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You buy a book.
You don't really know why.
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00:01:09,571 --> 00:01:14,090
It lies around, and then one day
you open it, almost absent-mindedly.
3
00:01:14,626 --> 00:01:17,825
And there you are,
facing your own innermost secrets.
4
00:01:21,256 --> 00:01:24,672
That's what happened to me
with Austerlitz, by Sebald.
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00:01:25,509 --> 00:01:28,892
The title and cover photo
led me to expect a historical novel.
6
00:01:29,918 --> 00:01:32,995
Instead, I found
a strangely familiar tale,
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00:01:33,275 --> 00:01:38,354
with black-and-white photos and texts
about 19th-century architecture.
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00:01:38,907 --> 00:01:41,976
Mostly great railway stations,
like the one in Antwerp
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00:01:42,213 --> 00:01:45,572
where we first meet
the hero of this tale.
10
00:02:30,967 --> 00:02:34,516
Only the simplest
and smallest structures,
11
00:02:35,286 --> 00:02:38,945
like a hut in a field,
a lock-keeper's cottage,
12
00:02:39,319 --> 00:02:43,691
a child's playhouse in the garden,
bring us peace,
13
00:02:44,240 --> 00:02:47,816
whereas grand monuments
inspire only the wonder
14
00:02:47,942 --> 00:02:49,541
that precedes terror,
15
00:02:50,786 --> 00:02:54,209
for they already cast the shadow
of their own destruction.
16
00:02:54,913 --> 00:02:58,229
The sole aim of their gigantic size
is to make beautiful ruins.
17
00:03:02,147 --> 00:03:05,322
But there is also something poignant
about railway stations.
18
00:03:06,379 --> 00:03:08,966
Feelings of happiness
mingled with sorrow.
19
00:03:10,233 --> 00:03:13,977
The torment of leave-taking,
a fear of the unknown.
20
00:03:14,200 --> 00:03:16,130
Nothing to do with architecture.
21
00:03:17,613 --> 00:03:20,465
But often our most grandiose plans
22
00:03:21,013 --> 00:03:23,231
reveal the depth of our disquiet.
23
00:03:27,119 --> 00:03:28,783
He's an art historian.
24
00:03:29,066 --> 00:03:31,763
He's obsessed with
19th century architecture,
25
00:03:32,174 --> 00:03:34,047
his single field of study.
26
00:03:35,802 --> 00:03:39,889
The book's narrator crosses
his path several times
27
00:03:40,080 --> 00:03:41,817
in the late 1970s
28
00:03:42,032 --> 00:03:44,711
and is enthralled
by his unusual ideas.
29
00:03:45,479 --> 00:03:48,398
Their final
and most unlikely encounter
30
00:03:48,686 --> 00:03:50,765
occurs
at the Brussels Palace of Justice.
31
00:03:50,960 --> 00:03:53,064
For years Austerlitz
has been scouring it
32
00:03:53,279 --> 00:03:57,536
for a secret labyrinth
allegedly hidden inside.
33
00:04:09,227 --> 00:04:11,306
The biggest stone pile in Europe.
34
00:04:12,866 --> 00:04:16,370
Noteworthy for the amount
of emptiness it holds.
35
00:04:19,180 --> 00:04:23,161
It's said the bourgeois of Brussels
were in such a rush
36
00:04:23,532 --> 00:04:26,744
that the architect had no time
to complete the plans.
37
00:04:28,406 --> 00:04:31,602
So it's as though
the palace built itself.
38
00:04:32,933 --> 00:04:34,452
Out of control.
39
00:04:36,639 --> 00:04:40,022
Some corridors lead nowhere
40
00:04:40,553 --> 00:04:43,915
and some unused rooms
have not even been mapped.
41
00:04:44,286 --> 00:04:47,741
Was this by mistake,
or a deliberate effort
42
00:04:48,040 --> 00:04:49,927
to lead the seeker astray?
43
00:04:53,139 --> 00:04:58,115
It's said that canny citizens of Brussels
opened shops in forgotten rooms:
44
00:04:58,840 --> 00:05:03,919
a bar, a tobacconist's,
a gambling den, and I even heard
45
00:05:04,140 --> 00:05:06,939
of public toilets,
accessible from the street,
46
00:05:07,200 --> 00:05:10,416
run by a gentleman named Achterbos.
47
00:05:13,312 --> 00:05:15,994
Achterbos is an uncommon name.
48
00:05:17,200 --> 00:05:20,394
But so is my own: Austerlitz,
49
00:05:20,619 --> 00:05:22,521
Jacques Austerlitz.
50
00:05:25,840 --> 00:05:29,519
A dark pall already hangs
over these early encounters,
51
00:05:29,753 --> 00:05:34,218
dark as the Antwerp Zoo Nocturama
described early in the book.
52
00:05:34,833 --> 00:05:39,112
The captive animals live there
in a fake world of artificial night.
53
00:05:40,513 --> 00:05:43,028
Their eyes, says the narrator,
are very large.
54
00:05:43,593 --> 00:05:45,152
So are Austerlitz's.
55
00:05:45,406 --> 00:05:49,906
A painter's or thinker's eyes,
made to pierce the night around us.
56
00:05:57,906 --> 00:06:02,265
The narrator often sees Austerlitz
in London, where they both live.
57
00:06:02,586 --> 00:06:05,224
Then they lose sight of each other.
58
00:06:06,760 --> 00:06:08,584
Twenty years go by.
59
00:06:14,213 --> 00:06:16,412
One morning in 1996
60
00:06:16,693 --> 00:06:19,612
the narrator awakes to find a spot
61
00:06:19,773 --> 00:06:22,092
blurring the vision of his right eye.
62
00:06:28,286 --> 00:06:30,685
Though he rarely speaks of himself,
63
00:06:30,946 --> 00:06:34,643
he vividly describes his anxiety
about this partial blindness,
64
00:06:35,000 --> 00:06:38,522
as if to make us doubt the veracity
of what comes next:
65
00:06:40,439 --> 00:06:43,763
his miraculous encounter
that same day with Austerlitz,
66
00:06:44,019 --> 00:06:47,720
who materializes at a caf�
in London's Liverpool Street station
67
00:06:47,993 --> 00:06:50,731
and picks up
as if they'd parted the day before.
68
00:06:57,226 --> 00:07:01,545
This bar is one of ten
at the Great Eastern Hotel,
69
00:07:02,000 --> 00:07:04,718
whose main facade
was right inside the station.
70
00:07:07,573 --> 00:07:09,732
This is all that's left.
71
00:07:15,339 --> 00:07:18,374
I gave up my research long ago,
72
00:07:19,420 --> 00:07:23,271
but I occasionally return
to my old passions
73
00:07:23,733 --> 00:07:28,167
and I'm always amazed
by the strange things we have built.
74
00:07:29,512 --> 00:07:31,768
Just below us, in the basement,
75
00:07:32,533 --> 00:07:35,755
is the old fish cellar
of the station restaurant.
76
00:07:36,573 --> 00:07:38,492
Every day, heaps of fish lay there,
77
00:07:38,779 --> 00:07:42,898
hundreds of perch,
pikes, plaice and eels.
78
00:07:43,173 --> 00:07:45,012
A realm of the dead!
79
00:07:45,266 --> 00:07:46,345
And upstairs
80
00:07:47,880 --> 00:07:51,960
they recently found a Masonic temple,
hidden behind a false wall.
81
00:07:53,533 --> 00:07:56,069
The temple at the rails' end!
82
00:07:56,666 --> 00:08:01,168
The only true network
is the railway network.
83
00:08:06,812 --> 00:08:10,651
I too knocked down a false wall.
84
00:08:12,206 --> 00:08:14,878
I discovered the secret of my life.
85
00:08:16,579 --> 00:08:19,461
And here you are to listen,
as you did 20 years ago.
86
00:08:20,878 --> 00:08:24,578
Unexpected, improbable, inevitable.
87
00:08:30,368 --> 00:08:32,306
I grew up in Wales,
88
00:08:32,669 --> 00:08:34,330
in the house of Elias,
89
00:08:34,809 --> 00:08:36,410
a Calvinist preacher.
90
00:08:37,230 --> 00:08:39,872
I knew he wasn't my real father,
91
00:08:40,326 --> 00:08:42,473
but I'd no memory
of my previous life.
92
00:08:42,902 --> 00:08:46,534
I knew only that I was far from home,
as if a captive.
93
00:08:48,844 --> 00:08:53,530
I had only one book at the manse,
a Welsh children's bible.
94
00:08:54,903 --> 00:08:58,358
I didn't understand
why only animals were saved.
95
00:08:58,940 --> 00:09:01,896
I didn't see any children
boarding the ark.
96
00:09:06,253 --> 00:09:11,335
We also had a photo album
of the preacher's home village
97
00:09:11,500 --> 00:09:14,918
just before it was flooded
for a reservoir
98
00:09:15,099 --> 00:09:18,185
to supply drinking water
to Liverpool.
99
00:09:28,687 --> 00:09:30,538
In the last photographs
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00:09:30,939 --> 00:09:33,158
the houses were already in ruins
101
00:09:33,833 --> 00:09:36,774
They had been demolished
just before the flood.
102
00:09:38,860 --> 00:09:44,509
The villagers looked tiny
and slightly blurred among the ruins.
103
00:09:45,653 --> 00:09:48,135
Evan the cobbler wasn't surprised.
104
00:09:48,607 --> 00:09:50,726
"Death reduces people.
105
00:09:51,337 --> 00:09:56,001
"They shrink, like linen
the first time it's laundered."
106
00:09:58,207 --> 00:10:00,166
I felt akin to those people.
107
00:10:00,707 --> 00:10:04,746
I felt that I too had been engulfed
by dark waters
108
00:10:05,093 --> 00:10:07,292
and I too had to strain my eyes
109
00:10:07,526 --> 00:10:10,866
to make out some image
of the world far above.
110
00:10:25,619 --> 00:10:28,002
All through my childhood at the manse
111
00:10:28,239 --> 00:10:31,373
I sensed something
was being hidden from me.
112
00:10:32,506 --> 00:10:34,305
I remembered a few days ago
113
00:10:34,500 --> 00:10:36,863
that my bedroom windows
were walled up.
114
00:10:37,180 --> 00:10:39,576
Against another flood, maybe,
115
00:10:39,953 --> 00:10:42,386
but walled up only on the inside.
116
00:10:42,926 --> 00:10:45,439
From the outside they looked normal.
117
00:10:46,093 --> 00:10:48,554
Unlike those ones.
118
00:10:50,640 --> 00:10:52,934
Those are the windows
of the Masonic Temple.
119
00:10:53,813 --> 00:10:55,174
Walled up, as always.
120
00:10:56,179 --> 00:10:58,314
Such temples don't need windows.
121
00:11:00,853 --> 00:11:03,868
Pigeons raised in a windowless room
122
00:11:05,433 --> 00:11:07,795
never develop a sense of direction.
123
00:11:10,286 --> 00:11:13,694
They also lose it
if raised in artificial light
124
00:11:14,926 --> 00:11:20,181
or in a cage rigged with mirrors that
show the sun somewhere it is not.
125
00:11:34,706 --> 00:11:37,562
The narrator listens, saying nothing.
126
00:11:38,027 --> 00:11:41,383
So we don't know if
Austerlitz's passion for architecture
127
00:11:41,509 --> 00:11:44,272
stems from the blind windows
of his childhood.
