Holocaust films

Sorry, I meant to say it in general on this;

Distant Journey (Daleká cesta) is a Czech Holocaust film directed by Alfréd Radok and released in March 1949, immediately after World War II. Radok uses experimental cinematography, blending historic footage of the Nazis with a fictional love story between a Jewish woman and her Gentile husband.
Soon after the film's release, Stalinist censorship was implemented in Czechoslovakia. Radok fled to Sweden and Czech filmmakers began their long struggle against strict communist censors. Film production declined, and Distant Journey was banned from audiences only to reemerge over forty years later.

 

I can add two, one quite notable the other certainly watchable.

"The Garden of the Finzi-Continis", an Italian film directed by Vicroria de Sica in 1971 that won the best foreign film award (Oscar) ....an outstanding film.

The second is "Charlotte Gray" A British film mostly set in Vichy France and filmed in the rather beautiful Department Tarn et Garonne. It had Cate Blanchett and Michael Gambon in it but was not financially successful but it is poignant and worth watching if not in the category of the above film.

 

As a former soldier and growing history buff as I age, the thing that always perplexes me after watching Schindler's list is why didn't the Jews recognize and react to the danger before they were herded into captivity and concentration camps. The scene with the little girl in red would evoke anger and the necessary desire to kill Nazis and end unbridled murder in the most peaceful of soldiers!

There were warning signs of growing oppressiveness, hostility, and violence toward Jews for years before Nazi invasion of neighboring Poland and Czechoslovakia. Other countries formed resistance groups...French, Czech resistance that successfully assassinated the Nazi appointed ruler, Heydrich, I believe was his name. These groups were well organized, networked, and aided the Allied effort throughout the war as well as conducting clandestine, sabotage and what would later be called guerilla operations against the occupying Nazis. Why were the Jews unable to form a similar resistance group but rather instead were able to be herded to slaughter like a herd of sheep? Why were they unable to see the signs and flee before the worst came?

Also, I have read the number of European Jews (some sources say 6 million) that were reported to have been killed by the Nazis and allegedly the Nazis often kept detailed records which I assume were relied upon to reach the number that is reported but I wonder if there are correlative records to substantiate this number as it seems mindnumbingly high for 4 years of operation. Records such as missing persons, verified deaths, etc.

From what I have learned, most of the extermination camps seem to have been located in Poland rather than Germany. Therefore, I wonder whether it is plausible that the German people may not have been aware of the Nazi extermination of the Jews as some have claimed. Nevertheless, the growing hostile Nazi rhetoric and the seizure of property, deportation of German Jews, and progressive violence and disregard for the humanity of German Jews must have made native Germans suspicious.

It is a tragic and profound lesson in warfare....how to desensitize thousands of people so that they regard the murder of an ethnic group with no more emotion than the slaughter of a undesired animal. To do this, Nazi propaganda first made the German people believe they were superior and the cause of economic disparity and all the wrongs in Germany were the fault of the Jews....then dictate that native Germans are entitled to possess that which has been taken by the Jews which justifies seizure of property and land....then dehumanize them as not worthy of life...and now after repeated indoctrination of Nazi ideology (Hitler Youth and SS were indoctrinated for over 10 years before war) you have thousands that are ready to implement the Final Solution without emotion or hesitancy. A dark chapter in history and the recipe for future regimes that would propose ethnic cleansing....aka Milosevic in the 1990's.