Kitchen Conversations with Rebel Women – Women’s Memories and Experiences of Their Resistance Against Nazism

Image: Karin Berger

March 10 | 6:30 PM

TICKETS AVAILABLE IN DUE COURSE

Join us for a screening of Kitchen Conversations with Rebel Women, a seminal documentary by Karin Berger that brings together Austrian women whose acts of resistance against National Socialism were rooted in everyday life, solidarity, and moral conviction. Filmed in intimate domestic settings, the women speak directly to the camera about the risks they took, the lives they helped save, and the choices they made. Not as self-proclaimed heroines, but because they believed it was the only right thing to do.

About the Film

Kitchen Conversations with Rebel Women places women’s voices and memories at the center of historical narration. Seated in kitchens and living rooms, the protagonists recount their experiences of resistance during the Nazi period and reflect on how friendship, political commitment, and daily life became inseparable. The film foregrounds perspectives often absent from official histories and highlights how feminist and activist approaches to memory continue to resonate across generations. Following the screening, we are very pleased to welcome filmmaker Karin Berger for a conversation about the film, offering insights into the creative process and the stories behind the camera.

Kitchen Conversations with Rebel Women. Austria, 1984, 80 min, documentary, English subtitles. Directed by Karin Berger, Elisabeth Holzinger, Lotte Podgornik and Lisbeth N. Trallori. With Rosl Grossmann-Breuer, Anni Haider, Agnes Primocic and Johanna Sadolschek-Zala

About the Filmmaker

Karin Berger is an Austrian filmmaker, writer, and researcher. After studying social anthropology and political science in Vienna, she worked as a freelance author before beginning to work with video and Super 8 film in the early 1980s. The central themes of her work are gender issues and the period of National Socialism, with a particular focus on the memories of female resistance fighters and survivors of concentration camps. In 1988, she published the memoir of Romani artist and Holocaust survivor Ceija Stojka, Wir leben im Verborgenen / We Live in Secrecy, followed by two further books and two films created in collaboration with Stojka. Karin Berger continues to work on a wide range of projects, including filmmaking, writing, and producing radio programs. Image: Maria Pia Stowasser