by John Calvin | July 28th, 2008
The Announcement
At long last, it is time to announce our latest project–“Hitler’s Law”! It will be a 7-minute “tactical” short drama targeted at the current deplorable struggle between the German government and Christian parents over the control of their children’s education. We hope to shoot during the month of August, 2008, and complete postproduction in time to submit it to the 2009 San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival.
The History
Hitler’s National Socialist (Nazi) Party passed a series of “cultural purity” laws between 1937 and 1939. Among these were laws specifically mandating state-run public instruction for all children so as to prevent the formation of so-called “parallel societies”. The whole purpose was to force a homogeneous culture in Germany. The Nazi policy-makers understood that to influence the next generation, they had to control the children.
The scary thing is that these laws did not quietly go away. Although the majority of the Nazis’ policies were summarily ended with the unconditional surrender of the Reich in May 1945, many of these measures stayed on the books. Recently this particular law has been revived by the government as part of their program to stop the loss of their unique heritage. Christian homeschool families have been especially hard-hit. Many families have fled to Austria with only the clothes on their backs, mere hours ahead of the police, just as they did in Hitler’s day. Homeschool parents have been fined, placed in prison, their property and children confiscated for trying to teach their children at home. One family has even had to flee Europe for Canada to escape the long arm of the government, which in the EU can even reach them outside of Germany’s sovereign borders. The situation is very bad in Germany, and getting worse. We who enjoy freedom in the United States need to pray for our brethren in Germany, who still suffer under Hitler’s Law.
You can read our news alert blog at http://hitlerslaw.blogspot.com/, and feel free to send news items to news@hitlerslaw.com.
The Film
Hitler’s Law is the newest short project of Young Christian Studios. The story follows Herr & Frau Traugott, German parents in the summer of 1938 who must make a painful decision when the local SS officer demands their children be placed in the state schools. Will they cave to the officer’s demands and place their children in the schools, possibly losing their hearts forever? Or will they flee in the night from a town and a house where their family has lived for two hundred years with the clothes on their backs and nothing else? They have only a few short hours to decide…
The film then makes the connection to the present day, where the same laws designed to promote a homogenous society in Nazi Germany are being used to force Christian parents to place their children in the state schools. We are hoping that this short film will wake up American Christians and homeschoolers to the terrible plight of their brethren in Germany and will help to bring an outcry of public opinion against Germany’s restrictive education policies.
To complete this project, we need help in every area: funding, equipment, casting, costumes, locations, and post-production. If you live in the Triangle area of North Carolina or even if you don’t, and are interested in assisting us with this project, please email us at producer@hitlerslaw.com.
We will have a production blog up soon, Lord willing. In the meanwhile, you can read the initial draft of the script at http://youngchristianstudios.com/hitlerslaw_r1.pdf. The upcoming R3 draft will include certain changes, such as conversion of the “Priest” character to Lutheran minister, but I can’t get that draft up until I am able to get back into my laptop, which is having trouble.
Please pray for us, even if you can’t help with this project. We have an extremely tight time schedule to shoot it in, and it’s going to be a challenge. We believe it’s a story that really needs to be told, but usually that means that there will be a struggle to complete it.
In His Service,
John Calvin Young
Writer/Director/Producer, Hitler’s Law