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The Children of the Silent Ones

Based on an exclusive interview with 97-year-old Abba Naor, who survived the Dachau concentration camp as a teenager and has been telling his story to schoolchildren in Bavaria for decades, but spared his own children in Israel from hearing it for many years, the second part of the trilogy is dedicated to the memories and silence of concentration camp survivors.

Film trailer in German.

What does it mean to remember when those who can tell of the unimaginable horrors of Nazi concentration and extermination camps will soon no longer be with us? When those who experienced and survived dehumanisation themselves can no longer bear witness to what happened?

The film asks:

  • How much have THE CHILDREN OF THE SILENT been shaped by their parents’ imprisonment and/or silence to this day?
  • Did they perceive their parents’ trauma as children? If so, would they say that the trauma has been passed on to subsequent generations?
  • What does it do to a person to know that their parents or grandparents narrowly escaped extermination? To know that their own existence is merely due to a ‘flaw in German thoroughness’?
  • To what extent did the children feel the ‘guilt of the survivors’?
  • How much were the concentration camps and the dead part of their childhood, even though or precisely because these painful experiences were not talked about at home?
  • Was the silence perhaps only broken with the grandchildren? What memories are there of these moments when they first spoke about it?
  • How is it possible to live (on) with and despite this history?

Six million Jews were murdered in the 1,634 Nazi concentration and extermination camps (including satellite camps): through mass shootings and gassings, but also through slave labour, systematic malnutrition, the consequences of abuse and neglect. Many of those who initially survived the concentration camps fell victim to the so-called death marches. The goal and core of the delusional anti-Semitic Nazi ideology was what the Nazis called the ‘Final Solution’ – the complete annihilation of European Jews.

Sinti and Roma, political prisoners such as communists and social democrats, homosexuals, those labelled ‘anti-social’ by the Nazis, Jehovah’s Witnesses and criminals were also imprisoned in concentration camps, forced to perform inhuman labour and murdered. People with disabilities in particular, but also Sinti and Roma, died as a result of horrific medical experiments or were victims of forced sterilisation.

In DIE KINDER DER SCHWEIGENDEN (The Children of the Silent), survivors and their children and grandchildren talk about the incomprehensible and how it continues to have an impact (even today) – including on future generations. Scholars provide context for the stories. Concentration camp memorial sites are visited for research purposes and for filming, but not without reflecting on the role the camera might play in visiting these places. This website about the filmwas created for this purpose.

The film premiered on 5 May 2025, the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp, at 8:05 p.m. on OKTO TV. The television station published this press release via APA-OTS on 30 April 2025.

Production team:

MUSIC: Flo THAMER
DRAMATURG: Tina TURNHEIM
VIDEO EDITING & POST-PRODUCTION: Herwig RÖTHY
NARRATORS: Martin BRETSCHNEIDER Mareike HEIN, Herwig RÖTHY
PRODUCTION: Senad HERGIC (OKTO TV), Georg TURNHEIM (DOC-Film)
CAMERA ASSISTANT & RECORDING DIRECTOR: Margarete TURNHEIM
EDITOR, CAMERA & DIRECTOR: Fred TURNHEIM

Making-of documentary

In this making-of documentary, documentary filmmaker Fred Turnheim talks about his very personal journey into his family’s past. The starting point is a childhood memory from 1958 that ultimately leads him to the Sobibór and Auschwitz concentration camps, where many of his relatives were murdered. In an interview with OKTO editor-in-chief Senad Hergic, the filmmaker explains how a complex picture of trauma continues to weigh on the families affected, even in the second and third generations.

In German.

Turnheim also interviewed descendants of other groups of prisoners, such as Sinti and Roma, political prisoners such as communists and social democrats, homosexuals, those labelled ‘anti-social’ by the Nazis, Jehovah’s Witnesses, ‘criminals’ and many more. A moving reflection on guilt, silence and the power of humanity, 80 years after the end of the Second World War. A production by OKTO TV, May 2025.

Remembering means fighting – Why those who remain silent speak out

This studio discussion following the world premiere of the documentary film DIE KINDER DER SCHWEIGENDEN (The Children of the Silent) delves deeper into the questions raised in the film about the cultures of remembrance within the families affected, why they remained silent or why they chose to speak out. Moderated by documentary filmmaker Fred Turnheim, the discussion will feature Hannah M. Lessing, chair of the National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism, historian Karin Moser and child and adolescent psychiatrist Ernst Berger.

A production by OKTO TV, first broadcast on 5 May 2025, in German.

You can order the DVD or Blu-ray of the film (in German) here. Delivery is available to Austria, Germany and Switzerland by invoice and via Austrian Post. Delivery to all other countries is available via international transport services (DHL, UPS, TNT).