128
00:11:45,139 --> 00:11:49,658
But I imagine him photographing
every blind window he sees
129
00:11:50,340 --> 00:11:52,025
so that nothing should be lost
130
00:11:52,200 --> 00:11:56,125
and the tiny sorrows they hide
should be saved from oblivion.
131
00:12:09,762 --> 00:12:14,699
The next day Austerlitz takes
the narrator to Greenwich Observatory,
132
00:12:14,955 --> 00:12:19,137
where, every day at exactly 1 pm,
a large wooden ball falls
133
00:12:19,278 --> 00:12:22,050
to show the correct time,
far and wide.
134
00:12:33,873 --> 00:12:36,700
I've never had a wristwatch,
nor an alarm clock.
135
00:12:37,733 --> 00:12:40,787
I've always rebelled
against the power of time
136
00:12:42,566 --> 00:12:44,728
in the hope that it wouldn't pass,
137
00:12:45,666 --> 00:12:48,265
that every moment would co-exist,
138
00:12:48,680 --> 00:12:50,882
no more past nor future,
139
00:12:52,586 --> 00:12:54,665
just a perpetual present.
140
00:12:56,632 --> 00:13:00,871
But the result would be
equally perpetual torment,
141
00:13:01,620 --> 00:13:05,378
I would thus forever be
a prisoner at the manse in Bala.
142
00:13:07,587 --> 00:13:10,007
At the end of the war
the preacher's wife fell ill
143
00:13:10,133 --> 00:13:13,372
so Elias sent me
to board at Stower Grange.
144
00:13:14,533 --> 00:13:18,256
To the other children
the school was a grim jail,
145
00:13:19,013 --> 00:13:21,189
but to me it was freedom.
146
00:13:25,273 --> 00:13:30,074
The school had
a small unused darkroom
147
00:13:30,686 --> 00:13:32,405
and some old cameras.
148
00:13:33,806 --> 00:13:35,904
I started taking photographs.
149
00:13:37,040 --> 00:13:41,159
Cobblestones.
Factory chimneys.
150
00:13:41,972 --> 00:13:43,906
Streaks in the sky.
151
00:13:44,753 --> 00:13:49,832
In the darkroom, I waited
for shapes to emerge like memories.
152
00:13:50,640 --> 00:13:52,902
Oddly, I was good at rugby too.
153
00:13:53,133 --> 00:13:56,309
I would smash through
the opposition defence,
154
00:13:57,886 --> 00:14:01,456
driven by some dull inner pain
I was not even aware of.
155
00:14:05,946 --> 00:14:08,825
Our team! A bunch of convicts.
156
00:14:10,233 --> 00:14:12,756
I'm last on the right
in the front row.
157
00:14:13,079 --> 00:14:15,411
My name was still Dafydd Elias then.
158
00:14:20,373 --> 00:14:24,514
In 1949 the head summoned me
just before our exams.
159
00:14:25,460 --> 00:14:30,292
For official reasons, he said,
I should no longer put Dafydd Elias,
160
00:14:30,620 --> 00:14:33,379
but my real name: Jacques Austerlitz.
161
00:14:34,900 --> 00:14:37,499
"Jacques" I knew
from a nursery rhyme.
162
00:14:37,753 --> 00:14:39,712
Who had sung it to me?
163
00:14:40,006 --> 00:14:41,435
But "Austerlitz"?
164
00:14:42,280 --> 00:14:45,045
I couldn't even work out
the spelling.
165
00:14:45,279 --> 00:14:49,444
Luckily, the headmaster
had typed it out for me.
166
00:14:50,833 --> 00:14:55,310
All he knew was that the Eliases
had adopted me before the war.
167
00:14:57,066 --> 00:14:59,377
As for the strange name Austerlitz
168
00:14:59,666 --> 00:15:02,665
the master said
it was a village in Moravia
169
00:15:02,791 --> 00:15:05,310
made famous by a great battle.
170
00:15:09,110 --> 00:15:12,839
To know one's real name
and not to look for more:
171
00:15:13,720 --> 00:15:15,319
that's the key to bliss.
172
00:15:24,146 --> 00:15:25,622
Later on in the book
173
00:15:25,748 --> 00:15:29,202
Austerlitz finds he shares
his name with Fred Astaire's father,
174
00:15:29,502 --> 00:15:30,955
a native of Austria,
175
00:15:31,480 --> 00:15:36,359
and a bow-legged circumciser
from Prague mentioned by Kafka
176
00:15:36,720 --> 00:15:39,985
and an Italian woman
called Laura Austerlitz
177
00:15:40,111 --> 00:15:42,399
who testified at a trial in 1966
178
00:15:42,579 --> 00:15:46,148
concerning a crime committed
in 1944
179
00:15:46,380 --> 00:15:48,228
at a rice mill near Trieste.
180
00:15:49,540 --> 00:15:54,417
This last note was so strange
that I tried to find out more.
181
00:15:55,979 --> 00:16:00,149
The San Sabba rice mill in Trieste
was a Nazi concentration camp
182
00:16:00,640 --> 00:16:04,897
and Laura Austerlitz,
a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz,
183
00:16:05,146 --> 00:16:08,730
was a witness at the trial
of the camp's SS guards.
184
00:16:09,373 --> 00:16:12,997
But curiously Austerlitz
doesn't mention this.
185
00:16:29,060 --> 00:16:32,819
On the way back to London,
Austerlitz doesn't talk of Trieste,
186
00:16:33,166 --> 00:16:35,245
but of summer holidays spent
187
00:16:35,393 --> 00:16:38,403
at his school friend Gerald's manor.
188
00:16:38,606 --> 00:16:41,365
Gerald's uncle's
butterfly collections,
189
00:16:41,607 --> 00:16:43,601
Badminton games with Adela,
190
00:16:43,727 --> 00:16:45,166
Gerald's young mother.
191
00:16:45,433 --> 00:16:46,941
And a stuffed parrot
192
00:16:47,127 --> 00:16:49,862
with which Jacques Austerlitz
feels a kinship
193
00:16:50,041 --> 00:16:53,654
because the parrot is a jaco.
A jaco from Gabon.
194
00:16:57,806 --> 00:17:03,485
The label on its case said
it chattered away to itself and others.
195
00:17:08,566 --> 00:17:12,355
Alphonso, Gerald's great-uncle,
was a naturalist.
196
00:17:13,899 --> 00:17:18,117
When the weather was fine,
he'd paint watercolours outdoors.
197
00:17:18,553 --> 00:17:21,823
To paint he always put on his glasses
198
00:17:23,919 --> 00:17:26,678
with, instead of lenses, a fine fabric
199
00:17:27,143 --> 00:17:30,389
that casts a silken-grey veil
over the landscape,
200
00:17:30,999 --> 00:17:34,137
subduing its colours
and making the world lighter.
201
00:17:37,407 --> 00:17:40,909
One night he took us
to the top of a hill
202
00:17:41,539 --> 00:17:44,475
to show us
the mysterious world of moths.
203
00:17:45,766 --> 00:17:48,202
An ancient and admirable species,
204
00:17:48,726 --> 00:17:51,201
with a body temperature of 36�C.
205
00:17:51,513 --> 00:17:55,736
Alphonso told us 36�
was the ideal natural temperature,
206
00:17:56,046 --> 00:17:57,939
a sort of magical threshold.
207
00:17:58,793 --> 00:18:03,383
All our human misfortune, he said,
comes from disregarding this norm.
208
00:18:03,933 --> 00:18:09,111
We've heated up and
are thus forever slightly feverish.
209
00:18:11,646 --> 00:18:13,592
I found this a stupid idea.
210
00:18:14,513 --> 00:18:17,303
I saw nothing wrong
with a little bit of warmth.
211
00:18:25,313 --> 00:18:30,072
I can still see Adela,
as beautiful as she was then.
212
00:18:32,167 --> 00:18:34,346
Late on those long summer days
213
00:18:34,960 --> 00:18:37,628
we would often play badminton
214
00:18:39,053 --> 00:18:42,017
while Gerald tended his pigeons
before the night.
215
00:18:44,827 --> 00:18:47,066
The shuttlecock flew to and fro,
216
00:18:48,240 --> 00:18:52,759
cutting a white trail
through the twilight.
217
00:18:53,240 --> 00:18:58,559
Adela herself seemed to hover
a few inches above the ground
218
00:18:59,079 --> 00:19:02,129
for longer than
the law of gravity allows.
219
00:19:11,920 --> 00:19:13,799
This magical interlude ends
220
00:19:14,073 --> 00:19:19,072
when Gerald learns to fly
a light aircraft and dies in a crash.
221
00:19:20,873 --> 00:19:23,918
A photo of the plane
is printed on this this page.
222
00:19:24,280 --> 00:19:28,428
It has no caption, nor does
any other image inserted in the book.
223
00:19:29,202 --> 00:19:31,842
Some relate directly to the story.
224
00:19:31,968 --> 00:19:33,938
Others are more mysterious.
225
00:19:36,833 --> 00:19:39,502
I stumble at these perplexing images.
226
00:19:40,053 --> 00:19:43,669
I cannot read on
until I find out what they really are.
227
00:19:44,560 --> 00:19:46,029
Sometimes I succeed.
228
00:19:46,474 --> 00:19:49,885
These tents pitched
beside the pyramids look biblical.
229
00:19:50,393 --> 00:19:52,752
Like Hebrews fleeing from Egypt.
230
00:19:53,746 --> 00:19:58,756
It is, in fact, an Australian
army camp during World War I.
231
00:19:59,106 --> 00:20:04,257
A postcard from Austerlitz,
inviting the narrator to his home.
232
00:20:24,033 --> 00:20:25,572
Photographs.
233
00:20:26,147 --> 00:20:29,579
We marvel at their ability
to reproduce reality
234
00:20:30,220 --> 00:20:33,097
but their other properties
are even more valuable.
235
00:20:36,392 --> 00:20:38,862
They are flat, for one thing.
236
00:20:40,280 --> 00:20:43,238
You can pile them up,
237
00:20:46,267 --> 00:20:48,209
lay them side by side,
238
00:20:51,580 --> 00:20:55,459
overlap them
so that one is partly hidden
239
00:20:57,447 --> 00:21:00,084
and put them next to other things.
240
00:21:11,727 --> 00:21:13,177
They don't move.
241
00:21:14,393 --> 00:21:16,607
You can look at them at leisure.
242
00:21:17,953 --> 00:21:20,609
Yet still they live their own lives.
243
00:21:26,913 --> 00:21:29,192
The crucial thing's the table.
244
00:21:30,359 --> 00:21:32,768
A solid surface.
245
00:21:32,894 --> 00:21:34,721
Clear borders on all sides.
246
00:21:35,013 --> 00:21:39,384
Nothing hidden, nothing buried,
nothing below the surface.
247
00:21:40,073 --> 00:21:42,871
As reassuring as the photos on it.
248
00:21:43,633 --> 00:21:45,542
Reassuring and useful.
249
00:21:50,173 --> 00:21:52,691
Imagine you lose your memory.
250
00:21:53,140 --> 00:21:56,779
If you've been careful to take
a photo just before,
251
00:21:57,233 --> 00:21:59,382
you can recover
some of the time lost.
252
00:22:02,333 --> 00:22:05,108
I fainted once
while studying in Paris.
253
00:22:05,526 --> 00:22:08,329
I awoke in a hospital bed.
I'd blacked out.
254
00:22:08,920 --> 00:22:11,676
I had no memory
of what had gone before.
