Heimgesucht

In the post-war period, children in the Johannaberg home in the Teutoburg Forest experienced homesickness, harassment and violence. Decades later, a group of long-adult victims set off on a journey and return to the now abandoned home for a week. Self-determined and accompanied by the film camera, they process their memories in scenes. The idea for the film was developed in close collaboration over many years with those affected, the Verschickungskinder initiative and a psychologist.

Statement by the filmmaker

When I first began speaking with former “health camp” children—those sent away for recuperation—many expressed a desire to visit the site where their home had once been located. This surprised and intrigued me, as I would have done anything to avoid ever returning to such a place myself. That gave rise to the film’s concept: having these former children revisit and “re-experience” the home—not as the children they once were, but as the adults they are today. For the participants, this process actually stripped away at least some of the horror associated with the house, as well as the power the building—and the memories attached to it—had held over them. Incidentally, this also inspired the title *Heimgesucht* (Haunted/Seeking the Home), which is a play on words: the former children were haunted by their memories, yet they also set out to seek—or revisit—their home. My film does not attempt to reconstruct exactly what happened at Johannaberg; instead, it presents the memories of the former children—even if those memories are deeply subjective, tinged with nightmares, or exaggerated. By the time the credits roll, I want everyone in the audience to have a sense of what it meant to have been sent away to such a place.

Photos from the shoot:

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