Virtual Holocaust Memory

2020 - Film: 2:59 - Hermione Oldham

Hermione Oldham is a filmmaker and recent History of Art graduate of Leeds University. Her film from 2017, Virtual Holocaust Memory, won the Cultural Institute Short Film Prize, which was judged by IMDb’s founder, Col Needham.

https://www.instagram.com/hermioneoldham/

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‘VIRTUAL HOLOCAUSE MEMORY’ 

Text by Sophie Sinnott


Hermione Oldham is a filmmaker and recent History of Art graduate of Leeds University. Her film from 2017, Virtual Holocaust Memory, won the Cultural Institute Short Film Prize, which was judged by IMDb’s founder, Col Needham. The name was provided by one of seven briefs given to competitors, to which Hermione had to pitch her idea, tackling the task of remembering the horrific tragedies and sufferings of the holocaust. Raised in a Jewish family, Hermione strongly resonates with the subject matter, and already had an intimate understanding of Jewish history.


The film is masterfully minimal and harrowingly heart-wrenching, as Hermione took on the role of director and camerawoman, and collaborated with fellow student Mia Frank, who at the time studied Media, who took on editing. When asked why she chose the brief, Hermione recalled the words of Anne Frank:

“If we bear all this suffering and if there are still Jews left, when it is over, then Jews, instead of being doomed, will be held up as an example.”

Thus the abhorrent suffering of Jewish people, to the point of dehumanisation, is crucial to be remembered in today’s society. It is forever necessary to show up the injustice and inhumanity of their oppressors, and prove that in spite of their efforts, hatred does not win. Hermione successfully drills home the urgent message of these memories - that, as Susie Lind concludes, even in the 21st-century, in all its ease and technology, we have still failed to learn the lessons of discrimination and hatred. This could not be more pertinent at this moment in time, with George Floyd’s murder amongst many, and injustices against people of colour coming to light through Black Lives Matter movement as a result. We are left troubled yet impassioned to remember ‘everybody has to learn to live with everybody else’ - Susie Lind.


A dark, sepia colouring adorns the lighting of the Yahrzeit memorial candle in the opening sequence, evoking anticipation, and a feeling of warmth towards the impending speaker, Susie Lind. This is accompanied by the mourner’s Kaddish, a traditional Jewish prayer that is recited in the memory of those who have passed away, to contextually set the scene. This colouring soon turns to a bluish monochrome to signify the telling of the past, setting an appropriate sombre tone.


Hermione made use of a physical type of memory, the handkerchief left behind, to help us better grasp the less tangible type of memory - the spoken word of survivors recounting. The handkerchief never lies still, wafting across the screen, in some way just like the flickering candle, which battles to stay lit. Similarly, the film infers that the memories of that time are battling to retain relevance, and be able to be recalled today, as the survivors begin to die out with old age. The handkerchief’s movements distort the old photographs, so that you can never see the full images that are overlaid. This mimics the translucent nature of memories, that are never again crystal clear, and whole, just as the Holocaust survivors have never been whole consequently.


Hermione noted that, unlike average memories, those of the Holocaust are seared forever in the survivors minds, and who they are today.

“It takes three hours for a human body to be cremated; I had three minutes to convey what the Final Solution meant for six million people and to confront the story of the survivors in a way that engages and educates, and allows for 3D interaction. The Shoah destroyed the fabric of communities and reduced them to ashes in the chimneys of the crematoria. I wanted to try capture the fragments left that were not destroyed.”

The film made use of Dr Matt Boswell’s research, the Vice-chair of the National Holocaust Centre and Museum Academic Advisory Board. His research focuses on the representation of the Holocaust and other atrocities across a range of media and art forms.


Hermione has a talent for elevating the voices of others with innovative, relevant techniques within film. She is a diligent researcher and highly analytical, a perfect combination for her ambitions toward documentary making. She has worked previously at Working Title, Arrow Media, and Disney, on various sides of film production. Having now concluded her essay-based studies, she hopes to tap in more to her creative side, and begin work that features her various passions within the form of documentary. She is inspired by a range of documentary directors, such as Claude Lanzmann, Alain Resnais, Michael Moore, and Adam Curtis, all of whom use personal and unconventional storytelling methods. She hopes to find her own, and in the meantime continue working on all sides of the larger industry.



Read Hermione Oldham’s essay on Sophie Sinnott’s work HERE.