The Danube Exodus - The Rippling Currents of the River. Péter Forgács & the Labyrinth Project

The Danube Exodus immerses the viewer in three historical narratives. One story tells of Eastern European Jews fleeing Nazi persecution in 1939, trying to reach a ship on the Black Sea that will carry them to safety in Palestine. The second story, set in 1940 following the Soviet re-annexation of Bessarabia, tells of émigré German farmers abandoning their adopted homeland to return to the “safety” of the Third Reich but being relocated to occupied Poland. Both groups, each heading in the other direction, were transported along the Danube River by Captain Nándor Andrásovits (1894–1958), an amateur filmmaker who documented these voyages. The third story focuses on the captain and the river, whose rippling currents have interwoven many cultures and periods throughout Central Europe’s stormy history. In his award-winning 60-minute film, Forgács uses Andrásovits’s original 8-millimeter film footage, which he obtained from the captain’s widow. Historian-archivist János Varga donated the 49-minute material on the Jews’ voyage to him.