Stalags were pocket books whose stories revealed lusty female SS officers sexually abusing camp prisoners. During the 1960s, parallel to the Eichmann trial, sales of this pornographic literature broke all records in Israel as hundreds of thousands of copies were sold at kiosks. The popularity of the Stalags only declined after a much-reported trial, in which their authors were accused of distributing anti-Semitic pornography. Here, the creators of this literary genre are exposed for the first
time.
Stalags carries this line of inquiry forward, cramming an overwhelming amount of information and ideas into its 63 minutes -- not nearly enough time to explore satisfactorily all that it raises.
Unfortunately, Ari Libsker's hour-plus docu on this potentially mind-boggling topic meanders disconnectedly, as various experts, collectors and storytellers kick around anecdotes and theories that tend to cancel each other out.
Empowerment fantasies of a decimated and injured race, a kind of post-traumatic Jewish mother syndrome, or a bit of both? The film mulls these strange notions of the politics of pornography, that would have likely sent Freud's mind into a tailspin.
A chilling expose' which shows how Holocaust internees have been victimized twice, violated again by purveyors of smut who would stoop so low as to fabricate a pack of sadomasochistic lies for a quick buck.
Libsker's documentary not only explores the roots of the Stalags and the means by which they were produced and sold, but even does a little detective work into the identities of the authors themselves.
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