ALTHOUGH SIMPLE IN ITS PREMISE, THE FILM TAKES
SOME STUNNING TWISTS AND TURNS, AS WE DISCOVER
THAT THE STORY AND PEOPLE WE MEET ARE MORE
COMPLEX THAN WE MIGHT EXPECT. HIDING AND SEEKING
with the troubling statement, only taking
issue with its indelicate expression.
Disappointed and dismayed by their response, Daum insists that his sons come
with him and their mother on a trip to Poland to try and find the non-Jewish farmers who, at incredibly great risk to their
own lives, hid the boys’ maternal grandfather and his two brothers for over two
years, until the end of World War II. It is to
these non-Jewish, Polish farmers that
Daum’s sons quite literally owe their very
existence. Although simple in its premise,
the film takes some stunning twists and
turns, as we discover that the story and
people we meet are more complex than we
might expect. This is a thought-provoking
and, at times, startling film. One word of
caution: don’t read anything about this
movie or it’s apt to spoil it for you.
footage that was likely recorded as a result
of then general Eisenhower’s insistence that
the liberation of the concentration camps
be filmed, what makes the film so incredibly
moving is the heartbreaking narration, often with the various narrators reading the
actual words of survivors who detail their
own pain, loss, devastation, and humiliation, as well as the poor treatment they experienced before, during and even after the
war. Tragically, those in the DP camps had
little choice where to go, as they could not
return to their countries of origin (and often those who did were killed when they finally did return home) and emigration to
then Palestine was strictly controlled and
nearly impossible. The film also details the
impossible and miraculous struggle to
found a Jewish homeland despite incredible
opposition that came from all sides.
THE LONG
WAY HOME
(1997)
Academy Award
winner for Best
Documentar y
(1998),
The
Long Way Home
begins with the
aftermath of the
Holocaust and
the displaced persons (DP) camps that were
set up to care for survivors. Tragically, suffering and even death did not cease with the
end of the war, but carried on in its aftermath for many more years to come in these
camps, the conditions of which were little
better than the concentration camps themselves. So deplorable were the cond itions
that Earle G Harrison, who was sent by then
president Harry S Truman to investigate, reported: “…we appear to be treating the Jews
as the Nazis treated them except that we do
not exterminate them. They are in concentration camps in large numbers under our
military guard instead of SS troops.”
Besides the incredibly haunting imagery
of the film, which liberally uses archival
THE LAST
DAYS (1998)
Another Academy Award winner for Best
Documentar y
(1999),
The
Last Days tells
the story of five
Hungarian holocaust survivors, as the Nazis desperately sought to implement their “Final Solution” in the waning
months of World War II. The film combines
interviews with these survivors along with
archival film footage from before, during
and after the war, as the subjects tell of
what their lives were like before the conflict
reached them, including how Polish Jews
seeking refuge in Hungary brought hard-tobelieve stories of the atrocities being com-
mitted by the Nazis. The interview subjects
were not worried by such tales, however, as
they saw themselves first and foremost as
Hungarians who needn’t be troubled by
what was going on 1 000km away in Germany. As the Nazis came to power in Hungary,
however, and restriction after restriction
was enacted, including forcing the Hungarian Jews to wear yellow stars, it was only
then – and far too late – that they started to
worry about what was happening.
As the Jews were being rounded up and
taken away in cattle cars, Raoul Wallenberg arrived on the scene, leased apartment buildings, and placed the Swedish
flag outside them in an effort to save lives
– but still, many of the Jews hiding in
these “protected” houses were rounded
up by the Nazis, taken outside and shot.
The interviewees tell of riding in cattle
cars to Auschwitz, the entire time believing they were being taken to a vineyard
where they would get to work in the
fields. They tell in vivid detail of the indignities they experienced and the horrors
that they witnessed – and even return to
the camps, as well as their family homes,
50 years later, emotionally describing
first-hand the things they saw there,
while learning for the first time the fate
of relatives who they had not stopped
thinking about. The film includes interviews with a Greek Jew, who participated
in gassing and cremating fellow Jews under penalty of death, as well as a Nazi
doctor, who was acquitted at Nuremburg
because of his attempts to save Jewish
lives via ordering harmless experiments
in an effort to keep people alive longer.
Also interviewed are some of the soldiers
who liberated the camps, with one soldier
noting, as images of emaciated Holocaust
survivors show on the screen, that he saw
many “horrible sights” during the war,
but “the worst thing [he] ever saw in his
life were the survivors of the Holocaust”.
The film details the lives of its subjects up
until the then present day when the movie was filmed. JL
THE FILM ALSO DETAILS THE IMPOSSIBLE AND
MIRACULOUS STRUGGLE TO FOUND A JEWISH HOMELAND
DESPITE INCREDIBLE OPPOSITION THAT CAME FROM ALL
SIDES. THE LONG WAY HOME
JEWISH LIFE n ISSUE 86 ii