Video Collection
Ghettos, Concentration Camps, and Death Camps
60 Minutes: Hitler's Secret Archives
The largest archive of Nazi documents is in Bad Arolson, Germany, where 50 million files detail the horror endured by 17.5 million victims of the Third Reich. Among the victims whose stories are held here: Anne Frank and the Jews on Schindler's list. Scott Pelley travels to the immense archive with three Jewish Holocaust survivors who see, for the first time, the detailed paperwork the Nazis kept on their torturous imprisonment.
DVD only. Airdate: 12/17/06
All But My Life
Gerda Weissmann Klein, 2007 Cohen Center Holocaust Memorial Lecturer.
All But My Life is the World War II memoir by Gerda Weissmann Klein. In these pages, she recollects when the Nazis arrived in Poland on September 3, 1939. She was imprisoned in German work camps until the camp was liberated on May 7, 1945.
Gerda was born and raised in Poland; and she probably would have lived peacefully in her hometown her whole life--if the Nazis hadn't invaded and taken her from her home in Bielitz. Her journey is not an easy one; she is one of the few who survived.
Holocaust stories are nothing new. The Diary of Anne Frank--along with other memoirs and autobiographical works--depict the Nazi occupations, marches, death camps, and other atrocities. These personal stories are important because they add the human dimension to the history of a time. Gerda saw everything stripped away--"all but her life."
Her life was shattered; and her experiences were such horrors. Friends, family, home--all was lost; inextricably gone. But, then... life goes on. She married one of the men who liberated her from the camp. She went on with life, and she manages to infuse her faith and passion for life into this tale of survival.
BOOK ON TAPE.
AMEN
Kurt Gerstein (Ulrich Tukur) is a World War II SS officer and chemist who is horrified to learn that the pellets he helped to develop are being used in concentration camps to gas Jews. He secretly tells a young Jesuit priest, Father Riccardo (Mathieu Kassovitz), who promises to pass the information on to Vatican representatives, in hopes that the information will be relayed to the pontiff, who could then reveal the Nazis' true intentions and stop the Jewish genocide.
(130 min)
Auschwitz: If You Cried, You Died
A 24-minute video chronicling the journey of two Holocaust survivors as they revisit the hell they knew as Auschwitz Concentration Camp. This compelling video illustrates how the prejudice, intolerance, and violence that characterized the Holocaust provide timely lessons for all of us today. This revised edition now features youth discussing these important topics. The accompanying teacher's guide provides rich materials for further class discussion around the dangers of prejudice, the value of diversity, and the need to respect others. Visit WWW.IMPACTAMERICAFD.ORG fo additional information.
VHS and DVD.
Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State
Auschwitz occupies a chilling and disturbing place in the history of humankind. It began as a Nazi labor campt to terrorize the local Polish population and evolved intothe site of the largest mass murder ever recorded. This six-part series, narrated by actress Linda Hunt presents an in-depth examination of the camp's evolution and the decisions that enabled such an incomprehensibly inhuman place to come into being. Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State is the result of three years of research, drawing on the close involvement of world experts, recently discovered documents and nearly 100 interviews with camp survivors and perpetrators, many of whom are speaking on the record for the first time. Their stories are brought to life through the innovative use of archive footage, dramatic recreations of key decision-making moments, and their extraordinary testimony. While never losing sight of the suffering of the victims, this documentary offers a unique and alarming look at the mindset of the perpetratos - killers like the Commandant of Auschwitz Rudolf Hoess, camp doctor Josef Mengele, and SS Commander Heinrich Himmler.
Written and produced by laurence Rees, the Creative Director of BBC History Programs. The historical and script consultant for the series is the award-winning Hitler biographer, Professor Ian Kershaw.
DVD only.
See http://www.keene.edu/cchs/t_resources/Inside%20the%20Nazi%20State.pdf for clips for classroom useage.
Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State (Educator's Edition)
In January and February 2005, Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State, a six-hour documentary television series, aired on U.S. public television and the BBC in Great Britain. The series chronologically explores the evolution of Auschwitz and introduces perpetrators from all levels of the Nazi bureaucracy who were involved in the design, construction, and administration of the camp. Interspersed is the testimony of Holocaust survivors. This Educator's Edition DVD-ROM is a comprehensive multimedia teaching tool designed to serve the needs of secondary, postsecondary, adult educators and students. Featuring video segments from the original documentary series, the DVD-ROM includes printiable primary materials that correlate to national curriculum standards. Included on this disc: 27 video segments from the seies, with discussion questions; 122 photographs; 25 maps and charts; 28 background readings; 19 primary resources; 14 l;iterary extracts; 4 complete units, with detailed lesson lans.
