Rarely has the term ‘guilty pleasures’ seemed more apt than when applied to one of the strangest substrata of pornography on record, the so-called “Stalags”. These were paperback S&M novels made in Israel in the 1960’s, just as the young nation hit puberty, and somehow found itself immensely turned on by the lurid, illicit thrill of seeing Allied prisoners of war tortured and abused by voluptuous Nazi dominatrixes. The fact that these stories inevitably ended with the victims turning the tables on their captors and returning their favors in kind, can only partly explain this curious phenomenon, wherein the Holocaust became fodder for sexualized fantasies of violence, sexuality, power, and the lack thereof.
Ari Libsker attempts to lift the covers on this dirty little secret in this fascinating documentary, and chart the degree to which the “Stalags” have colored Israel’s own understanding of the Holocaust, as well as itself. This line of inquiry seems only more relevant in light of recent events, and if one were to criticize this film for anything, it is that – and this is a term rarely applied in the context of pornography – it is all too short.

Sindre Kartvedt