Toggle Menu
Toggle Accessibility Options
Created by Liz Crow
Filmed drama and documentary, 2008
Live durational performance, 2009
Moving image installation, 2009
With audio description, captions, BSL interpretation and transcripts
In September 1939, the Nazis instituted their first official programme of murder. Known as Aktion-T4, it targeted disabled people and became the blueprint for the Final Solution to wipe out Jews, gay people, gypsies and other social groups. With a rise in hate crime, disabled children still excluded from mainstream schools, and over 340,000 disabled people living in institutions, disabled people still experience those historical values as a daily threat.
In 2008 writer and director Liz Crow developed Resistance, a 12-minute short film, to highlight these issues for a modern audience. Set in Germany in 1939, it follows Elise, a patient who sweeps an institution for disabled people. She doesn’t speak and the staff assume she doesn’t understand, but she watches everything, including the buses of patients that leave full and return empty.
Resistance toured with its companion film Resistance Conversations, forming part of Resistance on Tour, a moving image installation project, which travelled from 2010-14 to key cities in the UK, Dublin and Washington DC’s Kennedy Center. Beginning with Hitler’s authorisation of the Aktion-T4 programme, the installation chronicles the journey to today, where hate crime, increased pre-natal screening and abortion and a race to assisted suicide challenge the worth of disabled people’s lives and their right to exist.
In August 2009, Resistance extended its reach to a durational performance on Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth as part of Antony Gormley’s One & Other project. Seated on her wheelchair, Liz donned full Nazi regalia to draw attention to the anniversary of this hidden history and the message it holds for people today. The performance was featured in The Guardian’s Trafalgar Top Ten on the plinth, whilst a spokesperson for One & Other said Twitter had “gone ballistic”.
Watch films (see left of page): Resistance drama; Resistance: the historical background; Resistance: audience and venue experiences.
Awards
Resistance on Tour
Liverpool Daily Post Arts Award, Best Small Exhibition, 2009
University of Bedford Union wins Higher Education Students’ Union of the Year plus Campaign of the Year 2012 for its hosting of Resistance
Daily Post Arts Award, 2009
Visit Belfast’s Top 10 for the Weekend, 2014
Resistance on the Plinth
The Guardian’s Trafalgar Top Ten on the plinth
Resistance Drama: Behind the Scenes
Read Online Download PDFResistance Conversations: Behind the Scenes
Read Online Download PDFFinding Ways to Represent Aktion T4
Read Online Download PDFResistance on the Plinth: The Why Of It
Read Online Download PDFResistance on Tour: Behind the Scenes
Read Online Download PDFResistance: The Art of Change
Read Online Download PDFResistance On Tour
Belfast
Tues 21 Oct to Sun 2 Nov 2014
Harland & Wolff HQ & Drawing Offices (Ulster Bank Belfast Festival)
Manchester, UK
Fri 10 Feb - Sat 3 Mar 2012
Zion Arts Centre
Bristol, UK
Thu 5 January - Sun 5 February 2012
MShed Museum
Bedford, UK
Fri 18 Nov - Thu 15 Dec 2011
University of Bedfordshire
Gloucester, UK
Mon 3 Oct - Mon 7 Nov 2011
Gloucester Cathedral
Taunton, UK
Sat 26 Feb - Sat 9 Apr 2011
The Brewhouse Theatre & Arts Centre
Dublin, Ireland
Tue 30 Nov - Sun 5 Dec 2010
Bewleys Cafe Theatre
Portland, Dorset, UK
Fri 17 - Sun 26 Sep 2010
Brackenbury Memorial Wesleyan Methodist Church, Fortuneswell
Washington DC, USA
Sun 6 Jun - Sun 20 Jun 2010
Nations Gallery, The John F Kennedy Center for Performing Arts
Nottingham, UK
Mon 19 Apr - Sat 01 May 2010
The Old Library, Mansfield
Liverpool, UK
Tues 17 Nov - Sat 05 Dec 2009
Contemporary Urban Centre (International DaDaFest)
Resistance on the Plinth
London, UK
8 August 2009, 10.00-11.00pm
Trafalgar Square
UK
Watershed, Bristol
Portobello Film Festival, London
TUC Disabled Members Advisory Committee
TUC Conference, Brighton
Liverpool Hope University
Filton College, Bristol
Human Genetics Commission, London
Bristol City Council, Holocaust Memorial Day event 2010, 2011
University of Essex Holocaust Memorial Week 2012
British Film Institute
Liberty 2012: Disability Film Programme
Disability History Month Festival 2013
Red Barn Gallery, Belfast, for Holocaust Memorial Day 2015
Adelaide Film Festival, 2015
Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz on euthanasia killings and the Holocaust, 2016
Selected for British Film Institute National Archive
Canada
Limelight Film Showcase, Edmonton, Alberta
Picture This Film Festival, Calgary
Art ‘n’ Life, Life as Art, Toronto
Common Pulse Arts & Disability Festival, Durham, Ontario
India
Abilityfest, Chennai
Kerala International Documentary and Short Film Festival, India
New Zealand
Artstation Gallery, Auckland
US
Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC
Lithuania
National Institute for Social Integration, Druskininkai (human rights training for young journalists from seven EU countries)
Australia
Adelaide Film Festival
Germany
Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz
Resistance Drama
Writer-Director
Liz Crow
Producer
Lou Birks
Director of Photography
Terry Flaxton
Production Designer
Colin Williams
1st AD
Bob Blunden
Composers
Claudio Ahlers
Barnaby Taylor
Main Cast
Lou Birks
Canice Bannon
Jamie Beddard
Ali Briggs
Auriol Britton
Sarah Buckland
David Collins
Pauline Heath
Mat Fraser
Chloe Lucas
Yvonne Lynch
Sophie Weaver
Production
Roaring Girl Productions
Resistance Conversations
Writer-Director
Liz Crow
Producer
Lou Birks
Director of Photography
