The Land of nothing

Life seemed almost normal in the nineteen thirties but Hungary had to pay the price for being an ally to the 3rd Reich. From 1938 to 1942 Laszlo Ratz - ensign of the Second Hungarian Army, first battalion of the 18th Szekszard infantry - documented his family on 9.5 mm within this toubled milieu. Through Peter Forgacs’ recontextualisation of Ratz’ material we are now permitted to gaze upon the unseen, the private view of a bloody war. By recording his personal history without an ‘ideological filter’, Ratz captured historical moments such as the Ukranian march and the final approach to the bloody Korotoyak/Voronezh Soviet front. Ratz shot until the eve of the catastrophe that befell the Hungarian Army at the river Don. He brought the films back home on his Christmas leave, and so this unique chronicle survived, together with the poetic family pictures.