I Was a Slave Labourer
I Was a Slave Labourer (1998) This is the story of Rudy Kennedy, who was deported together with his family from his home town Breslau in Poland to Auschwitz concentration camp. Together with his father, he came to Auschwitz-Monowitz (called Buna) to work for the German trust I.G. Farben. As a kid he became a slave labourer for Hitler’s Reich. His father died because of the factory’s harsh working conditions. His mother and sister were murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Kennedy survived in Bergen-Belsen and went to Great Britain.
Director Luke Holland documents the activities of Kennedy and other Jewish survivors, after 1996-1997, to seek compensation. After the German reunification, there seemed a unique opportunity to obtain compensation from the German government and the German industry for the employment of slave labor associated with German concentration camps. The film follows Kennedy, as he visits international conferences and endeavors to obtain responses from such German companies as BASF and I.G. Farben. This provides a context within which to portray Kennedy’s current battle to cope with the aftermath of his personal loss and trauma. After the film was finished Kennedy and other Jewish and non-Jewish slave labourers got a little sum of money by a new German foundation for the compensation of former slave laborers.
Tobias Ebbrecht, Film and Television Academy ‘Konrad Wolf”, mediacritique@web.de