255
00:22:12,293 --> 00:22:15,301
Three weeks later,
when I developed my film,
256
00:22:15,693 --> 00:22:20,177
I saw that, just before I collapsed,
I'd been in a museum.
257
00:22:22,990 --> 00:22:24,964
But you don't want to see that.
258
00:22:30,140 --> 00:22:32,535
Big building, tiny image.
259
00:22:33,266 --> 00:22:36,065
Minuscule is the true size of memory.
260
00:22:42,340 --> 00:22:45,219
The old National Library in Paris.
261
00:22:45,619 --> 00:22:49,538
I went there to study
after Gerald's death.
262
00:22:51,267 --> 00:22:53,396
Marie de Verneuil.
263
00:22:54,120 --> 00:22:56,089
She often read opposite me.
264
00:22:56,792 --> 00:23:01,650
One day I must have looked unusually
sad, and she suggested coffee.
265
00:23:03,593 --> 00:23:05,970
As we were strolling
through Palais-Royal,
266
00:23:07,540 --> 00:23:11,387
we stopped at a shop window
filled with Napoleonic toy soldiers.
267
00:23:12,279 --> 00:23:14,758
She was studying
the history of architecture too.
268
00:23:15,179 --> 00:23:17,653
Talk of buildings was our bond.
269
00:23:18,753 --> 00:23:21,392
She studied structures
related to water.
270
00:23:21,667 --> 00:23:26,194
Bridges, spas,
houses on stilts, water mills,
271
00:23:27,146 --> 00:23:31,635
like this one in Charentes,
the strangest place she'd ever seen.
272
00:23:32,553 --> 00:23:36,064
It belonged to twin brothers.
Not these two.
273
00:23:36,426 --> 00:23:37,825
They were easy to fell apart:
274
00:23:37,951 --> 00:23:41,886
one was cross-eyed,
the other a hunchback.
275
00:23:44,126 --> 00:23:46,322
That's another advantage
of photography.
276
00:23:46,946 --> 00:23:50,401
The image is always
pinned to the paper.
277
00:23:50,793 --> 00:23:52,828
Unlike all these images
floating around us,
278
00:23:52,954 --> 00:23:55,568
impossible to pin down.
279
00:24:12,006 --> 00:24:14,203
Marie invited me along to Bohemia
280
00:24:14,667 --> 00:24:18,546
to complete her study
of thermal spa architecture.
281
00:24:20,533 --> 00:24:22,675
She wanted me to be her photographer,
282
00:24:22,801 --> 00:24:26,608
but also to rescue me
from my prison of loneliness.
283
00:24:32,740 --> 00:24:34,617
Between Prague and Marienbad
284
00:24:34,743 --> 00:24:37,768
two uniformed police
motorcyclists tailed us.
285
00:24:37,942 --> 00:24:39,222
They rode side by side,
286
00:24:39,912 --> 00:24:43,111
like two phantoms,
appearing and disappearing
287
00:24:43,519 --> 00:24:47,107
as the road plunged into the valleys
and rose on the crests,
288
00:24:47,233 --> 00:24:52,118
from the top of which
you could see as far, said Marie...
289
00:24:52,435 --> 00:24:55,535
As far as the Bohemian shores
of the Baltic Sea.
290
00:24:56,253 --> 00:25:01,107
Which didn't strike me as absurd,
though quite impossible.
291
00:25:07,739 --> 00:25:11,361
Marienbad's hotels
twisted geography, too.
292
00:25:11,793 --> 00:25:14,754
The Pacifik, the Atlantik,
the Donbass,
293
00:25:14,880 --> 00:25:16,241
formerly the Florida.
294
00:25:16,399 --> 00:25:18,890
And the Caucase, formely the Weimar,
295
00:25:19,032 --> 00:25:20,991
by far the most imposing building.
296
00:25:24,186 --> 00:25:27,685
But drawing closer,
we saw it was shut
297
00:25:28,126 --> 00:25:30,014
and had been for some time.
298
00:25:35,126 --> 00:25:40,525
Curtains still hung in three
ground-floor windows, one broken.
299
00:25:41,446 --> 00:25:45,145
I felt they were hiding
something vital to me,
300
00:25:45,271 --> 00:25:48,905
something I might grasp
if only I could concentrate.
301
00:25:52,006 --> 00:25:53,863
Marie left me no time.
302
00:25:54,401 --> 00:25:57,077
She wanted photos
of the portico's Atlases,
303
00:25:57,431 --> 00:25:59,810
their faces especially afflicted,
304
00:26:01,587 --> 00:26:05,768
overwhelmed by the burden
of the ornate masonry,
305
00:26:05,894 --> 00:26:11,804
similar, said Marie, to the flab
people came to Marienbad to shed.
306
00:26:13,880 --> 00:26:18,631
Obesity was the great affliction
of the bourgeoisie in the 1800s.
307
00:26:19,239 --> 00:26:23,718
These buildings, dripping
with ornament, are a symptom of it,
308
00:26:24,053 --> 00:26:27,637
she told me that night
in our hotel room.
309
00:26:32,773 --> 00:26:37,463
"A cure at Marienbad is recommended
for overeaters who hate exercise,
310
00:26:37,766 --> 00:26:39,765
"if it doesn't upset their digestion.
311
00:26:40,913 --> 00:26:46,435
"Case of a 181-lb lymphatic Silesian:
dizziness, headaches, insomnia.
312
00:26:46,653 --> 00:26:51,099
"A month's cure in Marienbad:
now slim and free of morbid symptoms.
313
00:26:51,373 --> 00:26:55,932
"A Russian woman, weight 205 lbs,
lost 51 lbs in six weeks,
314
00:26:56,100 --> 00:26:59,219
"and left many pains in Marienbad."
315
00:26:59,673 --> 00:27:01,472
While Marie read
316
00:27:01,953 --> 00:27:05,351
I was flooded with an immense
feeling of happiness
317
00:27:06,033 --> 00:27:11,392
at the idea that I was like
these 19th-century patients.
318
00:27:11,953 --> 00:27:14,996
Like them, I had an insidious disease
319
00:27:15,173 --> 00:27:20,154
and, like them,
I might hope to be cured.
320
00:27:39,386 --> 00:27:43,043
Next morning Marie wanted to visit
the Great Colonnade
321
00:27:43,400 --> 00:27:47,306
then named the Soviet-Czechoslovak
Friendship Colonnade.
322
00:27:48,520 --> 00:27:51,919
All bare cast iron, with glass walls:
323
00:27:52,386 --> 00:27:55,692
the 200-metre colonnade
was devoid of mystery.
324
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:02,476
We went in.
325
00:28:03,466 --> 00:28:06,823
I looked down the full length
of the colonnade
326
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:10,845
and saw something I'd not expected.
327
00:28:11,886 --> 00:28:13,658
For some unknown reason,
328
00:28:14,079 --> 00:28:18,536
due to the terrain perhaps,
or a neo-Baroque trick,
329
00:28:18,720 --> 00:28:20,932
instead of running straight
330
00:28:21,266 --> 00:28:24,965
the colonnade was slightly curved,
like a railway line.
331
00:28:28,406 --> 00:28:32,017
When I saw this bend,
invisible from the outside,
332
00:28:32,653 --> 00:28:34,464
I was gripped by vertigo.
333
00:28:34,886 --> 00:28:36,704
Something inside me shifted
334
00:28:37,013 --> 00:28:39,966
or rather my whole being shifted.
335
00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:43,379
I was not inside myself but outside,
336
00:28:43,826 --> 00:28:46,527
as if I now had nothing
in common with myself.
337
00:28:50,879 --> 00:28:52,865
I saw Marie walk away
338
00:28:53,219 --> 00:28:55,058
to study some detail.
339
00:28:56,419 --> 00:29:00,277
"And so the rescuer leaves without
having rescued you," I thought,
340
00:29:00,586 --> 00:29:03,902
feeling even these words weren't mine.
341
00:29:21,960 --> 00:29:25,562
The next days increased
the distance between us.
342
00:29:25,940 --> 00:29:28,337
I felt hemmed in by mysteries.
343
00:29:29,213 --> 00:29:32,892
The buildings' facades
held sinister secrets about me.
344
00:29:33,466 --> 00:29:35,571
I was as decrepit as they.
345
00:29:36,660 --> 00:29:39,310
I took the photos Marie asked me to,
346
00:29:39,666 --> 00:29:41,604
but I struggled to concentrate.
347
00:29:42,459 --> 00:29:44,588
Whenever I peered through the lens
348
00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:47,997
I felt a presence beside me
349
00:29:48,431 --> 00:29:50,194
brushing against me
350
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:52,899
and that, due to some past mistake,
351
00:29:53,253 --> 00:29:55,762
I was trapped in another's life.
352
00:30:00,660 --> 00:30:03,946
Marie was baffled
by my sudden remoteness
353
00:30:04,740 --> 00:30:07,374
when I'd seemed
so happy the first night.
354
00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:11,479
I cannot repeat the words
she used to fetch me back.
355
00:30:11,673 --> 00:30:14,070
No one had ever spoken
to me that way.
356
00:30:15,026 --> 00:30:16,830
But I had no answer.
357
00:30:19,573 --> 00:30:21,764
It was the day before my birthday.
358
00:30:27,019 --> 00:30:30,898
Tomorrow, I'm going to give you
all my best wishes.
359
00:30:32,807 --> 00:30:35,798
It will be like wishing
the best to some machine
360
00:30:36,355 --> 00:30:38,208
whose operation is incomprehensible.
361
00:30:39,673 --> 00:30:43,626
I still wonder
what machine she had in mind.
362
00:30:44,466 --> 00:30:46,890
You are a frozen pond.
363
00:30:48,366 --> 00:30:50,296
You keep opening your mouth
364
00:30:50,423 --> 00:30:53,318
to say something,
to yell something even.
365
00:30:54,680 --> 00:30:55,859
And then...
366
00:30:56,806 --> 00:30:58,006
I hear no sound.
367
00:31:03,333 --> 00:31:06,145
We were like two actors on a stage.
368
00:31:07,206 --> 00:31:10,710
Her eyes changed colour
as the light faded.
369
00:31:11,847 --> 00:31:14,827
It was dark when we left the park.
370
00:31:23,093 --> 00:31:26,128
After Marienbad,
I returned to England.
371
00:31:26,693 --> 00:31:30,507
I took a teaching post
and continued my research.
372
00:31:31,320 --> 00:31:34,236
I noted down every one
of my ideas
373
00:31:35,159 --> 00:31:39,918
in as tiny writing as possible,
with increasingly fine pens,
374
00:31:40,533 --> 00:31:43,018
but still they filled
thousands of pages.
375
00:31:44,386 --> 00:31:46,921
My office at the institute
was too small.
376
00:31:47,766 --> 00:31:53,103
I filled many boxes and brought them
to this house I'd bought
377
00:31:53,553 --> 00:31:59,152
thinking I'd stop teaching one day
and complete my life's work here.
378
00:32:01,407 --> 00:32:04,642
For evenings on end,
I stared at the boxes,
379
00:32:04,807 --> 00:32:08,146
thinking of the title
I would give my study.
380
00:32:08,413 --> 00:32:11,692
"Madness
in 19th-Century Architecture."
381
00:32:12,040 --> 00:32:16,410
"Monuments and Collective Memory."
"Neo-Classicism or Barbarism."
382
00:32:16,833 --> 00:32:19,316
I wrote out drafts on the wall.