Camp Of Hope And Despair - Witness of Westerbork
Westerbork in Eastern Hollland was the last stop on Dutch soil for more than 100,000 Dutch Jews, before being deported to the concentration camps. In spite of the air of impending doom, Jewish classes, celebrations, religious services and weddings continued on a regular basis. Through eyewitness accounts of survivors, as well as remarkable photographs and films, one comes to understand the overall picture of daily life in Westerbork. (General audiences). Color. (70 min)
Choosing One's Way - Resistance in Auschwitz-Birkenau
This video permits the ashes of Auschwitz to bear eloquent testimony. The focus of this documentary is a heretofore little-known story of resistance. Accomplished through the smuggling of gun powder from a nearby munitions factory, the inmates succeeded in the destruction of Crematorium #4. The film features thirteen survivors, each of whom contributes to the piecing together of this incredible story of heroism. (HS). Color. (30 min)
Death Camps
An official film record of the Nazi death camps as photographed by Allied forces. Scenes of half-dead prisoners, victims of experiments, gas chambers and open mass graves of the camps. (HS+) (60 min). The Coordinator of Educational Outreach cautions educators: Do not use this film as your only vehicle to address the Holocaust.
The Death March Of The Jews From The Concentration Camp At Flossenburg
Flossenburg was the third largest Nazi Concentration Camp in Germany. In April 1945 while U.S Army troops were closing in, more than 16,000 Jews were put to death; this is their story told from diaries by the survivors. (JHS/MS+) Color. (45 mins)
Drancy: A Concentration Camp in Paris 1941-1944
During WWII, France deported 74,000 Jews to Nazi death camps. Fewer than 3,000 survived. This award-winning documentary describes, in detail, the structure of the Holocaust in France. It identifies individuals and organizations responsible, and provides exact information as to when, where and how mass arrests were organized. It explains how, in full view of the French public, Jews were taken from Drancy, a half-built housing estate in Paris, and put on French trains bound for Auschwitz.
The film's interviewees are survivors and eye-witnesses who give first-hand accounts of what happened. This one-hour film is now available on DVD and is essential for anyone wanting to understand how the Holocaust was implemented.
52 minutes. DVD only.
Eagles Over Auschwitz: "The Triumph of the Return"
Eagles Over Auschwitz is the compelling story of the historic flyover of Auschwitz-Birkenau by three Israeli F-15s. Meet Yitzhak Cohen, a survivor of the camp, and Al Weber, and American Jewish aviator who flew over Auschwitz on a bombing mission with the 15th Army Air Force on September 13, 1944. Hear their personal reflections of that time and watch with the officers of the IDF as the F-15s fly over the camp on September 4, 2004. Produced by Yad Vashem. 26 minutes.
The Eighty-First Blow
Consisting of footage and stills shot by the Nazis, this award-winning 1974 production chronicles the measures taken to exterminate the Jews. The video takes its title from a story about a Jewish boy in one of the ghettos who was struck with 80 blows. He survived and immigrated to Israel where no one believed his story - this for him was the 81st blow. Note: May have some graphic footage. (JHS/MS+). Color. (115 min)
Elie Wiesel Goes Home
This compelling and touching film follows Nobel Peace Prize winner and acclaimed author, Elie wiesel, as he returns to Sighet, the village of his birth in what was part of Hungary during World War II. Now, fifty years later, elie wiesel returns to his homeland and walks down the same roads he walked as a child. He then continues on to Auschwitz and Birkenau, the camp from which he was liberated at the end of the war. ELIE WIESEL GOES HOME takes us on an emotional and compelling journey that tells the story of the man whose voice speaks out for victims of oppression all over the world. (2002. 108 minutes.)
Escape From Sobibor
Sobibor, a Nazi death camp in Poland where more than a quarter of a million Jews were annihilated, was also the site of the largest prisoner escape of World War II. Based on years of research, this 1987 dramatization of the heroic uprising that took place in Sobibor movingly portrays the people themselves and their trip through Polish forests to freedom. VHS and DVD. (HS+). Color. (120 min)
Fate Did Not Let Me Go
August 24, 1942. Trapped by history, a loving mother writes a farewell letter to her son just days before she dies in the Thereseinstadt concentration camp during the Holocaust. Lost for nearly 50 years, the letter mysteriously reaches her son in 1985 when he is 79 years old. This film shares the inspiring story of Valli Ollendorf and her timeless letter to her son Ulrich. More than a mother's farewell, the letter's message of faith, hope and love stands as a triumph of the human spirit in history's darkest hour. For years, the letter remianed a family secret. When Ulrich passed away, his family asked their rabbi to read the letter at his eulogy. The impact of the letter - and its expression of love that transcended time and space and even death itself - was so great that the family realized it was much more than a private letter. It was a letter that could inspire every pewrson it touched.
Cast: Martin Sheen, Liv Ulmann
"Her voice, like Anne Frank's voice, will be heard for generations." - Martin Sheen
30 minutes.
