The Hate Destroyer (Documentary)
Wansee, a few kilometres away from Berlin. Here lives Irmela Mensah Schramm, a 70-year old lady. She is sitting on the couch. She is gluing, cataloguing and ling documents, photographs and letters. A sticker says: “ The day of the Germany of the future”. By her side, there is a fabric bag with a hand-written note: “Gegen Nazi”, “Against the Nazis”.
In a Europe marked by racial hatred and violence, this woman with grey hair and a slightly clumsy gait spends her days walking around her city and its surrounding, searching for xenophobe or neo-Nazi writings and stickers, armed with spray paint and a scraper.
The calls that Irmela constantly makes to the police are worthless. She risks being charged with vandalism, but this is not enough to deter her from the mission that she has been carrying out for almost thirty years. “If I damage something with paint, it can be fixed. Wounded dignity, instead, cannot”.
The anonymous threats she has long been receiving have no effect. “Irmela Mensah Schramm, we will get you sooner or later”, someone wrote in block capitals on a wall. Messages threatening to kill Irmela are sent directly to her home, written on paper with a letterhead and a swastika.
She is in real danger. This is confirmed by Manuel Bauer, a “hitter” of neo-Nazi squads for years, and Daniel Koehler, a sociologist who helps those who want to abandon the right-wing scene.
Extremists in Germany and Europe have infiltrated everywhere and have been pursuing their policy of terror for years.
After defeating a breast cancer that doctors said would only give her a few years to live, nothing can stop her now.
But what would Irmela be if neo-Nazis didn’t exist? Who does she do all this for? For the sake of others of for herself?
“I have started a life journey – she says – and I will not let anyone take it away from me”.
After years of activism, many around Europe have notice her.
Irmela is now a symbol of the fight against racial hate and intolerance.
The Hate Destroyer is a film on rampant hate, indifference, and what is behind every choice of activism. At the same time, it is the intimate tale of a woman who has been fighting for years to become extraordinary.
A film by Vincenzo Caruso
Directed by Vincenzo Caruso
Photography: Fabrizio Lussu (Effelle Video&Photo)
Production: Fotogramma 25, EIE Film
Genre: Documentary, Social, People
Duration: 53'
