Wankostättn

Film and discussion: ‘Wankostättn’

Event series ‘Antiziganism in Austria’ organised by the Edut initiative

To round off our series of events, we invite Karin Berger to talk to us about her latest film ‘Wankostättn’. The film portrays Auschwitz survivor Karl Stojka and accompanies him on a walk through Favoriten. In the subsequent discussion, we want to talk to Karin Bergers about her films about the Stojka family, the memory of the Porajmos (National Socialist genocide of European Sinti*zze and Rom*nja) and the ongoing discrimination against Rom*nja in Austria.

About the film:
Karl Stojka stands in a light-coloured suit with an elegant hat and tie on Quellenstraße in Favoriten, a former working-class district of Vienna. We follow the wake of his memories. The short documentary film Wankostättn is based on interviews that Karin Berger conducted with Karl Stojka in 1997. As a twelve-year-old child, he was deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp with his five siblings in 1943. He survived, as did his younger sister Ceija Stojka, whom Karin Berger had already portrayed in two touching films. The current film is the result of a long, friendly relationship between the filmmaker and Ceija and Karl Stojka and is a unique film about a place of memory that has disappeared.