Event: Holocaust Memorial Day Gallery Screening – The Silent Village (U) 1943
Join us to for this special gallery screening to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.
This film was selected as it was felt to represent the 2024 Holocaust Memorial Day theme of Fragility and Freedom.The Silent Village – is the true story of the massacre of a small Czech village by the Nazis retold as if it happened in Wales.
The Silent Village is an exploration of life in Cwmgiedd, near Ystradgynlais in Southern Powys, the film's premise is that the Nazis had indeed invaded Great Britain in 1940 and it tells the story of a community destroyed in the same way as had been the case in Lidice the previous year.
The film shows the miners closing ranks and protecting certain agitators, leading to intervention by the authorities and heartbreaking shots of women and children being led away while the men, singing Land of My Fathers, are gathered and shot.
No violence is shown, nor are the occupying forces other than the one shiny black car. Finally the film closes with shots of reality, the same people still living in Wales is it actually was in 1942/1943 but with an audience educated on what might have been and could still be should Britain fall to the Nazis.
No actors were used in the film and dialogue was not scripted.
The screening will start with an introduction talk led by the Josef Herman foundation.
36 Minutes