by Ödön von Horváth
Youth is hope. It is not yet spent, it still has a basic moral impulse, is not yet jaded and resigned. Or? What if a teacher, while correcting classwork, is suddenly confronted with contempt for humanity and racism? When he is confronted with a class that has completely internalized what its environment exemplifies? Confronted with a murder in the ranks of his students, he seeks the truth. At the same time, an entire society is falling away from the faith and the next world war looms on the horizon.
Horváth's novel Youth Without God, published in 1937, is an analysis of a society in which shifts in values, norms and morals can be observed. Using the image of a school class, Horváth shows the creeping change of a political as well as social system. In the school, the place where society is formed, this manifests itself and becomes apparent in the students.
Length: approx. 90min (without intermission)