Fateless
Set in 1944, as Hitler's Final Solution becomes policy throughout Europe, Fateless is the semi-autobiographical tale of a 14 year-old Jewish boy from Budapest, who finds himself swept up by cataclysmic events beyond his comprehension. A perfectly normal metropolitan teen who has never felt particularly connected to his religion, he is suddenly separated from his family as part of the rushed and random deportation of his city's large Jewish population. Brought to a concentration camp, his existence becomes a surreal adventure in adversity and adaptation, and he is never quite sure if he is the victim of his captors, or of an absurd destiny that metes out salvation and suffering arbitrarily. When he returns home after the liberation, he missed the sense of community he experienced in the camps, feeling alienated from both his Christian neighbors who turned a blind eye to his fate, and the Jewish family friends who avoided deportation and who now want to put the war behind them. Based on the autobiographical novel by Hungarian Nobel Laureate Imre Kertész and built in vignettes.
DVD. 140 minutes
For Tomorrow: The Story and Poetry of Hilda Stern Cohen
The story of Hilda Stern Cohen (1924-1997), a Holocaust survivor, poet, and Jewish educator. Her remarkable life spans an idyllic childhood in a small rural village in Germany, the horrors of the Lodz Ghetto and Auschwitz, the limbo of a displaced persons camp in Austria, and the redemptive value of spirituality and a reclaimed Jewish identity in post World-War II America. A unique experiment in telling stories of the Holocaust for future generations. Special features include Elizabeth Bolton's performance of song settings of nine poems by Hilda Stern Cohen, as composed by William Gilcher.
90 minutes. DVD.
Genocide; The World At War, Vol. 20
A documentary that tells the story of Hitler's "Final Solution" and exposes the methodical destructiveness of the Nazi era. Set within the historic frame, from 1920 to 1945, this film exposes the methodical insanity of the Nazi era. Extraordinary footage and interviews with death camp survivors, as well as with Germans who were directly involved in implementing the "Final Solution." Narrated by Sir Laurence Olivier. (JHS/MS/HS+). Color & B/W. (52 min)
Heritage: Civilization and the Jews
The history of the Jews is a history of involvement: with Near Eastern and Classical civilization in the Biblical period, with Christendom and Islam in the Middle Ages, with the nations of all the earth in modern times. It is a history as old as civilization itself, and it is the history of the involvement of one people with civilization. The involvement was total, complex and reciprocal. It was total in the sense that the Jewish people never enjoyed the luxury of detachment: even when intermittently masters of in their own land, that land was the vortex of all surrounding lands and shared their fates. It was complex in the Jewish people, before and above any other people, experienced the tension of diaspora and homeland, a tension ever shifting but never resolved. It was reciprocal in that Judaism took, learned and borrowed from the civilizations of other peoples - but at the same time contributed in essential respects to civilization at all times and in many different places.
The interaction of Jewish history and Western civilization successively assumed different forms. In the Biblical and Ancient periods, Israel was an integral part of the Near Eastern and classical world, which gave birth to Western civilization. It shared the traditions of ancient Mesopotamia and the rest of that world with regard to it's own beginning; it benefited from the decline of Egypt and the other great Near Eastern empires to emerge as a nation in it's own right; it asserted it's claim to the divinely promised Land of Israel and struggled to a precarious independence there for a thousand years until forced to yield to the greater power of Greece and Rome.
In the Medieval era Jewish history took place on a larger stage, including all of Europe and the Mediterranean world. Fewer and fewer Jews were able to remain on the soil of the Holy Land itself. For more and more of them, it became the object of prayerful longing as they sought refuge in all the lands of the dispersion. Gradually the pious hope of a return to the true homeland gave way to the more practical desire to participate in the life of their new surroundings. But no matter how deeply the Jews became involved in the various lands of the dispersion, they faced the necessity of being uprooted again and again. They became the classical example of a diaspora population: confined or committed to intellectual or commercial pursuits; linked to their co-religionists in other lands through the bond of a common faith as interpreted by rabbinic authority; and an ever yearning to live, or at least to die, in the Holy Land.
The contemporary pattern of Jewish life presents another model for it's interaction with civilization. Where previously that life had been concentrated successively in Israel and the diaspora, it is now balanced between the two. Israel is once again politically sovereign, and it commands a central position in Judaism, both culturally and emotionally. But equally significant centers of Jewish population and hence of Jewish cultural, religious, and political activity exist in the United State, the Soviet Union and other parts of the diaspora. World Jewry, as always, continues to gravitate towards the rising centers of world civilization and hence to play a part in the shaping of world events. At the same time it lives in a creative tension with Israel. The interdependence of diaspora Jewry with the Israel on the one hand and with world civilization on the other, characterizes the present scene and will no doubt influence yet other patterns, whatever the precise shape they may take in the future.
