Page 42 - Alternative Europe Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945

What hypothetical
emerges from this contrast between rumour and reality is a psychological
paradox of the Holocaust for women: namely, that any kind of organised sexual assault on Jewish
women was unthinkable to the Nazis, since they were not seen as human beings to begin with;
whereas, from the victims perspective, logically they would have feared sexual assault. Of course, in
reality, Rassenschande would break down, but it did so in idiosyncratic ways - singular one-off events.
The exception that proves the rule of Rassenschande is noted by Karay:
Dozens of testimonies mention the Werkschultz commander Fritz Bartenschlager, who would
sometimes attend selections in order to choose 'escort girls'. In October 1942, for example,
five of these women were taken to a feast at his apartment, where they were ordered to serve
guests in the nude and were ultimately raped by the revellers.13

Parties, like those of Bartenschlager, are a standard trope in all of these films, for obvious voyeuristic
reasons, and are literally realised in Ilsa. However, it is intriguing to note that sometimes these film
sequences involve diegetic willing participants (L'Ultima orgia del III Reich), while other films feature
sequences where the women are raped and/or murdered (Lager SSadis Kastrat Kommandantur, Ilsa,
She Wolf of the SS).
Jews are conspicuously absent from these Nazi sexploitation films as signifiers, with one notable
exception. The majority of the sub-genre prefer pointed euphemisms: in Ilsa, the prisoners are referred
to as 'inferior races', while in Lager SSadis Kastrat Kommandantur they are referred to as 'political
criminals' - both euphemistically used for 'Jew' in the historical literarure, but these filmmakers seem
shy about the ethnic/racial specificity of the Nazi programmes of genocide. The exception to this is
Canevari's L'Ultima orgia, wherein the women victims/prisoners are specified as Jews. Rassenschande
is explicitly reflected in the film in one particular sequence (what Stephen Ziplow refers to as an
'orgy number'). 1 4 In this sequence, a line of naked young German soldiers stand across a large room
from a line of naked young Jewish women, while the Commandant informs the men that under
Nazi ideology, since Jews are considered 'subhuman', an Aryan is forbidden to have 'sexual' relations
with a Jew; however, an Aryan is allowed to use her merely to satisfy themselves. This is not a Third
Reich legal argument I have been able to verify from historical sources, but seems designed by the
requirements of the generic laws to lead into the 'rape/orgy' number). Again we see the process whereby
the complex and subtle racial ideologies of the Third Reich are simplified in exploitation cinema.
Although the women victims/prisoners in Sergio Garrone's Lager SSadis Kastrat Kommandantur
are designated simply as 'political criminals', one other character, referred to as a 'political enemy',
is clearly signified as Jewish. The assistant camp doctor, Dr Steiner, turns out to be one Professor
Abraham (an explicitly Jewish name, who later in the film is seen wearing something resembling
a yarmulke and prayer shawl), a world-renowned surgeon who faked his own death during the
bombing of his hospital, and took the identity of a Gentile colleague who died in the bombing.
Camp Commandant, Colonel Von Klienmann (literally, 'little man', which can be read as a pointed
reference to Von Kleinmann's missing penis/testicles, and this is also reflected in the literal translation
of the film's title) wants an experimental testicular transplant on himself (his own were bitten off by
a Red Army soldier he was raping). He discovers Steiner's real identity and blackmails the famous

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