Erich Hackl

Rudi Friemel fights for the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. When the Republican Front collapses, he is interned in France, sent to a Gestapo prison in Vienna, and then on to Auschwitz. From the camp, he petitions to be allowed to marry Marga, his sweetheart and the mother of his child. Eventually his petition is granted. The officials who spend all their time registering the deaths now register a marriage. A survivor reports: 'It was a victory - a proof that we were still alive - though we knew our lives hung by a thread, a whim.' Restrained and compassionate, based on real events, The Wedding in Auschwitz is a stark reminder of how, in the middle of the twentieth century, history determined the lives of individuals.

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