Episodes:
A People is Born 3800-586BCE
The Power of the Word 586-72CE
The Shaping of Traditions 30-732CE
The Crucible of Europe 732-1492
Search for Deliverance 1492-1789
Roads from the Ghetto 1789-1925
The Golden Land 1654-1930s
Out of the Ashes 1919-1947
Into the Future 1880-1990s
Hitler's Holocaust (Vols. 1-6)
Six Volume set from invasion to the final toll. 1. Invasion 2. Decision 3. Ghetto 4. Mass Murder 5. Resistance 6. Final Toll
3 disc DVD set.
Hitler's Secret Archive - (60 Minutes)
The largest archive of Nazi documents is in Bad Arolson, Germany, where 50 million files detail the horror endured by 17.5 million victims of the Third Reich. Among the victims whose stories are held here: Anne Frank and the Jews on Schindler's list. Scott Pelley travels to the immense archive with three Jewish Holocaust surviors who see for the first time the detailed paperwork the nazis kept on their torturous imprisonment. This aired on 60 Minutes on 12/17/06. DVD.
Holocaust Survivor Testimonies
This collection of 4 DVDs was recorded at the International Winter Seminar in Jerusalem at Yad Vashem between January 10-January 24, 2007.
DVD 1: The Valley of Communities: Pre-War Jewish Life. Hanna Pick (Germany-Holland - Childhood friend of Anne Frank), Ruth Brand (Romania/Hungary). Approx. 40 mins.
DVD 2: A workshop with three Holocaust survivors facilitated by Moshe Sternberg. Israel Orzach (Poland), Elisheva Lehman (Holland), Rina Quint (Poland). Approx 120 mins.
DVD 3: A testimony on Auschwitz, Bergen Belsen, and life after liberation by Ruth Brand (Romania/Hungary-Auschwitz). Approx. 75 mins.
DVD 4: A visit to the grave of Oskar Schindler on Mt. Zion with Nachum and Genya Manor (Schindler Jews). Approx. 60 mins.
Holocaust: Liberation Of Auschwitz
The Soviet cameraman who filmed the original 18 minutes of footage describes the death camp. He tells of the horrific sights he and his comrades witnessed. When Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, the cameraman accompanied them to record the liberation process. This powerful program incorporates the personal impressions of the cameraman, Alexander Woronzow, with his haunting footage. Contains footage never seen in the Western world before. Originally used by Russia for the prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials. Warning: Not recommended for unprepared audiences due to the Intensely graphic presentation of atrocities. (Adult). Color & B/W. (55 min.)
I'm Still Here: Real Diaries of Young People During the Holocaust
During the Holocaust, a handful of young people chose to write and record in diaries throughout Europe. The documentary film developed by MTV, I'm Still Here: Real Diaries of Young People Who Lived During the Holocaust, weaves together excerpts of young writers' diaries covering the years 1937 - 1944 and is based on the book Salvaged Pages: Young Writers' Diaries of the Holocaust, by Alexandra Zapruder.
The companion study guide aims to help educators use the voices of these young writers from the film and the book as a springboard for discussion and reflection on the value of these diaries as historical sources and literary records. It also provides an avenue for discussing the power of our words to make a difference in the world.
DVD. 48 minutes.
Incarcerated Dreams
Children of the Holocaust – Art by children at Theresienstadt
Jacob the Liar
Jacob Heim is stopped by the police in the Jewish ghetto for being out after curfew. As his penalty, he must report to the Commander. On the police station radio, he overhears that the Red Army is advancing. New hope for himself and his fellow sufferers! He secretly passes on the news to the others, pretending that he has his own well-hidden radio. Jacob becomes a hero in spite of himself and the faith of all those in the ghetto hangs on his invented news reports. Original German version. English subtitles. VHS. 101 minutes.
A Journey Back
In the company of reporter, Eric Malling, Broadway producer Jack Garfein, who is a Holocaust survivor, travels back to Auschwitz, where he was separated from his family at the age of thirteen, and to his Slovakian hometown of Bardejov, where he visits an aged family friend and the town's ruined synagogue. Interweaves archival documents, stills, and footage, with scenes of Garfein's journey in order to piece together a shattered past and find answers as to why and how the Holocaust occurred. (General Audiences). B/W & Color. (60 min.)
The Journey Of A Butterfly
The art work and poetry of children imprisoned by Nazi's between 1941 and 1945 is set to music in this concert. The small number of children who survived also tell their story in this film. (General Audiences). B/W & color. (62 min)
Kaddish: I Am Here
On September 8, 2011, a unique concert featuring the stirring words of Holocaust survivors, performed by the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra - IBA, soloists and choirs from Israel and the United States, and conducted by Gil Shohat took place at Yad Vashem.
Kaddish - I Am Here was originally commisisoned to honor the 25th anniversary of the Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State College.
