CONTRE L'OUBLI {LEST WE FORGET} {FRENCH WITH ENGLISH
SUBTITLES} (TV)
Summary
This documentary from France marks the fiftieth
anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz
concentration camp. During this program, survivors of
the camp discuss the events that occurred within its
confines and the confines of other Nazi death camps.
While the former inmates recall the horrors they
suffered through, dramatic, rare footage and photos of
the atrocities of the implementation of Adolph
Eichmann's Final Solution are shown on screen. Footage
and photos include ghastly pictures of the following
barbarous crimes and and acts of liberation that
occurred during the 1940s in Europe: the death marches
of Auschwitz-Birkenau; a bogus film made by the Soviet
liberators of Auschwitz; the faces of the real prisoners
as they are being greeted by friendly soldiers; walking
skeletons; children of the concentration camps; mass
graves; children's clothing being kept by the Germans;
tons of women's hair; the arrival of American soldiers
at Mauthausen; Americans attempting to help the dying
and the sick; General Dwight D. Eisenhower and General
George Patton's visit to Dachau and Buchenwald; trains
filled with corpses; members of congress and reporters
visiting the camps; gold fillings; residents of Weimar
touring the camp and seeing the horrors that occurred in
their own backyard; British soldiers at Bergen-Belsen
being greeted by teary-eyed prisoners; trucks being used
to pile up dead bodies; the burning of Bergen-Belsen by
the British to avoid the spread of typhus; soldiers
looking at a pile of bodies that lay before them;
prisoners on their way out of the camps; the trial of
Adolf Eichmann; inhumane arrests made by the SS guards
(which is the only surviving footage of this
monstrosity); Jews being stripped of their clothing and
having their hair shaved off; executions of Jews being
performed in forests; mobile ovens; Auschwitz; Jews
being herded into cattle cars; crematoriums; gas
chambers; Jews on "death duty," burning their own dead;
the heinous scenes of the death camps in paintings
created by David Olere, a French Jew; and proof that the
Allies knew of the camps years before any help was sent
to the victims. The following people discuss their
shocking memories of Auschwitz and other concentration
camps: Vassili Yakolevitch Petrenko, a member of the
Red Army; Sergeant Envir Alimbekov, a member of the
Red Army; Henri Bulawko, a liberated prisoner from
Auschwitz; Marcel Wainstain, a liberated prisoner from
Auschwitz; Colonel Raymond Sieman Buch, an American
soldier; Thomas Crawford, an American soldier; Kurt
Baum, a German Jew liberated from Auschwitz; Charlotte
Chapira, a liberated prisoner from Auschwitz; Halina
Birenbaum, a liberated prisoner from Auschwitz;
historian Tom Segev; Piotr Setkiewicz, a Museum of
Auschwitz historian; Stanislaw Obstarczyk, a factory
worker; engineer Igo Trochanowski, a former inmate of
Auschwitz; historian Gideon Greif; Henryk Mandelbaum, a
former Sonderkommando; Waclaw Dlugoborski, an
infirmary worker; Jerzy Tabeau, an escaped prisoner
from Auschwitz; and Manfred Klafter, who runs a hotline
for Holocaust survivors. These people discuss the
following topics, among others: the reactions of the
liberated prisoners when friendly soldiers arrived to
aid them; what soldiers found in the concentration
camps; the spread of typhus; the reactions of
Eisenhower, Patton, and reporters to the gruesome sights
of the death camps; a prisoner's feelings about the
people of Weimar, who claimed that they did not know
what was going on in the camps; leaving the
concentration camps; the search for relatives; not being
able to speak of the iniquities of the camps; the
reaction of the people of Israel to those who survived
the camps; the court marshal of Adolf Eichmann; the
detailed process of the Final Solution; the Wannsee
Conference; the forest executions; the first death
camps; the duel role of Auschwitz; the connection of the
companies Bayer and BASF to the massive company that
ran the Auschwitz labor camp; the cattle cars into which
the prisoners were herded; the attempts families made
to stay together in the camps; how the prisoners learned
of the gas chambers and crematories awaiting them;
being treated as livestock; the treatment of prisoners
working in factories; having to help create the death
machines; the Shoah; being made to burn bodies of fellow
inmates; the Sonderkommando, the "special detail" or
"death detail"; the detailed workings of the gas
chambers and crematoriums; the results of rebellious
acts within Auschwitz; a detailed report of Auschwitz
that was ignored by Winston Churchill; the reality that
the United States and England knew of the concentration
camps years before any help was sent to free the
victims; and the survivors' inability to forgive
themselves for the acts they performed to stay alive.
This program is in French with English subtitles.
Cataloging of this program was made possible by Michael
Finkelstein and Sue-ann Friedman, 1996.
Details
- NETWORK: France 2 (France)
- DATE: November 30, 1994
- RUNNING TIME: 1:20:48
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:41382
- GENRE: Public Affairs/Documentaries
- SUBJECT HEADING: Auschwitz (Poland : Concentration camp); Bergan-Belsen (Germany : Concentration camp); Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945); International Collection - France; Mauthausen (Mauthausen, Austria : Concetration camp); National socialists; World War, 1939-1945 -- Concentration camps -- Austria; World War, 1939-1945 -- Concentration camps -- Germany; World War, 1939-1945 -- Concentration camps -- Poland
- SERIES RUN: FR2 (France) - TV, 1995
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- William Karel … Director, Writer
- Jean-Charles Deniau … Writer
- Philippe Alfonsi … Writer
- Sergeant Envir Alimbekov
- Kurt Baum
- Halina Birenbaum
- Buch, Colonel Raymond Sieman
- Henri Bulawko
- Charlotte Chapira
- Thomas Crawford
- Waclaw Dlugoborski
- Gideon Greif
- Manfred Klafter
- Henryk Mandelbaum
- Stanislaw Obstarczyk
- Vassili Yakolevitch Petrenko
- Tom Segev
- Piotr Setkiewicz
- Jerzy Tabeau
- Igo Trochanowski
- Marcel Wainstain