postcards of a cheerful and sunny Mathausen concentration camp that tourists can buy in the museum shop. Even death doesn’t bring solace, but keeps wounds open.

Death can mean freedom for some, and a lifetime of hardship for others. For the survivors live with the knowledge of the people who are missing. Both Santa Fe Street by Carmen Castillo, and The Faces on the Wall by Paul Costes and Bijan Anquetil deal with this issue. Both share the loss of young men who gave their lives for their countries. The MIR members and relatives of Santa Fe Street reflect on how things once were, the leaders, lovers, fathers and brothers they lost, and the fight for freedom after the 1973 coup d’etat by Augusto Pinochet in Chile. Many had to go into hiding - some within Chile, others exiled - fighting a clandestine war against the dictatorship. Losses are remembered with great dignity and pain. Even the separation with their children is felt to have been a necessity. Years later these children are still hurt by their parents’ decision to abandon them for the greater good, even if they understand the circumstances. War wounds aren’t always visible, often the deepest remain under the skin, in the mind and the heart. The same pain is felt in Iran, where year after year young men who died during the Iran – Iraq war of ’80-’88 are remembered. Their faces are painted on the walls in the street as a grim reminder of their loss.

A Story of War and Peace by Vardan Hovhannisyan takes us to where most losses are suffered during wartime ; the frontline. Twelve years after the ’88-‘94 war in Karabach between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the filmmaker returns to look for his brothers in arms, with whom he spent four years fighting in the woods. The survivors all bear the scars. The dreams they had before the war shattered, they all seem lost. “I’m beginning to discover not casualties of war, but casualties of peace”, says the director, “Each time I need to open the wounds, but I discover that this pain is less than the pain of forgetting. We need to remember.”

And remembrance is the most important thing, for even if cities are rebuilt and countries remain peaceful, their soil has been tainted red…

Itxaso Elosua Ramírez