Kitty: Return To Auschwitz
From the ages of 16 to 18, Kitty Hart lived in the Auschwitz death camp. Director Peter Morley accompanies Kitty and her son David as she returns to Auschwitz for the first time since her liberation from the camp 35 years previously. The camera follows Kitty and her son as they walk through the remnants of the camp, recording her memories and her present-day impressions. (HS+). Color. (82 min.)
Korczak
A film of emotional urgency and great lyrical power, Korczak tells the story of Janusz Korczak, a renowned physician and author who ran a home for Jewish orphans in 1930's Warsaw. After the German invasion of Poland, friends urge Korczak to flee the country. But Korczak refuses to abandon his children and so must move his orphanage into the Warsaw ghetto. As the war continues it becomes plain that, despite Korczak's tireless efforts, the children will be deported to concentration camps. Yet Korczak vows to remain with them until the end. A starkly beautiful work by the great Polish director Andrzej Wajda, KORCZAK is a moving portrait of a touching and inspiring man. In Polish with English subtitles. (HS). Color. (118 min.)
The Kovno Ghetto
This film pieces together the story of the Jews of Kovno from the first stirrings of the war to the annihilationof the ghetto just days before the city's liberation. 18 survivors tell their harrowing stories of survival and loss. (General Audience). Color. (100 min)
Kovno Ghetto: A Buried History
KOVNO GHETTO features moving interviews that bring to light atrocities that are stunning in their scope, and more so in that they are rarely mentioned. Discover how fellow townsmen murdered 6,000 Kovno Jews in one horrible day! Find out how the Germans forced all Jews to move to the ghetto of Slobodka, then killed thousands when the population got too crowded. And hear gut-wrenching stories of loss from survivors who were helpless to save family members and loved ones in the face of the machinery of hatred and death. In the memories of those who persevered we are reminded of man's capacity for evil, and of the necessity to never let such abominations occur again.
Lodz Ghetto: The Classroom Version
Lodz Ghetto provides a microcosm of how, in the middle of this century, a war was raged against Jews. It takes us inside a single community, one of hundreds that were gradually destroyed. Diaries and photographs reproduced in Lodz Ghetto, along with notebooks, journals and official memoranda, suggest remarkable human endurance and the struggle for life, culture, intellect, family, religion. These are stories of survival and what it often took to survive - to believe in a future even if that meant denying the present reality. (HS+). B/W & color. (104 min.)
Memory Of The Camps
Documentary footage filmed by Allied Forces army cameramen when they entered the Nazi death camps in 1945 and only recently discovered in the archives of the Imperial War Museum in London. Scenes from Bergen, Dachau, Buchenwald, and other camps. Some of the footage was filmed literally moments after the troops liberated the camps. "Memory of the Camps" may not be suitable for high school students. It is unremitting horror images, little context, very hard to watch. VHS and DVD. (HS+). B/W. (60 min.)
Nazi Concentration Camps
This is the official film record of the Nazi death camps as photographed by Allied liberation forces in 1945. This historic document provides irrefutable testimony to the "crimes against humanity. " WARNING Not recommended for unprepared audiences due to intensely graphic presentation of atrocities. B/W. (59 min.)
Night And Fog
The award-winning short documentary by the noted French director, Alain Resnais. This haunting production effectively combines actual black and white footage of the concentration camps with color scenes of the same places 10 years after the Holocaust. This surrealistic Jamey of horror was written by a novelist who survived imprisonment by the Third Reich. In French with English subtitles. Should not be shown to unprepared audiences. (HS+) B/W & color. 32 min.)
Nightmare: The Immigration of Joachim and Rachel
Shows the harrowing experiences of two young orphans who escape not only from the Warsaw Ghetto but also from a train carrying passengers bound for certain death. Black and white scenes describe their trip to freedom. Freedom is the United States where they are welcomed by a caring uncle. (JHS/MS+). B/W & color. (24 mins.)
Not Like Sheep To Slaughter: The Story Of The Bialystok Ghetto
Featuring archival black and white footage and revealing interviews, this program tells the courageous story of 24 year old Mordechai Tenebaum and the small group of resistance fighters who attempted to defeat the Nazi scheme to eradicate the Jewish ghetto in Bialystok, Poland. Through the testimony of those who served in the resistance and residents of Bialystok, viewers gain a unique appreciation of the hardships and impossible choices faced by targets of the Third Reich. Excerpts from Nazi propaganda films are also included. (Grades 7 and up.) B/W. (150 min.)
Opening The Gates Of Hell: American Liberators Of The Nazi Concentration Camps
American veterans, who were among the first troops to enter the Nazi concentration camps, relate their memories of that experience. Includes graphic archival footage of the camps. (Selected Audiences). Color & B/W. (45 min.)
