Mengele Always Said "Please" To Me: Documentary Screening on the Occassion of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Film
History

Thu 25 Jan 2024 07:00 PM Bohemian National Hall Cinema

Czech Center New York presents a screening of a documentary film by director Martin Slunečko, capturing the incredible story of Artur Radvanský. He survived six concentration camps, and when in Auschwitz, he served as dr. Mengele's personal servant for several years.

MENGELE ALWAYS SAID "PLEASE" TO ME

Documentary, Czechia, 2023, 65 min.

Directed by Martin Slunečko © MOVIE PRODUCTION 2023

Free registration here.

Interview with Artur Radvanský

Artur Radvanský endured six long years in six concentration camps. Through sharing his incredible story, he engages in the fight against hatred of all kinds towards other people. He reveals how far things can go when decent, normal people allow themselves to become fanaticized by a twisted ideology. Even today, animosity towards others and their religious beliefs is on the rise. "The real danger lies not in the vocal minority, but in the silent and indifferent majority," Artur Radvanský stresses repeatedly...

Who's the guilty one here?

Artur Radvanský continues: "I may very well have perservered in concentration camps because I was one of the youngest people there. My friends did their best to keep me alive so I could bear witness to all the horrible things people were capable of doing to each other. I survived six concentration camps, and over the years, I kept asking myself about the personal responsibility of the perpetrators of those atrocities. Who's really guilty here? Who's responsible for the crimes of Nazism? Is it the block elder who beat up prisoners because he was responsible for maintaining order in his block? Is it the kapo who beat up prisoners from his command in order to please the SS and maintain his special privileges? Is it the SS officer who bludgeoned a prisoner to death or shot him? Is it the officer who ordered him to do so? Or is it the camp commander who was responsible for the entire concentration camp? Or perhaps the commander who sent him there in the first place? Is it the doctor who decided who gets to live and who gets to die during prisoner selections? Or is it the one who ordered such selections? Who's the guilty one here?

I believe everyone should be held accountable for what they did. I'm sure that if one SS officer refused to carry out an execution by shooting, there would undoubtedly be ten others willing to pull the trigger. However, even if those ten others were to step up to the plate, it wouldn't excuse that one individual from their own personal behavior. Ultimately, veryone's responsible for the things they do."

Film Booklet (5.94 MB - pdf)

About the filmaker behind "Mengele always said ‘please’ to me"

Martin Slunečko has been shooting made-for-TV documentaries since 1990. His first major documentary film was a portrait of Miloš Forman (CZE: “Drž se toho snu” / ENG: “Hold on to That Dream”), which he co-shot with his colleague Miloš Šmídmajer. Throughout the 1990s, they collaborated on numerous television documentaries about leading Czech filmmakers and actors, including Vladimír Pucholt, Miroslav Ondříček, Jiří Menzel, Miroslav Horníček, and others. Martin Slunečko would later immerse himself in TV production for the long-term, focusing on environmental and social themes and on documentaries about fine artists (e.g. philosopher Erazim Kohák, painter Josef Jíra, sculptor Vladimír Preclík, and more).

Martin Slunečko and Miloslav Šmídmajer returned to collaborative documentary filmmaking a few years ago, creating works such as a made-for-TV film about the prominent actor and writer Miroslav Horníček (CZE: “Humor není žádná sranda” / ENG: “Humor’s No Joke”) and about actor Jan Potměšil, who became a hero of the Velvet Revolution in 1989 (CZE: “Nikdy bych neměnil” / ENG: “I Would Not Change a Thing”). In 2023, they produced a documentary about the doctor/politician František Kriegel, who, even under pressure from the Russians, refused to sign the Moscow Protocol (CZE: “Sám proti Moskvě” / ENG: “A Lonely Voice Against Moscow”). Perhaps their most noteworthy joint project is their feature-length documentary on Jan Werich, an actor, screenwriter, and writer who became one of the most important figures in the 20th-century, Czech cultural scene. The feature film, entitled “Jan Werich: Když už člověk jednou je“ (ENG: “Jan Werich: If Somebody Already Is”), premiered in movie theaters back in 2022 and won the award for Best Documentary Film at Třeboň Film Festival.

In January 2023, Martin Slunečko’s auteur documentary film, “Mengele mi říkal prosím” (ENG: “Mengele always said ‘please’ to me”), was released in movie theaters and on Czech Television. The film portrays the incredible fate of Artur Radvanský, who, as a student in northern Moravia, helped German anti-fascists escape to Poland. He was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned, surviving six concentration camps before eventually becoming the personal servant to Dr. Mengele in Auschwitz.

Photo credit: Ondřej Mirovský

Partners of the event

Event title: Mengele Always Said "Please" To Me: Documentary Screening on the Occassion of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day
Date: Thu 25 Jan 2024
Time: 07:00 PM
Venue: Bohemian National Hall Cinema