Short Film Studies - Volume 4, Issue 2, 2014

Representing the Holocaust raises fundamental questions regarding the almost impossible task of reproducing a specific ‘reality’ on-screen. Animation provides an environment that is both realistic and metaphoric and thus it enables the viewer to imagine the claustrophobic reality of life in the Warsaw Ghetto and access an emotional truth.

The literal and/or figurative violation of the human eye has been a striking figure of cinema since its inception, reflecting back on the act of spectatorship itself. Here, an uncanny confrontation between our role as spectators and how we ‘see’ history takes place directly through the eyes of a child.

Holocaust films share common tropes. A number of Holocaust films feature children – utilized for any number of narrative purposes. A fair number of Holocaust films also include birds, usually to visualize a character’s longing. Seven Minutes in the Warsaw Ghetto uses these common tropes, but breaks the mold.

This article argues that animated film is a legitimate artistic vehicle to represent and memorialize the Holocaust, and that the use of animation heightens the impact of and emotional response to the events portrayed in Seven Minutes in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Seven Minutes in the Warsaw Ghetto will be considered here in the light of two radically different views of the relationship between art and the Holocaust – one proposed by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, the other by the film-maker Alain Resnais.