Louie Blystad-Collins
Production Designer
Colin Williams
Interviewees
Lou Birks
Jamie Beddard
Sophie Weaver
Production
Roaring Girl Productions
Resistance on Tour
Created by
Liz Crow
Produced by
Nemia Maclachlan
Tour management
Kate Harvey
Joanne Peters
Films produced by
Lou Birks
Technical Services
Art AV
Production
Roaring Girl Productions
Actors
Lou Birks
Jamie Beddard
Sophie Weaver
Canice Bannon
Ali Briggs
Auriol Britton
Sarah Buckland
David Collins
Pauline Heath
Mat Fraser
Chloe Lucas
Yvonne Lynch
Cinematography
Terry Flaxton
Louie Blystad-Collins
Production design
Colin Williams
Music
Claudio Ahlers
Barnaby Taylor
Editors
Terry Flaxton
Victoria Stevens
Voices production
Claudio Ahlers
Victoria Stevens
Simon Whetham
Interns
Samiha Abdeldjebar
Rachel Clarke
Bob Harvard
Jenny Gill
Hannah Parker
Resistance on the Plinth
Directed & performed by
Liz Crow
Art Director
Dave Paul
Consultant
Ros Fry, West Mead Creative
On-the-ground support
Clair Lewis
Production
Roaring Girl Productions
Ultimately it’s Resistance’s gentle eloquence that kicks you hard in the stomach and makes it difficult to breathe.
One of the most moving exhibitions I have ever visited. I kid you not. I implore you to go and see this.
Some moments go on resounding for days, like being brought up short in Resistance: one of those times when you have to confront the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of our lives. This exhibition, by Liz Crow, of film, photos and voiceovers of disabled people in a Nazi euthanasia programme trod a fine line between sensationalism and truth, brutality and reality, but did so with incredible control. I was left with a voice that echoed in my head long after I’d left: ‘What’s unfair is that we think the world’s being unfair is normal.”
If great art is defined as stopping people in their tracks and making them think, this production is up there with the best.
Resistance is an important project which raises issues of great relevance for today and will provide an excellent forum for engaging public debate and challenging public ideas. I hope that it will gain the platform it so clearly warrants.
One of the most powerful things I have ever experienced. And I think the first thing my son has seen that helped him fully understand the Holocaust... To see the group around the kitchen table remembering the things they loved I think brought it home for him. I was so amazed by it, I went back to see it twice more. Each time I saw more and took more away from the experience.
It is not often that words fail me, but I can’t begin to describe the impact this devastatingly-powerful installation had on me. This is tremendously important work, brilliantly and concisely realised into a package which will haunt me for a long, long time.
Resistance is a powerfully conceived exploration of an important but neglected subject… Liz Crow’s dramatisation vividly conveys the horror, but extends beyond the stark exposure of the historical reality to a reflection on its implications for us today.
This is a courageous project that is characteristically ambitious. It promises high artistic quality and, at a time when Europe is struggling to find culture that enables intercultural dialogue, it will be a fantastic catalyst for debating shared values.
I am one of the creatives involved in making the Resistance drama and would like to express how working on it affected me. I am German myself, have in the past learnt much about the atrocities committed during the fascist era by my country, yet this was the first time that the systematic killing of disabled people during the Nazi regime was brought to my attention. The ideas about what constitutes a life worth living and the moral concepts which, pushed to their most extreme, are used here to justify the murders of some of the most vulnerable people in society, are in many ways still topical today...
compelling… undoubtedly one of the most significant contributions to Gormley’s project. Apart from the importance of the content, it presented a series of memorable images, carefully choreographed to take advantage of space and time
A strong piece of silent protest that made more of an impact than a thousand words!
Burleigh, M (1994) Death and Deliverance: “Euthanasia” in Germany, Cambridge University Press
Friedlander, H (1995) The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to Final Solution, Chapel Hill
Gallagher, HG (1995) By Trust Betrayed: Patients, Physicians, and the License to Kill in the Third Reich, Arlington, VA: Vandamere Press
Hansen, N (2002) States of Denial: Recognising difficult history, strengthening our future, Education Department, University of Manitoba)
Mostert, MP (2002) Useless Eaters: Disability as Genocidal Marker in Nazi Germany, Journal of Special Education, 36: 3, 157-170
Mullen, K (2009) T4: Hitler’s Holocaust Rehearsal, Disability Now, June
Jung, R (1996) Dreaming in Black and White, Fogelman Books, Penguin (English edition 2003). Novel about a disabled German boy who drifts back in his dreams to another life in the Third Reich. Guide age 10+
Keith, L (2003) Out of Place, Crocus. Novel about a young disabled child who escapes on the Kindertransport. Guide age 10+
Wikipedia on Aktion T4
Eugenics and Euthanasia, Marcuse, H (2005) Department of History, University of California, Santa Barbara
Disability Studies and the Legacy of Eugenics, Department of Disability and Human Development, University of Illinois at Chicago
Prejudice is Everyone’s Problem, Miss Dennis Queen’s blog
To cite this page: Crow, Liz (2009) Resistance, Roaring Girl Productions [online] [Available at: http://www.roaring-girl.com/work/resistance/] [Accessed 01/12/2024]