Ordeal 1945

Ordeal 1945 Synopsis of a feature film scenario The mass post-war liquidation of the Slovenian home guards and to-them related civilians in Slovenia in 1945 was the greatest national catastrophe (10.000 slaughtered) in the history of the small nation and still represent the main obstacle to completing the transition to a normal European democracy as an unhealed wound. As a precondition for national reconciliation, this event deserves a comprehensive truth, a historically credible rendition, with a clear official acknowledgment that it was something unconditionally unacceptable and unjustifiable.

The tragic events of 1945 do not only deserve an eternal memorial in the form of a physical monument, but also intangible works of art. Unfortunately, even 30 years after the end of totalitarianism, the social atmosphere has not yet become relaxed enough for the production of literary, musical, artistic and film works of sufficient quality to bring about a lasting memory of tragic events.

In my opinion, the liquidation of home guards in 1945 deserves such a monumental film work that it will be able to stand in international public alongside films such as the one about the Katyn massacre in 1940 by Polish director Andzej Wajda. That is why the film Ordeal 1945 is very ambitious, far beyond the current capacities and capabilities of Slovenian cinema. For its realization, it would be necessary to attract foreign artists and, above all, co-financing. What used to require international co-productions might now be done by an individual producer. I am sure that half of the work would already be done if we managed to attract a producer such as Netflix and convince it to become one of the candidates for an Oscar with such a film, given its strong and universal content (including endless human malice).

When writing the script, I consciously decided that the film should "play" primarily on emotions. On the one hand, the fate of unfortunate prisoners of war, losers, betrayed and suffering, and on the other, the drunken revenge of the victors, which unleashes the lowest passions in the individuals which are empowered by the totalitarian regime. Foreign viewers, who do not know much about the situation in Slovenia at the end of World War II, will learn very little about the situation form the film story as it will say almost nothing about the just ended war, occupation, partisans, home guards, civil war, national liberation struggle, collaboration. It may, however, encourage them to seek out some more information for themselves so that they can understand the circumstances of the horror film about those few hellish days.

Perhaps, however, viewers, especially foreign, but also many domestic, will be surprised to learn a rather obscure historical truth about the tragic treacherous role of the English army, which already had everything under control in complete peacetime, but cunningly handed over tens of thousands of prisoners of war to Tito's forces, knowing that immediate extrajudicial killings awaited them.

The film deals with only a few days between May and June 1945, starting in Vetrinje (Austria), where the British had over 10,000 disarmed home guards under control. Believing a lie about being sent to Italy, the home guards boarded the trains which the British later handed over to Tito's partisans just before the border with Yugoslavia. This is followed by the transportation and hikes of the home guards through Jesenice, Kranj, Škofja Loka, Šentvid, Ljubljana and Kočevje to the place of the liquidation in Kočevski Rog during which the captives are beaten, robbed, humiliated and killed by the bloodthirsty and drunken guardians of the revolution, as well as taken through a blinded and incited mob, in an atmosphere similar to that of the Way of the Cross of Christ The climax of the film takes place at the place of the liquidation on the edge of the karst sinkhole, and of course it cannot avoid the realistically depicted scenes of shooting, slaughtering and even breaking of human jaws for the plundering of golden teeth. The scenes are similar to, (and even worse than) those in Andrzej Wajda’s film. But they go beyond the scenes from Katina about what was going on deep in the cave for a few more days among the hundreds of fresh corpses - and the surviving wounded! Fortunately, some of the thousands of victims "miraculously" successfully escape so that they can become witnesses. The suffering of the survivors, who protect themselves from additional explosions and quicklime with the corpses of their comrades, would be portrayed by a good director (and above all by the accompanying film crew of cameramen, make-up artists, set designers) as something never seen before.

The film story would also portray a few days of one of the wounded survivors, which is running away and hiding, suffering without food and water for a whole week, almost naked, avoiding the patrols looking for him and the treacherous locals, trying to reach home where his father and mother are waiting for him.

As a screenwriter, I fabricated only a few events or circumstance when writing. I drew solely from the many well-described memories of the people who survived it all, but I took something from each one, changed the names, and, if necessary, the order. In addition to the three witnesses who survived the killing and later managed to climb out of the cave and escape, there are many more witnesses to the events that took place in Vetrinje and Šentvid, as minors under the age of 18 were "pardoned" and not sent to the slaughter. I used their memories of what was going on until their release.

I also added a few guidelines to the script in order to achieve the necessary artistic effects, which might have been more appropriate in a storybook. Macro shots are expected to predominate; a lot of zooming, often to the pupil of the eye, drops of blood, changing the tempo of the shots, from slow to quick. The scenography will be very demanding (and expensive): an exact replica of the situation at the end of World War II. A lot of extras will be needed. There will be very few dialogues; murmurs, whispers, prayers, short exclamations in different languages. Even abroad, this film should not need subtitles to be understandable!

Vir, 20 November 2020

Anton Tomažič