383
00:32:19,603 --> 00:32:21,892
I never had guests, anyway.
384
00:32:24,087 --> 00:32:25,718
Here are traces of one,
385
00:32:25,844 --> 00:32:29,635
an arrangement of thematic fragments
in alphabetical order.
386
00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:34,798
A grand watertight synthesis
was beyond me.
387
00:32:35,239 --> 00:32:36,609
Fragments are better.
388
00:32:37,306 --> 00:32:39,265
More room to breathe.
389
00:32:42,207 --> 00:32:45,585
Then one day
I finally retired from teaching.
390
00:32:46,799 --> 00:32:49,648
I opened my boxes... and...
391
00:32:50,446 --> 00:32:51,526
Nothing!
392
00:32:52,933 --> 00:32:57,270
Thousands of pages of clich�s,
all of which rang false.
393
00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:02,737
As if writing down my thoughts
had stripped them of all meaning.
394
00:33:03,440 --> 00:33:06,987
I saw the sentences
dissolve into single words,
395
00:33:07,113 --> 00:33:10,312
words into letters,
letters breaking into signs.
396
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:14,147
Finally, all that remained
was an inky spoor,
397
00:33:14,666 --> 00:33:17,627
gleaming in places like snail slime,
398
00:33:18,260 --> 00:33:20,487
filling me with shame and dread.
399
00:33:27,433 --> 00:33:32,165
Austerlitz's anatomy of depression
makes for painful reading.
400
00:33:32,786 --> 00:33:35,379
I can't focus, my attention wavers
401
00:33:35,505 --> 00:33:40,197
and I fall prey to the same stupor
he describes.
402
00:33:44,587 --> 00:33:47,008
Suddenly a word rouses me:
403
00:33:47,499 --> 00:33:49,107
"Caspian Sea."
404
00:33:51,140 --> 00:33:54,189
Until now,
aside from the trip to Marienbad,
405
00:33:54,368 --> 00:33:56,462
all the action has taken place
in Northern Europe.
406
00:33:56,726 --> 00:34:01,285
And now this Caspian Sea,
1,000 km to the east, in the Caucasus.
407
00:34:01,740 --> 00:34:03,036
Why?
408
00:34:03,726 --> 00:34:08,481
Short of answers,
I typed it into a search engine.
409
00:34:17,099 --> 00:34:21,588
If, at the time, someone had come
and led me away to be executed,
410
00:34:22,020 --> 00:34:26,782
I'd have followed meekly,
without a word, eyes closed.
411
00:34:27,633 --> 00:34:33,837
Like passengers on a ship
crossing the Caspian, so seasick
412
00:34:34,267 --> 00:34:39,696
that they offer no resistance
if threatened to be cast overboard.
413
00:34:41,880 --> 00:34:44,319
Marcel Proust, Time Regained,
414
00:34:44,633 --> 00:34:46,184
page 253.
415
00:34:46,579 --> 00:34:48,578
It's a direct quote.
416
00:34:49,053 --> 00:34:53,003
Austerlitz had made it his own,
without shame or inverted commas.
417
00:34:54,666 --> 00:34:57,644
Intrigued, I go back over
what I've already read.
418
00:34:58,326 --> 00:35:00,107
I find other borrowings:
419
00:35:00,833 --> 00:35:03,792
Kafka's ill-fated love story
in Marienbad.
420
00:35:05,833 --> 00:35:10,755
Walter Benjamin, and his gigantic,
unfinished study of the 19th century
421
00:35:11,067 --> 00:35:16,174
where he notes that insurgents
shot at the Paris clock tower in 1830
422
00:35:16,346 --> 00:35:18,134
to halt the course of time,
423
00:35:18,500 --> 00:35:22,387
as did the child Austerlitz mentions
who, to avoid school,
424
00:35:22,513 --> 00:35:26,209
shoots the clock in the family manor
to smithereens.
425
00:35:33,139 --> 00:35:37,663
There's a stream of echoes
rand quotes throughout the book.
426
00:35:38,139 --> 00:35:41,342
Austerlitz's voice is a chorus
of other authors' voices.
427
00:35:42,155 --> 00:35:43,699
And regarding his sincerity,
428
00:35:43,832 --> 00:35:46,578
after all we live
in cities we did not build.
429
00:35:47,075 --> 00:35:48,755
All the better if, after Proust,
430
00:35:49,002 --> 00:35:53,386
Austerlitz then borrows
from Wittgenstein to tell his disarray.
431
00:35:56,926 --> 00:35:59,727
If language were an ancient city,
432
00:36:01,793 --> 00:36:04,807
a labyrinth of alleys and squares,
433
00:36:05,733 --> 00:36:09,594
a tight network
of neighbourhoods, some old,
434
00:36:10,053 --> 00:36:12,162
some torn down and rebuilt,
435
00:36:13,060 --> 00:36:16,459
sprawling ever farther
into the countryside,
436
00:36:20,699 --> 00:36:23,823
I'd have been
the long-absent inhabitant
437
00:36:24,799 --> 00:36:26,956
who could no longer find his way around,
438
00:36:27,860 --> 00:36:30,699
had no idea what a bus stop was for,
439
00:36:31,860 --> 00:36:33,584
or a back yard,
440
00:36:34,144 --> 00:36:37,125
an intersection,
a boulevard, a bridge.
441
00:36:38,686 --> 00:36:40,369
And here is my great work.
442
00:36:41,375 --> 00:36:45,101
My "Profane Temples"
are in the apple tree,
443
00:36:45,499 --> 00:36:49,139
my "Glass Architecture:
Mirror of Amnesia�
444
00:36:49,533 --> 00:36:50,792
among the leeks
445
00:36:50,999 --> 00:36:53,430
and the bush on the left
446
00:36:53,680 --> 00:36:59,316
looks just like "The Interior
and the Trace: Version One."
447
00:37:08,233 --> 00:37:12,631
One night, I gathered up
every scrap of my writings
448
00:37:13,266 --> 00:37:15,605
and threw them on the compost heap,
449
00:37:15,731 --> 00:37:19,075
burying the pages
under alternate layers
450
00:37:19,422 --> 00:37:21,815
of dirt and rotting leaves.
451
00:37:22,286 --> 00:37:26,024
Then I tidied up, repainted the walls
452
00:37:26,880 --> 00:37:29,930
and felt relieved
of the burden of my life.
453
00:37:35,973 --> 00:37:39,725
I read slowly,
occasionally putting the book aside,
454
00:37:39,851 --> 00:37:42,318
resuming a few days later,
then stopping again.
455
00:37:43,206 --> 00:37:46,485
The book suffers and comes unbound,
with blocks of pages
456
00:37:46,739 --> 00:37:50,191
resembling geological strata
that was formed over time.
457
00:37:53,200 --> 00:37:57,518
Excavating these strata,
I discover long-buried objects.
458
00:37:58,047 --> 00:38:00,705
Like this burial pit
of an old lunatic asylum
459
00:38:00,873 --> 00:38:03,948
found beneath
Liverpool Street station.
460
00:38:06,215 --> 00:38:09,292
Austerlitz is fascinated to it
and takes pictures.
461
00:38:09,821 --> 00:38:11,639
Death permeates his story.
462
00:38:16,859 --> 00:38:19,955
During a short stay at
St Clement's mental hospital,
463
00:38:20,262 --> 00:38:24,394
he stares for hours
at an abandoned cemetery below.
464
00:38:49,767 --> 00:38:53,926
Each night, insomnia drives him
into the streets of London
465
00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:58,519
where he sees the ghosts
of the millions buried underground.
466
00:39:03,450 --> 00:39:06,519
His steps always take him
to Liverpool Street station,
467
00:39:07,336 --> 00:39:09,195
where, one day at dawn,
468
00:39:09,321 --> 00:39:12,469
he sees an Indian street-sweeper
in a white turban
469
00:39:12,689 --> 00:39:14,759
disappear behind
a construction fence.
470
00:39:16,180 --> 00:39:19,338
Without knowing why,
Austerlitz follows him.
471
00:39:25,746 --> 00:39:31,018
As a child, I learned a little poem,
"The Crossing Sweeper", by heart.
472
00:39:33,133 --> 00:39:35,288
"A Hindu, in a turban white,
473
00:39:35,467 --> 00:39:37,628
"plied his broom, left and right,
474
00:39:38,493 --> 00:39:42,077
"so that a trip across the street
would not soil the lady's feet."
475
00:39:44,719 --> 00:39:46,237
A pathfinder.
476
00:39:48,600 --> 00:39:49,819
I followed him.
477
00:39:53,366 --> 00:39:57,845
I found myself in a disused
waiting room
478
00:39:58,926 --> 00:40:04,931
like an actor who arrives onstage
to discover he's forgotten the lines
479
00:40:05,333 --> 00:40:07,218
of the part he has played so often.
480
00:40:09,526 --> 00:40:13,674
The ceiling seemed to be suspended
at a prodigious height.
481
00:40:15,106 --> 00:40:18,822
In the blink of an eye
I saw vast chasms open.
482
00:40:19,493 --> 00:40:23,955
Rows of pillars and columns
as far as the eye could see.
483
00:40:25,187 --> 00:40:29,135
Staircases of stone and wood,
walkways.
484
00:40:30,153 --> 00:40:33,117
Drawbridges spanning
dizzying abysses.
485
00:40:33,513 --> 00:40:36,088
Once, up on high, I thought I saw
486
00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:40,862
a lacy cupola bordered
by a fern-covered balustrade.
487
00:40:41,326 --> 00:40:44,405
I didn't know whether I was in a ruin
488
00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:48,317
or inside the skeleton
of an unfinished structure.
489
00:40:51,733 --> 00:40:54,452
It is hard to picture
the space he describes.
490
00:40:55,139 --> 00:40:56,710
I recognise parts of it:
491
00:40:57,064 --> 00:40:58,831
the ferns on Roman ruins,
492
00:40:59,160 --> 00:41:00,884
Piranesi's etchings of prisons,
493
00:41:01,193 --> 00:41:05,708
where, as Austerlitz says,
"vaults interlock like memories".
494
00:41:11,388 --> 00:41:14,519
Then all these
grandiose visions shrink
495
00:41:14,799 --> 00:41:19,570
until all that remains is an image
so simple even I can draw it.
496
00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:40,676
This is what Austerlitz says
he saw in the disused waiting room.
497
00:41:41,506 --> 00:41:44,314
The preacher Elias and his wife,
498
00:41:44,806 --> 00:41:47,824
and the child
they have come to meet,
499
00:41:48,246 --> 00:41:50,437
whom Austerlitz immediately
recognises.
500
00:41:57,470 --> 00:42:00,384
I realised I had sat
in this very waiting room
501
00:42:00,993 --> 00:42:04,026
when I arrived in London
half a century ago.
502
00:42:07,892 --> 00:42:12,162
For the first time I remembered
all that I'd tried to forget.
503
00:42:14,018 --> 00:42:16,775
The new clothes
that made me miserable.
504
00:42:17,052 --> 00:42:20,589
The inexplicable disappearance
of my little green knapsack.
505
00:42:21,760 --> 00:42:24,265
The slow fading of my native tongue.
506
00:42:25,513 --> 00:42:27,570
But what that tongue was,
507
00:42:28,551 --> 00:42:30,291
I still couldn't say.
508
00:42:34,753 --> 00:42:38,376
I understood how poorly trained
I was in the art of memory
509
00:42:38,746 --> 00:42:41,494
and, conversely,
how hard I had endeavoured
510
00:42:41,620 --> 00:42:47,071
to forget everything associated
with my unknown origins.
