Onstran žice

Childhood is perhaps the only time when one can freely and carelessly flow with the stream of desires. It is during this period that one is most impressionable yet most vulnerable: the images and experiences from this time shape one's life forever. For the better, of course; but unfortunately, also for the worse.

The documentary Beyond the Wire walks through lesser-known landscapes of World War II, described through the perspective of children. The intertwining memories form a poignant narrative of survivors from the Gonars camp in Friuli, whose childhood was left on the other side of the barbed wire. They were deported from various parts of what is now Slovenia, mainly from Ljubljana, Kočevje, Gorski Kotar, and Istria, as well as transferred from the Rab camp. They were too young to understand why they were there, but old enough to maintain their will to live, and also to create. "This was a unique case in occupied Europe, where children wrote about their suffering during the war," says one of the witnesses. The past serves as a foundation for the future: more than sixty years later, children in a classroom read the writings of their peers who had been interned, illustrate them, ask questions... Their view of the events is different from that of the adults, yet no less grounded; the questions that may seem naïve at first are, in fact, much clearer and more demanding, for they require precisely such answers. After all, who would understand the concept of stolen childhood better than a child?

The collected testimonies of the children are much more than just a living monument reminding us of one of the greatest atrocities of the 20th century. They are primarily confessions of individuals who gathered enough courage to turn the page to a new life.