MHM Film Club: “The Decent One” (2014)

The MHM Fim Club will be screening the documentary The Descent One (2014), Austria, Germany & Israel. Directed by Vanessa Lapa.

Guest Speaker: Michael Pearce SC, Honorary Consul-General of the Federal Republic of Germany

In 1945 a young soldier comes into the possession of a suitcase filled with private letters, documents, journals and photographs belonging to Heinrich Himmler. The Decent One uses these extraordinary, never-before-seen materials to access the deluded, unwavering and unnerving life and mind of the merciless “Architect of the Final Solution”.

Awarded Best Documentary at the Jerusalem Film Festival, 2014, screened at the prestigious Berlinale Panorma, 2014, nominated for Best Documentary, Ophir Award (Israeli Oscars), 2014.

The film divulges the contents of letters to and from Himmler’s wife, daughter and mistress, and uses archival footage of Himmler’s time growing up in the 1920s with Adolf Hitler. The movie describes Himmler’s ironic detachment (…“in life one must always be decent, courageous and kind-hearted,” he writes), and how he was perceived by those closest to him. This is a chilling insight into how the ideology of a once lower-middle-class man turned him into a notorious war criminal.

The aim of the MHM Film Club is to view and discuss films about the Holocaust, other genocides and human rights issues. Monthly film screenings are followed by guest speakers and informal discussion.