A Trip to the Other Planet: Ka-Tzetnik’s Revision of Auschwitz on LSD

Ka-Tzetnik (Yehiel De-Nur) was a famous Holocaust survivor writer who coined the term "the other planet" to describe Auschwitz-Birkenau. This term explained the Holocaust as something that happened in a different space, by monsters. In 1976, De-Nur traveled to the Netherlands and was treated by a Dutch psychiatrist named Jan Bastiaans, who specialized in treatment through hallucinatory drugs, especially LSD. Under the drag, De-Nur "returned" to Auschwitz and succeeded in developing a different perception of "the other planet."

The talk will analyze the representation of his revision of Auschwitz in the short animated documentary A trip to the Other Planet (Tom Klles, 2014). The movie is an animated documentary narrated with De-Nur’s recollections of the treatment, which visually represents his reinterpretation of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Nazism under the influence of the drag and after the treatment. The talk will discuss the way under the influence of LSD, De-Nur had a life-changing experience. He went back to Auschwitz in his hallucinations, stood across from a Nazi officer, and saw him yawn. This image of the yawning officer made De-Nur see the Nazi as human, even weak for the first time. He succeeded in identifying with the perpetrator, his victimizer, through this weakness. Moreover, suddenly, he had a revelation – he understood that everyone and anyone could be in this position. The talk will also explore how the animated documentary broadens the limits of Holocaust live-action documentaries by enabling to enter the depths of human emotions through the particularities of the animation`s textures.