511
00:42:49,392 --> 00:42:54,106
For example, I knew nothing
- incredible as it seems today -
512
00:42:54,232 --> 00:42:56,125
of the Nazi conquest of Europe,
513
00:42:56,542 --> 00:42:58,596
and the slavery state they built.
514
00:42:58,722 --> 00:43:01,469
Nothing of the persecutions
I'd escaped.
515
00:43:02,087 --> 00:43:06,530
For me, world history ended
in the late 19th century.
516
00:43:07,207 --> 00:43:10,459
I ventured no farther,
despite all the signs in my studies
517
00:43:10,585 --> 00:43:13,664
pointing towards
the disaster to come.
518
00:43:15,020 --> 00:43:17,099
My interest in architecture
519
00:43:17,700 --> 00:43:21,298
was simply a way
of walling up my memories
520
00:43:21,853 --> 00:43:23,885
and protecting myself from my past.
521
00:43:24,039 --> 00:43:28,085
And... like fortification builders
522
00:43:28,305 --> 00:43:30,712
outrun by progress in ballistics,
523
00:43:30,933 --> 00:43:35,735
I had to keep extending
my defences, my amnesia.
524
00:43:40,187 --> 00:43:44,026
Until the growing demands
of this censorship
525
00:43:44,973 --> 00:43:48,945
led to my nervous breakdown
in summer 1992.
526
00:43:50,673 --> 00:43:54,232
But I still had absolutely
no idea where I came from,
527
00:43:54,799 --> 00:43:56,368
who I used to be.
528
00:44:09,686 --> 00:44:13,151
The jigsaw pieces
somehow fall into place,
529
00:44:13,807 --> 00:44:18,774
as locomotive smoke
mingles with that of fires to come.
530
00:44:22,733 --> 00:44:24,932
The final piece is a train.
531
00:44:25,173 --> 00:44:31,458
In the summer of 1939 it left
German-occupied Prague for London,
532
00:44:32,013 --> 00:44:36,676
carrying Czech Jewish children
that Britain had agreed to take in,
533
00:44:36,906 --> 00:44:39,169
saving them from the Nazis,
534
00:44:39,306 --> 00:44:40,944
but without their parents.
535
00:44:46,240 --> 00:44:48,242
Austerlitz happens to hear
a radio programme
536
00:44:48,368 --> 00:44:52,355
about one of these children,
also adopted by an English family,
537
00:44:52,686 --> 00:44:55,697
he realises that he was
in that particular trip
538
00:44:56,097 --> 00:44:58,375
and also came from Prague.
539
00:45:13,973 --> 00:45:18,881
A single page divides Prague
from what's gone before.
540
00:45:19,485 --> 00:45:22,924
To the left, darkness, confusion,
541
00:45:23,186 --> 00:45:25,387
London and its graveyards.
542
00:45:27,020 --> 00:45:31,259
To the right, the cobbles of Prague
- where Austerlitz swiftly heads -
543
00:45:31,627 --> 00:45:34,327
their strange patterns and small size,
544
00:45:34,514 --> 00:45:37,403
suited to a city that fears no riots.
545
00:45:43,120 --> 00:45:46,039
The uneven cobblestones
are firm beneath his feet,
546
00:45:46,333 --> 00:45:49,443
awaken his numbed senses
and jolt his memory.
547
00:45:50,967 --> 00:45:55,274
Mine too. I see the same cobbles
in photos of my childhood.
548
00:45:58,140 --> 00:46:01,339
And suddenly I see the book
in an entirely new light,
549
00:46:01,586 --> 00:46:04,015
spawning the absurd idea
550
00:46:04,193 --> 00:46:06,648
that it was written just for me.
551
00:46:12,946 --> 00:46:16,771
The evening I arrived, I saw Prague
from the castle terraces.
552
00:46:18,373 --> 00:46:22,612
The big television tower
glowed above the city.
553
00:46:24,338 --> 00:46:28,619
As a boy, I was riveted
by the names of the stations
554
00:46:28,745 --> 00:46:31,492
on the old radio dial
in the Welsh manse.
555
00:46:32,319 --> 00:46:34,783
Monte-Ceneri, Berom�nster,
556
00:46:35,105 --> 00:46:37,714
Hilversum, Beograd.
557
00:46:40,580 --> 00:46:44,777
That evening,
I needed no radio to hear the voices.
558
00:46:44,903 --> 00:46:47,629
That float through the air
after nightfall,
559
00:46:47,769 --> 00:46:51,912
flying, like bats, only at night,
shunning daylight.
560
00:46:53,613 --> 00:46:56,888
I saw their jagged lines in the sky
561
00:46:57,699 --> 00:46:59,785
and dreamed of joining them.
562
00:47:08,220 --> 00:47:12,349
The next day, I went to the state
archives in Karmelitska Street.
563
00:47:13,027 --> 00:47:16,024
From the outside,
it looked like a mansion.
564
00:47:17,186 --> 00:47:20,585
But what I found inside
was such a surprise
565
00:47:21,093 --> 00:47:23,026
that I forgot why I'd come
566
00:47:23,453 --> 00:47:25,566
and began taking photographs,
567
00:47:26,893 --> 00:47:28,259
as I once had.
568
00:47:31,973 --> 00:47:35,732
A glass dome
above a huge inner courtyard.
569
00:47:37,153 --> 00:47:40,362
A grand staircase of a kind
I'd never seen before,
570
00:47:40,513 --> 00:47:43,198
leading to three levels of catwalks,
571
00:47:43,324 --> 00:47:47,087
reminding me of a prison,
a monastery,
572
00:47:47,700 --> 00:47:50,447
an opera house and a lunatic asylum.
573
00:47:50,573 --> 00:47:53,074
All of these images
intermingled in my mind.
574
00:47:53,835 --> 00:47:55,767
Looking up at the catwalks,
575
00:47:56,300 --> 00:48:00,524
I thought I saw a crowd of people
waving hats and handkerchiefs,
576
00:48:00,867 --> 00:48:03,708
like passengers on a steamer
sailing out to sea.
577
00:48:05,486 --> 00:48:07,322
A warden appeared.
578
00:48:07,893 --> 00:48:11,641
He didn't understand English,
but a clerk did.
579
00:48:14,127 --> 00:48:16,606
She took me up to her office
on the 3rd floor.
580
00:48:17,833 --> 00:48:20,986
I told her what I was looking for,
and she went out.
581
00:48:22,766 --> 00:48:27,485
Behind the plants, there were
Socialist-era photos of the building
582
00:48:27,660 --> 00:48:30,244
as well as 19th-century pictures.
583
00:48:31,199 --> 00:48:33,049
It was a military barracks then,
584
00:48:33,316 --> 00:48:36,354
and before that,
the Central Prague post office
585
00:48:36,480 --> 00:48:39,184
and, at the very beginning, a church.
586
00:48:41,293 --> 00:48:45,042
The clerk returned
with a list of every Austerlitz
587
00:48:45,168 --> 00:48:47,442
who'd lived in Prague
in the last two centuries.
588
00:48:47,993 --> 00:48:49,440
By 1938
589
00:48:50,206 --> 00:48:51,787
only seven remained.
590
00:48:52,119 --> 00:48:53,118
Six men:
591
00:48:54,055 --> 00:48:57,281
Austerlitz Leopold,
Austerlitz Viktor,
592
00:48:57,407 --> 00:48:58,566
Austerlitz Tomas,
593
00:48:58,773 --> 00:49:00,132
Austerlitz Jeronym,
594
00:49:00,266 --> 00:49:03,625
Austerlitz Edward,
Austerlitz Frantisek.
595
00:49:03,925 --> 00:49:05,398
And one woman:
596
00:49:05,773 --> 00:49:08,172
Austerlitzova Agata.
597
00:49:16,769 --> 00:49:19,737
Jacques Austerlitz visits
the nearest address first:
598
00:49:19,863 --> 00:49:22,035
that of Agata Austerlitzova.
599
00:49:22,795 --> 00:49:24,889
On the way there
everything beckons to him:
600
00:49:25,256 --> 00:49:27,947
a blue dog on a door lintel,
601
00:49:28,521 --> 00:49:33,049
a lightning bolt on the electricity
meter at 12 Sporkova Street.
602
00:49:34,462 --> 00:49:38,218
On the top floor,
I rang at the door on the right.
603
00:49:39,773 --> 00:49:42,132
An elderly woman opened.
604
00:49:43,859 --> 00:49:46,827
I'd learnt one sentence in Czech...
605
00:49:49,786 --> 00:49:52,265
"Sorry to disturb you.
606
00:49:52,660 --> 00:49:56,699
"I'm looking for
Mrs Agata Austerlitzova."
607
00:49:59,427 --> 00:50:02,855
In alarm, she covered her face
with her hands,
608
00:50:03,119 --> 00:50:05,878
hands that I immediately recognised.
609
00:50:06,160 --> 00:50:09,399
Then she peered at me
through her fingers.
610
00:50:09,726 --> 00:50:12,805
She whispered in French:
"Jacquot!"
611
00:50:13,353 --> 00:50:16,272
Yes, Jacquot, the diminutive of Jacques.
612
00:50:17,013 --> 00:50:18,172
"Jacquot...
613
00:50:19,173 --> 00:50:20,772
"Is it really you?"
614
00:50:25,960 --> 00:50:28,408
Nothing had changed
since my childhood.
615
00:50:29,413 --> 00:50:32,866
All had stayed the same
throughout my other life,
616
00:50:32,998 --> 00:50:34,988
whose long years now engulfed me,
617
00:50:35,120 --> 00:50:37,599
because, Vera told me,
618
00:50:37,766 --> 00:50:42,269
since she'd lost me
and my mother, who was like a sister,
619
00:50:42,395 --> 00:50:45,029
she couldn't bear
the slightest change.
620
00:50:47,933 --> 00:50:51,572
I don't know whose story
tumbled out first.
621
00:50:52,220 --> 00:50:54,006
We spoke mainly
622
00:50:54,146 --> 00:50:56,071
of my father, Maximilian,
623
00:50:56,545 --> 00:50:58,992
a Czech Social Democrat official,
624
00:50:59,499 --> 00:51:01,618
and my mother, Agata,
625
00:51:02,293 --> 00:51:06,321
an actress who worshipped
Jacques Offenbach -
626
00:51:06,680 --> 00:51:10,703
hence my unusual first name
for a Czech.
627
00:51:11,926 --> 00:51:15,256
When I was born,
Vera, still a student,
628
00:51:15,440 --> 00:51:19,031
offered to babysit for me.
629
00:51:22,680 --> 00:51:25,358
When we returned from our walks
630
00:51:26,260 --> 00:51:29,068
you'd stand at this window
631
00:51:29,386 --> 00:51:32,271
and watch the humpbacked tailor
632
00:51:32,787 --> 00:51:36,208
in his workshop
in the building opposite.
633
00:51:38,306 --> 00:51:41,185
While I made you a snack
634
00:51:41,653 --> 00:51:45,160
you would describe
his every movement.
635
00:51:47,747 --> 00:51:50,988
You had strange powers
of observation.
636
00:51:54,813 --> 00:51:59,362
At bedtime, I would read you
your favourite book.
637
00:51:59,848 --> 00:52:02,888
It was about the four seasons.
638
00:52:05,467 --> 00:52:08,255
When we got to winter
639
00:52:08,619 --> 00:52:10,878
you would always ask...
