Hidden in plain sight: post-holocaust mnemonic objects and material traces in Arnon Goldfinger’s The Flat (הדירה)

Abstract

ABSTRACT In his autobiographical documentary film The Flat (2011; הדירה), Arnon Goldfinger retraces his German Jewish grandparents’ relationship with Leopold von Mildenstein (1902–1968), a former SS officer and Judenreferent, through mnemonic objects and testimonial artefacts. Both as a filmmaker and on-screen subject, Goldfinger approaches his grandparents’ keepsakes and mementos with a keen eye for minute details and lost traces – not unlike a crime investigator who collects, analyzes, and interprets forensic evidence. As memory and materiality become interdependent co-producers of memory work, Goldfinger reminds us that although ‘matters’ or objects are full of memories, they do not speak for themselves; they can only ‘illuminate their human and social context’ through our interactions with them. It is precisely for this reason that Goldfinger’s memory archive – Gerda and Kurt Tuchler’s flat in Tel Aviv – seems devoid of history. Whereas every nook and cranny is filled with heirlooms, the entire apartment is replete with an ever-present void of a silenced familial past. Ultimately, the process of gathering facts, examining records, and visiting eyewitnesses proves difficult yet transformative for Goldfinger who is forced to grapple with intergenerational memory conflicts that continue to reverberate in present-day German and Israeli society.