Out of the Ashes
Christine Lahti stars in this harrowing made-for-cable film based on the real-life story of Gisella Perl, a Jewish Hungarian doctor imprisoned in the notorious Auschwitz death camp of World War II. Perl's story is told in flashback as she sits before an immigration panel in the U.S. seeking American citizenship after the war. Facing her inquisitors' accusations of collaborating with the Nazis because of her work as camp doctor, Perl is forced to relive her horrifying experiences and the difficult moral choices she had to make in order to survive. Features supporting turns from Bruce Davison, Richard Crenna, and Beau Bridges as Lahti's INS interrogators.
MPAA Rating: R
113 minutes. DVD only.
Partisans Of Vilna
This documentary explores Jewish resistance during World War II. It recounts the untold tale of the moral dilemma facing the Jewish youth who organized an underground resistance in the Vilna Ghetto, and fought as partisans in the woods against the nazis. This film features interviews in Hebrew, Yiddish and English, with the former partisans in Israel, NYC, Montreal and Vilna, interspersed with rare archival footage from 1939-1944. English sub-titles. (JHS?MS+). Color & B/W. (130 min)
The Photographer
This film portrays the rarified evil of the Germans, using actual color slides of Lodz Ghetto taken by a minor Nazi functionary, accompanied with commentary by a Jewish survivor.
Playing For Time
Vanessa Redgrave portrays a celebrated songstress herded into Auschwitz at the height of her career. She is drafted to sing with the camp orchestra and learns the rules for survival against constant threat of imminent death. Based on a true story. Not rated but for mature audiences. (148 min.)
Present Memories
Journey back in time with six survivors of the Holocaust as they revisit this painful history. They focus on one specific period of their years under the Nazis. Linked together, the viewer journeys through the Holocaust from the prewar years to the end of World War II to freedom. The video concludes as the survivors relate their return to life. (55 min)
Primo
When PRIMO opened in September 2004 it was instantly recognized as a major theatrical event; every performance was sold out. A work of astounding dramatic power it brings to life Primo Levi's great testament to his year in Auschwitz. Antony Sher's towering performance is as controlled as Primo Levi's own lucid prose. Beautifully directed by Richard Wilson and presented in Hildegard Bechtler's magnificent, symbolist set. This is quite simply - masterpiece theatre.
DVD only. 110 minutes.
QBVII
Based on Leon Uris' best selling novel. A Polish expatriate doctor sues an American author for libel for conducting gruesome medical experiments on Jewish inmates. The film was inspired by a true incident in Uris' life after he was sued for libel following his earlier best seller, MILA 18. 3 videocassettes (312 min.)
Reunion - 2004
From the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, this is the riveting story of Andre Nowacki, a child from the Warsaw Ghetto who was rescued by a Polish family. This brief film highlights life in the Warsaw ghetto and focuses on his 1994 Thanksgiviing reuinion with Hanna Kwiecinska Morawiecka, the daughter of the woman who rescued Andre. VHS. 12 minutes.
Highly recommended.
Robert Clary: A5714, A Memoir Of Liberation
To many people, entertainer Robert Clary is best known for his role on television's "Hogan's Heroes." This film shows another side of the actor, that of a Holocaust survivor. It follows him as he returns to the streets of Paris, the railway lines of East Germany, and the Buchenwald concentration camp to retrace the odyssey of his teens. (JHS/MS+). Color. (60 min.)
Schindler: His Story As Told By The Actual People He Saved
A documentary about the work of Oskar Schindler and his role in saving the lives of over 1,000 Jews in Crackow during the Nazi occupation. The film features key people who were either saved by Schindleror who had close contact with the main protagonists in the Schindler story such as his widow, Emilie. Rare footage of Schindler himself. (Adult). Color & B/W. (81 min.)
Sorrow: The Nazi Legacy
A group of six Swedish teenagers, Jewish and non-Jewish, embark on a journey to Auschwitz in an effort to try to comprehend the incomprehensible. A preliminary visit to Wannsee sets the stage for their pilgrimage. Yet, no amount of intellectual explanation of the facts as they occurred can adequately prepare the gorup for their own emotional reactions after having spent time in auschwitz. A meeting with one of the camp's survivors, Ruth Elias, proves to be one full of pain and sorrow, yet full of hope for the future. The pilgrimage concludes as the group returns to Stockholm to a meeting with Niklas Frank, the son of Hans Frank, a high-ranking Nazi official who was the governor-general of nazi-occupied Poland. (HS). Color. (33 min.)
Swimming in Auschwitz
SWIMMING IN AUSCHWITZ interweaves the stories of six Jewish women imprisoned inside the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp during the Holocaust. The women maintained a spiritual resistance against their Nazi aggressors through prayer, community, music and even humor. They speak of camp families and faith, uplifting one another while trying to retain their humanity. Their compelling testimonials reveal the power of laughter and community, even in the face of evil. DVD. 63 minutes.