640
00:52:21,653 --> 00:52:24,175
"When everything
is covered with snow
641
00:52:24,967 --> 00:52:27,024
"how do the squirrels
642
00:52:27,320 --> 00:52:30,399
"find the spot where they buried
643
00:52:30,637 --> 00:52:32,081
"their hazelnuts?"
644
00:52:35,073 --> 00:52:37,314
That question obsessed you.
645
00:52:39,680 --> 00:52:42,218
How do squirrels remember?
646
00:52:44,249 --> 00:52:48,016
How do we remember?
647
00:52:52,893 --> 00:52:54,492
She spoke in French,
648
00:52:54,733 --> 00:52:57,711
but sometimes unconsciously
switched into Czech.
649
00:52:58,066 --> 00:53:02,318
I'd never heard
or spoken this language,
650
00:53:02,846 --> 00:53:04,422
but I understood her,
651
00:53:05,586 --> 00:53:09,218
like a deaf man whose hearing
is miraculously restored.
652
00:53:10,886 --> 00:53:14,932
The tailor, said Vera,
often came out in the evening
653
00:53:15,506 --> 00:53:19,545
to empty the hot embers
from his heavy iron.
654
00:53:20,960 --> 00:53:22,949
And now, as night had fallen,
655
00:53:24,039 --> 00:53:26,062
I locked out the window
656
00:53:27,040 --> 00:53:30,283
and saw the sparks
flying in the night.
657
00:54:06,706 --> 00:54:09,385
In autumn 1938, Vera said,
658
00:54:10,246 --> 00:54:14,805
Agata was cast in her dream role:
Olympia, in The Tales of Hoffmann,
659
00:54:14,931 --> 00:54:16,471
at the Estates Theatre.
660
00:54:17,264 --> 00:54:22,330
I bribed the guard to unlock the door
to the empty auditorium.
661
00:54:24,353 --> 00:54:27,092
On the stage shone a single bulb,
662
00:54:27,339 --> 00:54:30,259
left on between performances,
I was told later on,
663
00:54:30,563 --> 00:54:34,529
to keep ghosts away
from the stage without actors.
664
00:54:34,720 --> 00:54:39,525
Others say it gives the ghosts
a chance to act too.
665
00:54:41,646 --> 00:54:44,098
At one point I thought I saw,
666
00:54:44,226 --> 00:54:46,697
poking out
from under the curtain,
667
00:54:46,946 --> 00:54:50,785
the toe of a sky-blue shoe
with silver sequins.
668
00:54:52,033 --> 00:54:53,392
That evening
669
00:54:53,546 --> 00:54:58,745
Vera told me that Agata wore
the same blue shoes to play Olympia.
670
00:54:59,113 --> 00:55:01,597
I thought my head would burst.
671
00:55:14,466 --> 00:55:20,173
Yesterday I came across this
in an old book.
672
00:55:21,730 --> 00:55:24,957
It looks like a provincial theatre.
673
00:55:25,810 --> 00:55:30,476
The man and woman
might be your parents
674
00:55:31,250 --> 00:55:33,769
or your mother with her impresario.
675
00:55:34,170 --> 00:55:36,264
Or maybe complete strangers.
676
00:55:37,250 --> 00:55:40,609
The photo's too small
to say for sure.
677
00:55:47,410 --> 00:55:51,201
But I have absolutely no doubts
about this one.
678
00:55:51,696 --> 00:55:52,935
It's you.
679
00:55:53,410 --> 00:55:57,401
Six months before you left Prague.
680
00:56:00,250 --> 00:56:02,221
It says on the back:
681
00:56:10,210 --> 00:56:14,089
"Jacquot in his pageboy costume."
682
00:56:14,930 --> 00:56:18,256
I've scrutinized it closely since.
683
00:56:26,516 --> 00:56:27,635
It is me.
684
00:56:28,970 --> 00:56:31,877
But the image arouses
absolutely no memory,
685
00:56:32,457 --> 00:56:33,864
no emotion in me.
686
00:56:36,249 --> 00:56:39,168
Only a sort of blind panic.
687
00:56:41,810 --> 00:56:44,609
The child has come to claim his due.
688
00:56:57,650 --> 00:57:01,529
This flow of memories, mixing
the voices of Austerlitz and Vera,
689
00:57:01,690 --> 00:57:03,535
becomes hard to follow.
690
00:57:05,163 --> 00:57:08,008
Late in the evening,
Austerlitz interrupts his tale
691
00:57:08,290 --> 00:57:10,883
and invites the narrator
to stay the night.
692
00:57:12,023 --> 00:57:15,149
In the guest room are five boxes
693
00:57:15,316 --> 00:57:19,410
and an old radio playing
Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier.
694
00:57:22,690 --> 00:57:25,361
In each box a tattered moth,
695
00:57:26,450 --> 00:57:29,954
as translucent as the book's photos.
696
00:57:31,241 --> 00:57:33,249
Ghosts, rather than images,
697
00:57:33,616 --> 00:57:37,652
memories flattened
like pressed flowers,
698
00:57:37,845 --> 00:57:41,479
like the wood anemones
on the slopes of the parks of Prague
699
00:57:41,650 --> 00:57:43,706
where Austerlitz played as a child.
700
00:57:55,109 --> 00:57:57,988
"The Tales of Hoffman"
701
00:57:58,210 --> 00:58:02,830
finished rehearsing in October 1938,
702
00:58:04,230 --> 00:58:08,429
as the Germans
were annexing the Sudetenland.
703
00:58:10,650 --> 00:58:12,637
Your father had fought
704
00:58:12,830 --> 00:58:16,444
to make Czechoslovakia
a bastion of resistance
705
00:58:16,570 --> 00:58:18,809
in the heart of fascist Europe.
706
00:58:21,170 --> 00:58:24,077
On 14 March 1939
707
00:58:24,624 --> 00:58:26,724
he bade us farewell
708
00:58:27,083 --> 00:58:28,791
and fled to Paris
709
00:58:28,924 --> 00:58:32,816
to escape imminent arrest.
710
00:58:33,563 --> 00:58:35,221
The next morning
711
00:58:35,428 --> 00:58:38,281
the Germans marched into Prague.
712
00:58:41,908 --> 00:58:44,935
Silence fell on the city.
713
00:58:45,703 --> 00:58:47,622
German law and order.
714
00:58:51,610 --> 00:58:54,687
Cars abruptly had to drive
715
00:58:54,813 --> 00:58:57,294
on the right-hand side of the street.
716
00:59:00,037 --> 00:59:07,165
And every time I saw a car
driving on the right of the street,
717
00:59:07,650 --> 00:59:14,005
I knew that we were living
in a world out of kilter.
718
00:59:16,592 --> 00:59:19,450
[ OFFICE HOURS FOR JEWS: 8-9 a.m. only ]
719
00:59:19,450 --> 00:59:22,131
[ OFFICE HOURS FOR JEWS: 8-9 a.m. only ]
For Agata, it was much worse.
720
00:59:22,690 --> 00:59:28,549
As a Jew, she was only allowed
to go out at certain times of day.
721
00:59:29,010 --> 00:59:32,449
[ Jews are banned from Prague's district forests ]
She was banned from the stage,
722
00:59:32,850 --> 00:59:36,135
entering parks and gardens,
723
00:59:36,770 --> 00:59:40,091
[ Ban on selling caps to Jews ]
from using a public telephone.
724
00:59:41,255 --> 00:59:46,608
[ Use of laundries forbidden to Jews ]
725
00:59:49,730 --> 00:59:51,649
In the summer of 1939
726
00:59:51,970 --> 00:59:54,490
she managed to send you away
727
00:59:54,616 --> 01:00:00,448
on one of the few trains taking
Jewish children from Prague to London.
728
01:00:01,403 --> 01:00:03,651
I went to the station with you.
729
01:00:06,723 --> 01:00:09,602
Then came Agata's turn.
730
01:00:10,570 --> 01:00:13,369
One day in winter 1942,
731
01:00:14,463 --> 01:00:17,022
at three in the morning,
732
01:00:17,210 --> 01:00:20,904
two officials from the Jewish Council
733
01:00:23,096 --> 01:00:26,911
- they always came at night,
in pairs -
734
01:00:28,403 --> 01:00:32,782
brought her an order for...
735
01:00:38,530 --> 01:00:42,856
... for her transfer
to the Terezin Ghetto.
736
01:00:43,723 --> 01:00:48,997
With a detailed list of instructions
for what to do,
737
01:00:49,990 --> 01:00:54,104
prepare and... take with her.
738
01:00:57,050 --> 01:00:58,910
Six days later,
739
01:01:00,290 --> 01:01:05,289
we put her luggage
on a sled before dawn
740
01:01:06,330 --> 01:01:11,346
and went to the assembly place
for Jewish deportees.
741
01:01:14,690 --> 01:01:16,659
As we approached
742
01:01:17,450 --> 01:01:23,515
we saw little groups of people
emerging from the darkness
743
01:01:24,037 --> 01:01:26,436
and heading for the same place.
744
01:01:29,410 --> 01:01:35,116
We reached the entrance,
which was lit by a single bulb.
745
01:01:37,916 --> 01:01:41,915
I waited with Agata
for several hours
746
01:01:44,050 --> 01:01:46,089
in the jostling crowd
747
01:01:47,490 --> 01:01:48,744
and then
748
01:01:50,810 --> 01:01:52,510
she went in
749
01:01:54,897 --> 01:01:57,998
where no Czech could follow her.
750
01:02:00,069 --> 01:02:01,468
That night
751
01:02:01,890 --> 01:02:06,409
a man from the Office
for Confiscated Jewish Goods
752
01:02:06,610 --> 01:02:11,289
came to seal off your apartment.
753
01:02:12,490 --> 01:02:17,329
Then removal men came
to take everything away.
754
01:02:17,890 --> 01:02:21,329
The furniture,
the books, the carpets,
755
01:02:21,810 --> 01:02:23,129
the house plants.
756
01:02:24,650 --> 01:02:27,744
I tried to save a few pictures.
757
01:02:29,130 --> 01:02:31,217
Your family photos.
758
01:02:33,490 --> 01:02:36,388
They wouldn't let me in.
759
01:02:37,690 --> 01:02:44,096
Then came a worker
from the sanitation department.
760
01:02:44,570 --> 01:02:47,329
I still see him in my dreams,
761
01:02:49,130 --> 01:02:55,974
fumigating the empty rooms
with white and toxic clouds.
762
01:03:28,090 --> 01:03:30,516
The train from Prague
stopped at Lovosice.
763
01:03:31,030 --> 01:03:33,066
No taxis at the station.
764
01:03:33,970 --> 01:03:36,288
It was an hour and a half walk
to the fort.
765
01:03:36,850 --> 01:03:41,401
I followed the road, expecting
to see the huge fortifications
766
01:03:41,527 --> 01:03:43,181
loom above the horizon.
767
01:03:43,770 --> 01:03:47,702
But the fort is nestled
in a marshy hollow
768
01:03:48,170 --> 01:03:50,219
and appears only at the last minute.
769
01:04:02,142 --> 01:04:05,781
When Agata was deported here in 1942
770
01:04:06,292 --> 01:04:10,609
60,000 Jews were
crowded into the old barracks,
771
01:04:11,790 --> 01:04:13,589
which were now empty.
