I Will Not Be Silent (2017)

I Will Not Be Silent is the English title of a historical drama which premiered on German television (ARTE) in 2017. In 2018 it was shown on the German television channel ZDF.

The story is set in Oldenburg in post-war Germany (1948-1949). The main character, Margarete Oelkers, a German war widow (who is the mother of two children), is committed to a mental hospital, even though she does not belong there. When she is finally released from the institution, she must fight to be rehabilitated and to regain custody of her two children.

While fighting for herself and her children, she learns a dark secret about what happened in the mental hospital during the war.

Here is some basic information about this drama:

** Original German title: Ich werde nicht schweigen 
** Director: Esther Gronenborn
** Writers: Esther Gronenborn and Sönke Lars Neuwöhner
** Soundtrack: German – no English subtitles!
** Run time: ca 90 minutes

The cast includes the following:

** Nadja Uhl as Margarete Oelkers
** Patrik Gega as Jochen Oelkers - the older son
** Jan Seba as Karl Oelkers – the younger son
** Petra Zieser as Erna – Margarete’s sister
** Jiri Babek as Anton – Erna’s husband – Margarete’s brother-in-law

** Barbara Philipp as Frau Schröder – one of Margarete’s neighbours
** Martin Wuttke as Erich Windhorst – one of Margarete’s neighbours

** Rudolf Kowalski as Dr Paul Ahrens
** Katja Flint as Frau Ahrens

** Marek Harloff as Dr Grüner
** Matthias Lier as Dr Jürgensen
** Eleonore Weisgerber as Erna – a patient in the hospital
** David Bredin as Otto – a member of the hospital staff

** Janina Fautz as Antje Eversen – a young woman whose mother died in the hospital during the war
** Jens Schäfer as Arnold Eversen – Antje’s father

This drama is based on a true story. For the director Esther Gronenborn it is also a highly personal story, because the main character Margarete Oelkers is her grandmother. This is why it was very important for her to direct this drama.

Since this drama is based on a true story, the basic facts are part of the public record. They are no longer a secret. Therefore I feel free to mention some of them in this review.

While the drama is based on a true story, it is not a documentary film. It is a dramatized version of events. Not everything happened exactly as shown here, but the basic story is true.

The story begins in Oldenburg in 1948. This is post-war Germany. Margarete is a war widow and the mother of two boys. Her husband who used to work for the local health service died during the war.

Margarete is struggling to get by. She is entitled to get a small pension from her husband. But in order to get the pension, she must have a document which proves that her husband used to work for the local health administration. For some reason, she cannot get it.

When Margarete contacts people who used to work with her husband, they all deny knowing him. It is like a conspiracy against her. She cannot get the document she needs. After trying so hard and still getting nowhere, Margarete explodes and smashes a glass window in the office.

Immediately, she is apprehended and Dr Paul Ahrens (who used to be her husband’s boss) commits her to a local mental hospital: Heilanstalt Wehnen. He claims she suffers from schizophrenia, even though this is not true at all.

While Margarete is in the hospital, her children are placed with her sister Erna and Erna’s husband Anton.

While Margarete is in the hospital she is subjected to several forms of treatment. She is given medication and electroshocks aka electro-convulsive therapy.

Her memory of the time in the hospital is hazy and limited because of the treatment that is used on her.

In 1949, after one year, she is finally released from the institution. When she returns to her apartment, she learns that her children have been placed with her sister Erna and Erna’s husband Anton.

She also learns something else: even though she is released from the institution, she is still not regarded as a sane person. She must have a guardian. Dr Ahrens has assigned her neighbour Erich Windhorst for this task. Margarete is very upset about this, because Windhorst is a former member of the SS corps. And he is not a nice person. He enjoys having the power to decide what this poor woman can do or not do.

Once she is released from the hospital, Margarete thinks she can get her children back, but soon she finds out that this is not possible. She is marked as suffering from schizophrenia and therefore she cannot get custody of her own children. By now she has two goals which are closely connected:

(1) She must be rehabilitated.
(2) She must have custody of her two boys.

She contacts Dr Ahrens who made the diagnosis. She already knows him as well as his wife, because the doctor was her husband’s boss and because Margarete now works as a dressmaker for his wife, Frau Ahrens.

But when she visits the home of Dr Ahrens, he refuses to help her. He will not admit to any error. He has said she suffers from schizophrenia and he cannot take it back. This means Margarete cannot get custody of her children. She is devastated!

While fighting for herself and her children, Margarete gets a feeling that something bad happened in the hospital during the war. At first, she does not know what it is, but it is clear that there is a dark secret. She tries to investigate. And after a while she discovers the horrible truth:

During the war, the hospital staff conducted a program of involuntary euthanasia (known as Aktion T4). Patients who were regarded as “undesirable” were killed in different ways. They were starved to death or exposed to the cold. The official death certificates would not tell the truth. The certificates would state that they died from pneumonia or some other disease.

Armed with the truth about the past, Margarete visits Dr Ahrens again. This time she tells him she is going to expose him for his work in the hospital during the war, unless he agrees to give her a full rehabilitation. She is adamant: “I will not be silent!” Hence the title of the drama.

Finally, he gives in. Margarete gets a full rehabilitation and with this in her hand she can get custody of her children. She can also tell her nasty neighbour Erich Windhorst that he is no longer her guardian. Instead he is picked up by the police!

What do reviewers say about this historical drama? On IMDb it has a rating of 66 per cent, which corresponds to 3.3 stars on Amazon. If you ask me, this rating is too low. Why?

It is a sad story, but also a true story. And a story that deserves to be told: the involuntary euthanasia program during the war and the fact that some of those responsible for this policy survived the war and remained in positions of power after the war, such as Dr Paul Ahrens.

This is a story about one women against a network of powerful old men; one women who refused to give up; one woman who was able to make a difference.

I want to go all the way to the top with this product. I think it deserves a rating of five stars.

PS # 1. There is one scene in this drama where Margarete is too lucky. She returns to the hospital, hoping to find some information about the euthanasia program. Suddenly, someone is coming so she has to hide. She slips into a small room, which just happens to be the hospital archive. There are thousands of folders with documents inside.

While hiding in this small room, she picks a folder at random and when she opens it what does she see? A list of all the deaths in the hospital during the war. Exactly the document she was looking for! This was too easy! But I have decided to ignore this example of a weak scene.

PS # 2. The following articles are available online:

** Heike Hupertz, “Ein Stein für jeden Toten,” FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), 7 May 2018

** Katrin Zempel-Blei, “KZ-ähnliche Zustände in der Psychiatrie in Wehnen,” OOZ (Oldenburger Online Zeitung), 14 January 2015

PS # 3. A local historian, Dr Ingo Harms, has written and talked about the topic for several years. Google his name to find more details.

PS # 4. Today the former Heilanstalt Wehnen is called the Karl-Jasper Klinik. Today the old building for pathology (Alte Pathologie) has been turned into a memorial museum for the victims of the Nazi euthanasia program.

PS # 5. Nebel im August is a historical and biographical drama which premiered in Germany in 2016. The main character is a boy named Ernst Lossa who is transferred to a mental institution. The topic is the euthanasia program that was conducted by the Nazis during World War Two.

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 A scene from the historical drama:

On the left Nadja Uhl as Margarete Oelkers.

On the right Rudolf Kowalski as Dr Paul Ahrens.

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Heilanstalt Wehnen - Alte Pathologie

Today a memorial museum for the euthanasia program

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