Telling Their Stories: NH Holocaust Survivors Speak Out
As seen on NH Public Television, this film by NH filmmaker David DeArville highlights the lives of four Holocaust survivors who came to live in New Hampshire: Stephan Lewy (Germany), Joseph Regensburger (Germany), Ruth Segal (Poland) and Anna Berkovits Klein (Hungary). Stephan would escape in 1940 and would serve in Patton's Army as a "Ritchie Boy." Joe served in the French underground and eventually escaped to Switzerland - where he and his family were interned. Ruth would escape with the help of "Righteous Among the Nations" Japanese consul Chiune Sugihara although much of her family that was left behind died in Teblinka. Anna will survive the Nazi camp system including Stresshof and Bergen-Belsen.
The film was produced by Robert Spiegelman and Fred Wolff in association with the Cohen Center for Holocaust Studies. VHS or DVD. (65 minutes)
*This film is free for NH teachers and libraries and may also be purchased by contacting Tom White, twhite@keene.edu, 603-358-2746.
Terezin: Resistance and Revival
Terezin to the Czechs. Theresienstadt to Germans. It was a Nazi concentration camp where some of the world's greatest musicians, composers, artists and theatre professionals continued to create despite the near certainty that they would be transported to Auschwitz.
Indeed, the Nazis exploited their art as propaganda -- 'evidence,' they said, that refuted emerging allegations of a Holocaust. They even made a movie to glorify the lie.
After World War II, the lives and work of these astonishing people were, for the most part, lost to history. All that began to change, however, with the fall of the Iron Curtain and the opening of the Czech Republic to the West. The long forgotten story of these people and their struggle is being rediscovered - in art museums, concert halls, school auditoriums and on the web. Survivors are talking - and a new generation is listening.
The irony of this revival is that the art, music and theatre that Hitler used to help cover up the Final Solution is, today, a memorial to the very people he despised.
Terezin: Resistance and Revival is a film and print companion that tells the inspiring story through the experiences of people who were there -- both survivors and those who left behind testimony to their experience - as well as those who, today, are determined to recall and preserve this incredible experience for generations to come.
DVD. 88 minutes.
The Grey Zone
Based on the real-life events and featuring a first-rate ensemble cast, this compelling and harrowing film chronicles a unit of Auschwitz's Sonderkommando, a special squad of Jewish prisoners, who staged the only armed revolt that would ever take place at Auschwitz.
For advanced students only.
108 minutes. (DVD only)
The Pianist
Nominated for 7 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and winner of 3, THE PIANIST stars Oscar winner Adrein Brody in a true-life story of brilliant pianist and composer Wladyslaw Szpilman, the most acclaimed young musician of his time until his promising career was interrupted by the onset of World War II. This powerful, ultimately triumphant film follows Szpilman's heroic and inspirational journey of survival with the unlikely help from a sympathetic German officer. A truly unforgettable epic, testifying to both the power of hope and resiliency of the human spirit, THE PIANIST is a miraculous tale of survival masterfully brought to life by visionary filmmaker Roman Pulanski in his most personal movie ever.
DVD only. 150 minutes.
The Specialist: Portrait of a Modern Criminal
A German worker in the upper echelons of the Nazi party, Adolf Eichmann was in charge of the expulsion of Jews, Slovenians, and Gypsies from the Reich between 1938 and 1941, and then of their deportation from Europe to the death camps. In 1960, he was captured by the Israeli secret service in Argentina. His subsequent trial in Jerusalem was one of the first public events recorded on video. Filmmakers Rony Brauman and Eyal Sivan have assembled excerpts of this footage to create a tightly edited and compelling documentary about a bureaucrat who has fulfilled his duties during a time of war. Eichmann steadfastly insists that his part in the Holocaust was neither active or evil: he was only following orders.
At the outset of the trial, the prosecutor calls Eichmann an inhuman beast, but the thin balding man in a black suit who is taking copious notes and nervously interlaces his fingers during the course of the trial doesn't seem to fit that description. Even during the tensest moments and facing direct accusations by the prosecution who wants to see him hanged, he refuses to show remorse or culpability for his actions.
The film is fascinating for Eichmann's resoluteness. By the nature of his answers, he proves himself to be the quintessential bureaucrat of Kafka's worst nightmare. Perhaps the most striking feature about Eichmann is just how ordinary he seems--not a monster, not a mad thinker, but an efficient man who sat behind a desk, processing forms. Based on Hannah Arendt's famous account of the trial, "The Specialist: Portrait of a Modern Criminal" offers profound insight into how the Holocaust was facilitated by bureaucracy and a subservient mindset that allowed people like Eichmann to claim ignorance and shuffle responsibility for atrocious crimes around like so many carbon-copy forms.
The DVD features a substantial hour-long interview with the filmmakers, an excerpt of the book "In Praise of Disobedience," and extensive language options, which come in handy since the trial itself is multilingual.
DVD. B&W. 123 minutes.
