The Exit of the Trains

June 29, 1941, the first pogrom in Romania. The Jewish residents of the Iasi were rounded up and beaten, shops and homes were looted, and most of the men were shot or crowded onto trains, where they later died of asphyxiation. The film before us uses archival materials to present a complex look at history. The first part consists of photos of those murdered and survivors' testimonials, interviews, and private diary entries. The second part contains edited photos from the massacre itself (taken mainly by German soldiers). This film essay examines how cinema can deal with these sorts of documentations and with how memory remains or disappears.