MORE AWARDS FOR "THE CASE OF JOHANNA LANGEFELD"
The historical document of Władysław Jurkow and Geburg Rohde-Dahl has recently received two awards. The film was well received by both the audience and the jurors.
The documentary was appreciated at events dealing primarily with historical issues. First came the Special Mention from the Romanian Rasnov Histories and Film Festival, and then the audience award at the History Film Festival in Croatia.
The award-winning "The Case of Johanna Langfeld", referred to as a documentary thriller, tells the little-known story of the commandant of women's concentration camps, SS Oberaufseherin Johanna Langefeld, who in December 1946 escaped from Montelupich prison in Krakow. The film's authors found out that the SS woman was helped in her escape by former prisoners who survived the Ravensbrück camp. Johanna Langefeld in 1942 organized the women's camp in Auschwitz and was the first to run it. The SS officer was to be tried in the trial of the staff of the Auschwitz camp in Krakow. The story was kept secret for many years because its disclosure threatened to punish the former SS woman and the Polish women who organized her escape.
The mysterious events of those years are the starting point for the film's story, and the investigation conducted by the authors is the main narrative thread of the film. To explain the mystery of Johanna Langefeld's escape from a Polish prison, the filmmakers set out on a journey into the past. The Polish-German film expedition finds materials and accounts of witnesses, which lead to surprising discoveries about the heroes of this story and historical circumstances.
More information about the Romanian festival can be found here, and about the Croatian one here.