772
01:04:16,215 --> 01:04:18,962
The geometric grid of streets
773
01:04:19,610 --> 01:04:21,861
reminded me of The City of the Sun,
774
01:04:22,090 --> 01:04:24,364
Campanella's utopian city,
775
01:04:24,490 --> 01:04:29,089
surrounded by seven walls
and ruled by a metaphysician.
776
01:04:29,415 --> 01:04:35,154
A model world governed by reason
and laws believed to be eternal.
777
01:04:38,210 --> 01:04:41,641
Vera told me
Terezin was an ordinary town again.
778
01:04:41,767 --> 01:04:44,441
But I saw no one that morning.
779
01:04:44,730 --> 01:04:47,364
Anyway, I couldn't imagine
780
01:04:47,490 --> 01:04:51,528
people making their homes
in these shabby buildings
781
01:04:51,756 --> 01:04:53,595
with bricked-up windows.
782
01:04:59,423 --> 01:05:04,542
Most sinister were these portals,
which seemed to conceal a darkness
783
01:05:04,690 --> 01:05:07,049
where none had ever ventured.
784
01:05:11,378 --> 01:05:13,609
This morning, before waking,
785
01:05:14,210 --> 01:05:16,711
I saw inside one of these barracks,
786
01:05:18,330 --> 01:05:21,769
strung from floor to ceiling
with cobwebs.
787
01:05:24,571 --> 01:05:26,057
In my semi-sleep,
788
01:05:26,390 --> 01:05:30,334
I tried to fix
this image made of grey dust,
789
01:05:31,147 --> 01:05:35,369
striving... to make out
what was hidden there.
790
01:05:37,243 --> 01:05:39,565
But a second image intruded.
791
01:05:40,770 --> 01:05:45,304
The Antikos Bazar
on Terezin's main square.
792
01:05:46,850 --> 01:05:49,787
I waited in vain
for someone to open up.
793
01:05:51,401 --> 01:05:56,245
The things in the shop window
had outlived their owners.
794
01:05:57,118 --> 01:06:01,435
A stuffed squirrel stared at me
with its glass eye.
795
01:06:01,957 --> 01:06:05,502
Timeless, frozen forever.
796
01:06:11,010 --> 01:06:14,530
I spent the rest of the day
at the Ghetto Museum,
797
01:06:15,170 --> 01:06:18,890
scrutinizing the surprising number
of photographs,
798
01:06:19,410 --> 01:06:23,168
searching for a familiar face
that would recall my mother.
799
01:06:44,930 --> 01:06:48,529
Back in Prague,
I went to say goodbye to Vera.
800
01:06:53,596 --> 01:06:58,475
I won't go with you to the station
tomorrow.
801
01:07:03,130 --> 01:07:06,741
I went with Agata and you
802
01:07:07,682 --> 01:07:10,089
the day you left for London
803
01:07:10,770 --> 01:07:13,436
with your little green knapsack.
804
01:07:16,210 --> 01:07:18,351
Once your train was out of sight,
805
01:07:18,970 --> 01:07:22,089
Agata turned to me and said,
806
01:07:23,610 --> 01:07:28,203
"Last summer,
we went to Marienbad from here.
807
01:07:29,410 --> 01:07:30,929
"And now...
808
01:07:31,730 --> 01:07:33,413
"where are we going?"
809
01:07:44,996 --> 01:07:47,227
And I saw myself in Marienbad.
810
01:07:47,914 --> 01:07:52,930
Not in 1938, with Vera and
my parents - that memory was gone -
811
01:07:53,557 --> 01:07:55,609
but in August 1972
812
01:07:56,822 --> 01:08:02,506
when my apparent turn of fortune
struck me with blind panic.
813
01:08:18,770 --> 01:08:20,529
I returned to London.
814
01:08:20,850 --> 01:08:23,009
I had come by plane,
I went back by train,
815
01:08:23,236 --> 01:08:25,675
from the same station as in 1939,
816
01:08:26,289 --> 01:08:29,768
crossing Germany
like the terrified child I'd been.
817
01:08:30,402 --> 01:08:32,336
The two journeys merged into one.
818
01:08:32,969 --> 01:08:35,089
The adult looked out the window
819
01:08:35,429 --> 01:08:39,388
and the child saw
the endless dark forest,
820
01:08:39,543 --> 01:08:42,076
storing away all the nightmares
821
01:08:42,570 --> 01:08:44,669
that would haunt him his whole life.
822
01:08:57,883 --> 01:09:01,107
Then I learned the Nazis
had made a propaganda film
823
01:09:01,736 --> 01:09:04,472
shot in the Ghetto in late 1944.
824
01:09:06,789 --> 01:09:09,778
It was staged on a scenario by the SS.
825
01:09:12,810 --> 01:09:16,823
Vera thought that by then
Agata had been sent to Auschwitz.
826
01:09:17,370 --> 01:09:20,464
But I was sure to find her
in one of these pictures.
827
01:09:21,850 --> 01:09:23,717
I obtained a copy.
828
01:09:24,624 --> 01:09:26,864
I watched it over and over.
829
01:09:27,790 --> 01:09:29,377
But it moved too fast.
830
01:09:30,096 --> 01:09:32,260
I didn't have enough time
to recognize somebody
831
01:09:32,454 --> 01:09:34,918
in the series of fleeting
faces.
832
01:09:42,276 --> 01:09:45,342
I had a slow-motion copy made
833
01:09:46,182 --> 01:09:50,449
and watched it endlessly,
discovering previously hidden things.
834
01:10:49,591 --> 01:10:53,003
The inmates put on a piece
Pavel Haas wrote at Terezin.
835
01:10:54,596 --> 01:10:58,795
100 people were conscripted
as an audience.
836
01:11:07,383 --> 01:11:08,596
There!
837
01:11:09,516 --> 01:11:11,336
This woman's face...
838
01:11:14,450 --> 01:11:16,120
It's hard to see.
839
01:11:17,650 --> 01:11:20,409
I can't remove the numbers.
840
01:11:21,170 --> 01:11:23,529
But the necklace looked familiar.
841
01:11:24,765 --> 01:11:27,689
I went back to Prague to show Vera.
842
01:11:28,290 --> 01:11:29,769
She wasn't at all sure.
843
01:11:30,930 --> 01:11:33,748
She told me to go to the
National Theatre archives.
844
01:11:35,250 --> 01:11:37,368
I spent several days there.
845
01:11:39,690 --> 01:11:40,889
Here at last!
846
01:11:42,590 --> 01:11:47,029
There was no name on it,
but Vera was certain. It's Agata.
847
01:11:48,690 --> 01:11:50,296
Striking, isn't it?
848
01:12:05,396 --> 01:12:07,563
Then, rather surprisingly,
849
01:12:07,689 --> 01:12:11,249
Austerlitz gives the picture
to the narrator as a souvenir
850
01:12:11,570 --> 01:12:14,265
and sets out to track down his father.
851
01:12:28,076 --> 01:12:31,763
After some time, the narrator
receives another postcard
852
01:12:31,890 --> 01:12:34,649
- Austerlitz railway station
in the 1910 floods -
853
01:12:34,890 --> 01:12:38,659
suggesting they meet in Paris
at a caf� on Blvd Blanqui.
854
01:12:39,250 --> 01:12:42,889
[ Auguste Blanqui ]
[ Permanent insurgent ]
855
01:12:54,370 --> 01:12:56,405
The revolutionary Blanqui
856
01:12:56,690 --> 01:13:00,166
formed some curious ideas
as an old man
857
01:13:00,730 --> 01:13:02,729
in a book he wrote in jail:
858
01:13:03,010 --> 01:13:05,329
Eternity through the Stars.
859
01:13:07,043 --> 01:13:10,742
"What I am writing now in jail
in Fort du Taureau,
860
01:13:11,196 --> 01:13:13,982
"I've already written and
will be writing for all eternity.
861
01:13:14,909 --> 01:13:18,908
"It is newness ever-old
and oldness ever-new.�
862
01:13:23,410 --> 01:13:26,781
Vera remembered the addresses
my father sent us.
863
01:13:27,490 --> 01:13:30,321
A hotel at Od�on, and one here,
864
01:13:30,996 --> 01:13:32,660
near Blvd Blanqui.
865
01:13:33,949 --> 01:13:38,068
For months I've been roaming
around here, hoping to meet him.
866
01:13:39,050 --> 01:13:40,739
Just like that.
867
01:13:48,779 --> 01:13:52,649
Like Blanqui, thinking
he is jailed for eternity,
868
01:13:52,850 --> 01:13:55,691
Austerlitz is a prisoner
of his memories.
869
01:13:56,570 --> 01:13:59,449
Visiting the Paris Zoo
with the narrator,
870
01:13:59,682 --> 01:14:02,544
he feels sympathy once more
for the captive animals,
871
01:14:03,010 --> 01:14:07,750
as he had with Marie de Verneuil,
right here, 30 years ago.
872
01:14:21,984 --> 01:14:26,503
Marie and I ended up
in a wasteland near the station,
873
01:14:26,629 --> 01:14:29,162
where a travelling circus had set up.
874
01:14:46,956 --> 01:14:50,970
The feelings I had
as I listened to that alien music,
875
01:14:51,130 --> 01:14:54,377
conjured from the air
by out-of-tune instruments,
876
01:14:55,049 --> 01:14:56,848
still mystify me.
877
01:15:13,743 --> 01:15:17,255
An impassive white goose
stood in the ring.
878
01:15:18,890 --> 01:15:22,792
It was immobile, its neck
craned towards the roof.
879
01:15:24,250 --> 01:15:26,729
It listened until the last note,
880
01:15:26,930 --> 01:15:31,982
as it it knew its own fate
and that of its present companions.
881
01:16:03,250 --> 01:16:05,850
The circus tent
was pitched right here.
882
01:16:07,130 --> 01:16:10,104
Before that, a warehouse stood here,
883
01:16:11,250 --> 01:16:14,897
in which the Germans set up a camp
for Jewish detainees
884
01:16:15,210 --> 01:16:18,698
to sort the loot from Jewish homes.
885
01:16:19,810 --> 01:16:22,449
Louis XVI dressers,
Meissen porcelain,
886
01:16:22,650 --> 01:16:26,089
Persian carpets, libraries,
rare stamps, furs,
887
01:16:26,290 --> 01:16:29,289
radios, cutlery sets.
888
01:16:30,970 --> 01:16:33,063
The inmates came from Drancy.
889
01:16:33,289 --> 01:16:36,534
They called this camp
the "Austerlitz Department Store".
890
01:16:39,330 --> 01:16:43,609
German bigwigs and their wives
browsed the wares.
891
01:16:44,570 --> 01:16:46,500
A set of S�vres china.
892
01:16:46,930 --> 01:16:48,707
A Pleyel piano.
893
01:16:56,050 --> 01:16:57,969
Where has it all gone?
894
01:17:02,050 --> 01:17:04,329
No one wants to know now.
895
01:17:04,610 --> 01:17:07,068
It's buried under these foundations.
896
01:17:08,822 --> 01:17:10,240
What is left?
897
01:17:13,570 --> 01:17:15,258
No curved lines.
898
01:17:15,970 --> 01:17:17,529
No trace of the past.
899
01:17:17,730 --> 01:17:20,809
Just straight lines.
Smooth, clean, amnesiac.
900
01:17:21,170 --> 01:17:24,009
Everything slides. Nothing holds.
901
01:17:26,130 --> 01:17:29,529
19th-century architecture is mocked
902
01:17:29,842 --> 01:17:32,350
for its garlands and frills,
903
01:17:32,862 --> 01:17:35,450
the elaborate swirls on its capitals.
