Page 41 - Alternative Europe Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945

sequence from L'Ultima orgia, Alma shows Lise these grisly artefacts in a demonstration of both the
Nazi's ruthless mastery over others (turning what were once human beings into artefacts), and their
disregard for (apparently our) morality.
I do not wish to be misunderstood in my use of the word accurate': I am not for a second
suggesting that these exploitation filmmakers did any kind of research, at least not as academics would
understand the term. Nor am I arguing that these films offer any kind of 'truthful' historiography. In
this case, although Use Koch is not known to have fashioned gloves out of an infant's skin, she did
order prisoners with interesting tattoos to be slaughtered so she could obtain their leather, which was
fashioned into lampshades. However, Use Koch, as notorious a historical figure as she may have been,
is not dealt with in either Ilsa nor in L'Ultima orgia as any kind of motivated individual character but
as a two-dimensional cartoon-like figure that is meant to represent the extremes of Nazi power. This is
the entire point of exploitation cinema. Yet what these filmmakers got right, and what they got wrong
(presumably unintentionally, in meeting the demands of exploitation cinema), is what the rest of this
chapter is concerned with. Specifically: how these Italian films exploit history.
To begin with, I have been unable to find any historical verification of the 'love camp' - certainly
not under that name, and exceptionally few references to women used in bordellos or for sexual favours.
What few references there are to in-camp prostitution explicitly exclude Jewish women. For example,
in Auschwitz, 'Block 10 also housed some 20 prostitutes, its only regular non-Jewish residents, who
were available to elite prisoners as a work incentive and prophylactic against homosexual practices'.''
Under the Third Reich, any kind of sexual activity between Jews and non-Jews was strictly forbidden,
even when those Jews in question were prisoners in a concentration camp. According to the historical
accounts, such a prohibition was more or less followed. Central to Nazi ideology was the concept
of 'Rassenschande (racial shame - that is, behaviour beneath the dignity of one's race)'.10 Seen as
'sub-human' and 'racially inferior', Jews, specifically Jewish women, would have been unlikely sexual
conquests. Felicja Karay, in her work on women's experiences in the forced labour-camps, notes the
following:

The Germans, most of them young bachelors, attempted to quench their libido by exploiting
the Polish women in the factory, although this was explicitly prohibited. Much more dangerous
were attempts to approach Jewish women, which might be construed as Rassenschande. In
all three Werks [industrial-owned work camps], however, there were rumours of 'forbidden
sexual liaisons' and the exploitation of Jewish women."

'Rumour' is a word that keeps cropping up in survivor testimonies regarding sexual assaults by the
SS on Jewish women. By rumour, I am not referring to the more vernacular understanding of the
word, as in 'falsehood', but in a more sociological way, as a widespread, and plausible word-of-mouth
fear. Myrna Goldenberg offers this example: As a beautiful, vivacious teenager, [Judith Isaacson] was
troubled by persistent rumours of Jewish girls being sent to the front as prostitutes and then shot into
open ditches.'1 2 The seemingly fictional existence of these cinematic 'Love Camps' then is, partially,
a representation of the fears that Jewish women experienced about their expected treatment at the
hands of the SS.

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