The Holocaust and/as Horror in Central and Eastern European Cinema: Juraj Herz's 'The Cremator' (1969) Seminar

Evident from onscreen configurations of zombie-like Muselmänner to Satanic Nazi perpetrators, cinema has always dealt with the Holocaust-as-horror, whether within films engaging intentionally with the horror genre or otherwise. Perhaps more surprising, however, is the existence of horror narratives and tropes pertaining to the Holocaust in Central and Eastern Europe, where horror film as we know it was never able to flourish prior to the fall of communism due to Soviet-era censorship. This talk draws on new research into 20th and 21st century genre film to question the possibility of a Central and Eastern European subgenre of Holocaust horror cinema, and examine what these works reveal about the role and contemporary legacy of the event in the region. It does so in dialogue with Ravensbrück survivor Juraj Herz’s The Cremator (1969), a Czech New Wave film whose unusual portrayal of the Holocaust depends on the disturbing and unfamiliar frames of horror, Surrealism and political satire.

This is a hybrid event, meaning you can attend in-person or online via Zoom.

About the Speaker

Dr Emily-Rose Baker is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Holocaust Film in the Parkes Institute and Department of English. Her research project examines legacies of the Holocaust, neighbourly violence and horror tropes in Central and Eastern European cinema, and is funded by the British Academy. She completed her WRoCAH-funded PhD in English Literature at the University of Sheffield in 2021, before joining the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas as a Visiting Assistant Professor in Film, where her teaching focused on representations of genocide and the Holocaust. She is currently writing her first monograph, which is based on her doctoral thesis on post-communist Holocaust memory in Central and Eastern Europe.