904
01:17:36,050 --> 01:17:37,729
Dust collectors,
905
01:17:37,970 --> 01:17:40,545
superficial, outdated
- all that and more.
906
01:17:41,250 --> 01:17:42,689
But at least,
907
01:17:44,210 --> 01:17:46,969
memories clung to them.
908
01:17:55,996 --> 01:17:58,422
The journey ends
at Austerlitz station,
909
01:17:59,002 --> 01:18:01,801
where his father's final trail leads.
910
01:18:01,927 --> 01:18:05,021
There too,
Jacques Austerlitz disappears
911
01:18:05,262 --> 01:18:08,369
after handing the narrator
the keys to his London home
912
01:18:08,495 --> 01:18:11,698
so he can quietly study
the photos he has left,
913
01:18:11,900 --> 01:18:14,731
the sole remaining traces
of his life.
914
01:18:23,436 --> 01:18:25,115
With Austerlitz gone,
915
01:18:25,318 --> 01:18:27,770
the narrator tells us
the London house
916
01:18:27,896 --> 01:18:32,092
is beside a small Jewish cemetery
cramped between properties.
917
01:18:33,010 --> 01:18:35,726
Then he returns to Belgium,
where it all began,
918
01:18:35,856 --> 01:18:37,792
and thus the book ends
919
01:18:38,090 --> 01:18:42,734
without saying any more
about Austerlitz and his story.
920
01:19:15,679 --> 01:19:19,169
Yet I can't get the book off my mind.
921
01:19:19,490 --> 01:19:21,305
I keep rereading parts
922
01:19:21,625 --> 01:19:25,529
and constantly discover details
I hadn't noticed before,
923
01:19:25,730 --> 01:19:30,529
uncovering layer upon layer
of ramifications and correspondences.
924
01:19:31,930 --> 01:19:35,183
As if the book kept
overflowing its boundaries,
925
01:19:35,396 --> 01:19:40,346
refusing to be closed, prodding
the reader with new questions.
926
01:19:47,003 --> 01:19:50,722
Questions not only
about Jacques Austerlitz's story,
927
01:19:51,090 --> 01:19:53,649
but about Sebald's writing process,
928
01:19:54,050 --> 01:19:59,130
his secret formula for this alloy
of fiction and fact,
929
01:19:59,450 --> 01:20:01,689
of which he gives us
the odd playful glimpse
930
01:20:01,930 --> 01:20:05,131
but leaves each of us free
to go further, or not.
931
01:20:06,650 --> 01:20:10,767
For me, going further means
returning to Prague, my home.
932
01:20:17,610 --> 01:20:21,497
I've always been struck by
the precision of his parents' address.
933
01:20:21,810 --> 01:20:25,598
Sebald give the right number:
12 Sporkova St.
934
01:20:25,883 --> 01:20:28,691
An invitation to go and see.
935
01:20:33,970 --> 01:20:36,343
I met many animals on the way
936
01:20:36,703 --> 01:20:39,896
including the blue dog.
It's a fox.
937
01:20:42,763 --> 01:20:45,063
Sporkova Street, number 12.
938
01:20:45,523 --> 01:20:47,162
The door was closed.
939
01:20:47,330 --> 01:20:50,594
A nun unlocked it
and disappeared inside.
940
01:21:07,030 --> 01:21:09,077
Hello. Sisters of Saint Borromeo.
941
01:21:10,496 --> 01:21:12,590
Hello? Sisters of Saint Borromeo.
942
01:21:15,014 --> 01:21:17,228
Hello? Sisters of Saint Borromeo.
943
01:21:19,730 --> 01:21:21,489
The nun returned.
944
01:21:22,330 --> 01:21:24,409
No Vera ever lived here.
945
01:21:24,770 --> 01:21:28,809
It was a convent.
And before that, until 1950,
946
01:21:28,970 --> 01:21:31,929
a Catholic orphanage for girls.
947
01:21:34,570 --> 01:21:41,118
All these girls shared with Austerlitz
was being orphans like him.
948
01:21:54,050 --> 01:21:56,875
I showed Agata's portrait
to a Czech friend.
949
01:21:57,250 --> 01:22:01,851
She laughed and told me to look
in the bookshop window next door.
950
01:22:30,516 --> 01:22:33,220
Then she played me Destinova
on the internet.
951
01:22:51,090 --> 01:22:53,254
I found the odd staircase
952
01:22:53,410 --> 01:22:56,969
Austerlitz photographed
in the state archives courtyard,
953
01:22:57,730 --> 01:23:00,729
reminding him of a prison yard,
954
01:23:00,930 --> 01:23:05,369
bathed in twilight, inspiring
all manner of hallucinations.
955
01:23:12,236 --> 01:23:14,154
No doubt, it was the same staircase,
956
01:23:14,296 --> 01:23:16,695
but the hall was spacious and bright.
957
01:23:17,303 --> 01:23:18,847
It was the Museum of Music.
958
01:23:19,043 --> 01:23:22,181
A piano and rows of chairs were
set up for that night's concert.
959
01:23:33,056 --> 01:23:37,376
I thought Sebald had played
another prank, but he hadn't.
960
01:23:38,416 --> 01:23:40,550
An elderly guard recognised
the picture in the book,
961
01:23:40,676 --> 01:23:42,284
because of the cars in the yard.
962
01:24:15,490 --> 01:24:18,158
That's me at the time.
963
01:24:19,210 --> 01:24:20,856
I found it hard to recognise him
964
01:24:20,992 --> 01:24:23,436
in his archives chief guard uniform.
965
01:24:24,324 --> 01:24:28,656
Everyone had a photo to show,
but none quite matched.
966
01:24:34,570 --> 01:24:38,537
I went to the district
where Vera saw Agata vanish
967
01:24:38,769 --> 01:24:41,928
into the assembly camp
for deportees to Terezin.
968
01:24:42,862 --> 01:24:46,489
The camp was razed
and replaced by a hotel.
969
01:24:50,050 --> 01:24:53,423
I found two postcards
of the camp's barracks
970
01:24:53,770 --> 01:24:57,177
but they date from the 1930s,
before the Nazis.
971
01:24:58,010 --> 01:25:01,977
At the time, they housed
a big market selling radios. '
972
01:25:11,590 --> 01:25:16,382
Nearby, the station from where trains
left for Terezin still stands.
973
01:25:16,929 --> 01:25:20,581
Now disused, it may be razed
and become a museum.
974
01:25:20,757 --> 01:25:22,860
But a few trains still stop here.
975
01:25:27,690 --> 01:25:31,789
Today, the simplest way
to reach Terezin is by bus.
976
01:25:32,050 --> 01:25:33,849
It's barely an hour away.
977
01:25:42,763 --> 01:25:47,786
A billboard on the ghetto walls
celebrates the 18th-century fort.
978
01:25:49,010 --> 01:25:50,719
"Welcome to Terezin."
979
01:25:51,450 --> 01:25:56,204
Actors dressed like Austerlitz in his
page costume joyously gore each other.
980
01:26:01,364 --> 01:26:06,072
Inside, an old electrical transformer
built by Jewish inmates
981
01:26:06,310 --> 01:26:10,700
bears the date 1941,
the year the ghetto was opened.
982
01:26:12,970 --> 01:26:15,103
Throughout the city,
it's the only inscription
983
01:26:15,263 --> 01:26:17,183
which is a testimony
from that era.
984
01:26:25,888 --> 01:26:27,655
In a barrack courtyard
985
01:26:27,781 --> 01:26:31,716
I saw the remains of one
of the gates that scared Austerlitz.
986
01:26:32,690 --> 01:26:37,718
After his visit, they were replaced
when Terezin was flooded.
987
01:26:52,370 --> 01:26:56,169
The Antikos Bazar he lingered outside
988
01:26:56,490 --> 01:26:59,201
is now a grocery store.
989
01:27:05,003 --> 01:27:07,556
I took refuge in the Ghetto Museum.
990
01:27:08,530 --> 01:27:12,829
In a display cabinet I saw
the faces of those who died here.
991
01:27:13,890 --> 01:27:16,680
No need to be their child
to recognise them.
992
01:27:29,783 --> 01:27:33,662
The Small Fortress
was used as a Gestapo jail.
993
01:27:33,894 --> 01:27:36,941
It houses a museum
994
01:27:37,203 --> 01:27:39,451
with a permanent collection...
995
01:27:41,010 --> 01:27:45,689
Unlike the Ghetto, the whole
Small Fortress is a museum.
996
01:27:46,050 --> 01:27:49,154
Hence the well-tended look,
this "Arbeit Macht Frei"
997
01:27:49,330 --> 01:27:52,329
repainted yearly to welcome visitors.
998
01:27:56,748 --> 01:28:00,809
The Prague Gestapo
commanded this part of Terezin.
999
01:28:01,076 --> 01:28:04,089
It was a camp
and a place of execution
1000
01:28:04,263 --> 01:28:06,924
for partisans and Communists.
1001
01:28:11,670 --> 01:28:14,711
Prisoner files were kept in this room,
1002
01:28:14,970 --> 01:28:16,849
which Austerlitz never visited,
1003
01:28:17,050 --> 01:28:21,129
even though there's a photo
of it at the end of the book.
1004
01:28:33,370 --> 01:28:36,807
In March 1945
one of these cubbyholes
1005
01:28:36,933 --> 01:28:38,894
contained my father's file.
1006
01:28:39,143 --> 01:28:41,181
He was imprisoned here aged 18
1007
01:28:41,349 --> 01:28:45,227
with his school resistance group.
He alone survived.
1008
01:28:50,410 --> 01:28:54,291
I was where the book
had led me and left me alone
1009
01:28:54,530 --> 01:28:57,208
with the tenuous thread of my past.
1010
01:29:03,850 --> 01:29:07,525
This is my father dressed up
as Robinson Crusoe.
1011
01:29:07,883 --> 01:29:12,350
Right foot forward, like Austerlitz
in his boyhood photo.
1012
01:29:14,403 --> 01:29:17,737
Time's little castaway,
frozen forever.
1013
01:29:18,636 --> 01:29:22,395
Like this staring squirrel
in Greenwich Park,
1014
01:29:24,110 --> 01:29:25,836
like this handless clock
I photographed
1015
01:29:26,116 --> 01:29:30,798
when I was looking for Austerlitz's
footsteps at Prague main station.
1016
01:29:35,555 --> 01:29:37,182
I filmed it, too,
1017
01:29:37,755 --> 01:29:41,848
compelled to find out
what the picture was hiding.
1018
01:29:45,942 --> 01:29:47,421
An empty room.
1019
01:29:47,796 --> 01:29:51,449
A world from which
a vital part was torn,
1020
01:29:52,110 --> 01:29:55,415
leaving a gap
that only words can fill.
1021
01:30:00,650 --> 01:30:04,719
I'm increasingly convinced
time did not exist at all,
1022
01:30:05,412 --> 01:30:08,262
only interlocking spaces
1023
01:30:08,675 --> 01:30:13,040
between which the living
and the dead move as they like.
1024
01:30:13,174 --> 01:30:14,858
And the more I think about it
1025
01:30:15,638 --> 01:30:18,337
the more it seems
that we the living
1026
01:30:18,670 --> 01:30:21,524
are unreal beings
in the eyes of the dead,
1027
01:30:22,278 --> 01:30:25,445
only sometimes becoming visible.
84549
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