Theresienstadt, Gateway To Auschwitz: Recollections From Childhood
Emotionally moving personal accounts from survivors of the infamous Czech ghetto which the Germans used during WWII as a "model ghetto" and as a transit camp for Jewish deportees en route to Auschwitz and other death camps. Blends the childhood recollections of these survivors with rare archival photos, paintings, drawings by ghetto inmates, excerpts from the children's opera Brundibar, which was performed there, and scenes from a survivor's reunion. (JHS/MS+). Color & B/W. (58 min.)
Transport From Paradise
Based on the book: Night and hope. Depicts life in the Terezin ghetto Czechoslovakia (94 min.)
The Triumph Of Memory
Non-Jewish resistance fighters were sent to Nazi concentration camps during World War II. In this video, they bear witness to the Jewish Holocaust and provide a moving reminder about the actions of the Nazis in Mauthausen, Buchenwald and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Viewers meet Frenchman Pierre Troadec who was sent to Mauthausen after being captured by the Gestapo for rescuing American flyers in France; Reidar Dittman, who was arrested and sent to Buchenwald for sabotaging the construction of German ships in Norway; Czech resistance fighter Vera Laska, who hid Jews and fought the Nazis until she was sent to Auschwitz and Irina Kharina, a young Red Army soldier captured behind German lines. The video is narrated by Arnost Lustig, a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz and twice winner of the National Jewish Book Award. (HS+). Color & B/W. (30 min.)
Triumph Of The Spirit
Recounts the true story of Salamo Arouch, who was the middleweight boxing champion of the Balkans in the days just before World War II. A Greek Jew, Arouch is sent to Auschwitz, where he fights his fellow internees for the enjoyment of the Nazi officers. This powerful story of life, death, and conscience illuminates the inner conflict of a man who wants to survive and save his soul. The 1989 production stars Willem Dafoe, Edward James Olmos, and Robert Loggia. Closed captioned. Advanced students. Note: Strong language. (Adult). Color. (124 min.)
Tzvi Nussbaum: A Boy From Warsaw
A haunting photograph, one of the most famous of the Nazi era, of a young Jewish boy with his hands raised as an SS officer aims his machine gun at him in the Warsaw Ghetto of 1943, provides the interpretive framework for exploring the boy's history. The boy's serpentine journey takes him from his birth in Palestine to the events that led to and followed the scene depicted in the picture. The boy survives and eventually emigrates to the New York area where he ends up becoming a physician. The film invites alternate intepretations of the photograph, its pedigree and meaning. Features archival black and white footage and contemporary interviews. (Grades 10 and up). B/W. (50 min.)
Uprising
Dramatizes the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943, during which an underground collective of Polish Jews dared to defy the Nazis. Close-knit collaborators battle against the Nazis assigned to clear all Jews from Warsaw. The uprising was eventually crushed but director Jon Avnet expertly maintains a sense of courage and hope amidst the palpable horror of the Warsaw Ghetto. Combining physical and historical accuracy with intimate character details, Uprising is suspenseful without being sensational, thus honoring one of the greatest symbolic victories in all of Jewish history. (HS+). Color. (177 min)
The Warsaw Ghetto
This BBC documentary reconstructs the ten day resistance of a haft million Jews, cut off in a heir mile city area by Nazi forces. A very powerful film of courage with a message of hope, and a warning for the future. (JHS/MS+). B/W. (51 min.)
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
This video utilizes archival film footage, authentic still photographs, along with actual testimonies of survivors of the ghetto to help us understand that brief and courageous chapter in Jewish history. Beginning with the Nazi invasion of Poland, we are led step-by-step through the deportation, life in the ghetto, the formation of a resistance organization and finally the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Narrated in English. (HS). Color & B/W. (22 min.)
We Were Marked With A Big A
Three gay Holocaust survivors - Friedrich-Paul von Groszheim, Kurt von Ruffin, and Paul Gerdhard Vogel - tell their stories. 1991. 44 mins. English subtitles. From USHMM. (Non-Circulating)
We Were There: Jewish Liberators Of The Nazi Concentration Camps.
Kneeling with the sufferers, Jewish GI's prayed in Hebrew and rendered what solace they could.In this intimate memoir, their stories take on added poignancy with footage made inside and around the camps. Ending with the plea "zachor" (remember and tell others), the program includes a brief history of Nazism and scenes of the Nuremberg trials. (Adult). color and B & W (40 min.)
Who Walks Here Now? A Remembrance of the Holocaust and Beyond
Author, lecturer, and Holocaust survivor Marga Randall has dedicated her life to educating others about the holocaust. This video captures the horror and healing as we follow a group of young people from the U.S. and Germany, Jews and Christians alike, as they visit Auschwitz-Birkenau. Through stark images of the past and present, we're reminded of this tragedy and that we must never allow it to happen again. 23 minutes
