VIDEO
Hitler’s Holocaust: Final Toll. Videocassette. © MPR Film und Fernsch Produktion GmtH for the History Channel, 2000. Running Time: Approximately 50 minutes.
REVIEW
Once when I turned off the VCR upon completion of the viewing of this film, I made the comment to the students that I didn’t feel very uplifted by what we’d just seen and heard. While host Roger Mudd closes out the series on a positive note by informing us that by 1960 there were only a few thousand Jews still living in Germany but that today’s statistics show that around 20,000 Jews are immigrating each year (mostly from the former Soviet Union), I think we were still focused on the last speaker in the video, Roman Frister. We saw him in an earlier episode, describing how another prisoner had raped him, and forced him then to make choiceless choices based on additional circumstances. He says:
The house I grew up in existed no longer; the world when I was a child existed no longer. Nothing was sacred to me – not the woman I married, not the child that we had… I had been robbed of my life and my soul. It was a crime no less worse than physical killing.
The Shoah is all about loss; this is the legacy of the Holocaust for many who survived it.
The title Final Toll does not bespeak brightness or cheer. This is by design. One might have suggested Liberation and a Return to Life or some such flowery label, but then that would not have summed up what the viewer finds in this film. Beginning with the Wehrmacht’s arrival in Hungary (in March 1944), followed shortly by Adolf Eichmann and his staff, Final Toll tells of the tremendous increase in killing in 1944 as the war was turning decisively against Germany. The fate of the Jews seemed sealed as the last Jews of Europe were rounded up and deported to Auschwitz. The Hungarian deportation is covered in detail. Norbert Lopper reports that in Auschwitz he saw people sitting, waiting by the crematorium – as far down as the camp gate people were waiting to be gassed. The Germans were forced by this time to burn corpses in open pits, as the crematoria could not keep up with the frenetic pace of execution. Ella Lingens tells of her nearsightedness, of trying to make out what was happening by the pits. She commented to a companion how odd it was that an SS man was struggling with a dog, trying mightily to throw it into the flames. Her companion corrected, “That’s no dog. That is a child.”
The issue of bystanders is addressed in this film, as it was in previous segments of the series. An anti-aircraft gunner stationed near Auschwitz states that the burning smell traveled for miles. Locals made jokes, such as “smells like frying Jews” to hide their discomfort, and perhaps their embarrassment. Renee Firestone, a Slovakian Jew deported from Hungary, remarks about American aircraft in the area, in hope that they were there for more than the industrial bombing raids their orders called for:
We said, “Look at the stars!” The Allied bombers were in the sky at regular intervals, like shiny silver lights. We were hoping they would come back. We couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t bomb the railroads – so that those who are still out there cannot come in.
Images used and stories told in this film harken back to the gritty, even grisly, tales and pictures from Mass Murder. Hans Frankenthal, a Jewish prisoner at Auschwitz, narrates his recollection of the January 18 1945 order for the death march of 60,000 prisoners and of traveling in open coal cars on the route back into Germany. “We kept corpses as pillows. We would lay them against the side of the car and recline so we could get proper rest.” Your students will have much to discuss upon hearing that… One can appreciate a quote from Jakov Winnitschenko, a Soviet leader, who said of the 7,000 prisoners left behind by the SS in Auschwitz, “The children had no more tears.” After all that had been endured and the massive numbers who had succumbed, one wonders how survival in any condition was even possible.
But the Jews who did survive sometimes did so to face their captors after the liberation of the camps. Film from the Allies shows the SS being marched in front of their former prisoners; some of the former guards are defiant, others downcast. We are also shown townsfolk brought in to witness the carnage they’d denied for many years. In this segment Herta Bothe, who was an SS guard at Bergen-Belsen, is interviewed. When asked if she had any regrets, she replied no. She goes on to say that her only regret was working at the camp – if she hadn’t done that, they would have put her in the camp herself. Of course, that is not true. After a look at the events of the liberation of Dachau, the main portion of the film closes with a strong quote from Yehuda Baker. It is in reference to his initial desire for revenge on the Germans, but later there is a realization that to stereotype the German people would be no different than stereotyping Jews. Baker remarked: “If one keeps on hating, or if hatred continues, then Hitler would have won.”
This film does not dwell on numbers like six million or twelve million, or the 1.1-1.5 million killed at Auschwitz, etc. No, this film dwells on the human costs – lives, yes, but also the terrible scars which will always remain for the survivors. When we approach the part of the film where liberation is discussed, when the Allies force the locals to enter the camps and see what they had turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to over the past 12 years, and when we find that at Bergen-Belsen 14,000 people died from typhus, malnutrition, and exhaustion in the days immediately after freedom – we wonder how anyone could have the strength to carry on and attempt to piece a civilized existence back together. As stated at the beginning of this review, Roman Frister’s life was in shambles. His ability to form relationships was severely disrupted; his trust in humanity was fragmented. While this is certainly not the case for all survivors, it does leave us respectful of those who could move forward, and understanding of those who could not. Some found a way to make the hate stop and deal with the trauma and the guilt.
PASSAGE/QUOTE FOR CLASSROOM USAGE
Write the following quotes on the chalkboard, in a PowerPoint, or on an overhead:
As long as I have been given the power I will use it. I am proud that I am in charge of the extinction of the Jewish people. I have everything I need – I am rich, I can get everything I want. And as long as I have this power I will keep it.
Adolf Eichmann, on his job of deporting the Jews of Hungary, 1944
I had thought the world was one big concentration camp. I didn’t know there were children who looked like children and went to school.
Eva Mozes Kor, child survivor, reflecting on seeing a Polish girl with a school bag over her shoulder.
Ask your students:
- What was the world that Eichmann and his fellows created? Use single words to describe it.
- What was the world in which Eva Mozes lived? Again, use single words to describe it.
- As these visions are at opposite extremes, use single words to describe the world you live in today. Do you think that this current picture would have been similar to the world prior to the Nazis? What about after they went away?
RATIONALE FOR USAGE/UNIT RELEVANCE
This film is best used in a discussion of the end days of the Holocaust, liberation and the aftermath. There are elements that can be used in a comprehensive discussion of perpetrators, victims, children, and bystanders.
CLASSROOM METHOD OF USAGE
This episode of Hitler’s Holocaust can be shown in its entirety or as shorter clips. I (and my students) just really value this series of films – I have never taught a semester of Holocaust study when I did not show each episode in its entirety.
STUDY QUESTIONS/DISCUSSION GUIDE
Use the following video viewing guide for students to track events in the last year of World War II, and specifically the Shoah. The questions will prompt students to examine the emotions and/or events of each side in the genocide, as the Nazis sought to finish complete the genocide while the Jews hoped to hang on long enough to taste freedom.
Hitler’s Holocaust: Final Toll Name _________________________________
In the spaces provided, write details that support the emotions and/or events of each side in the genocide, as the Nazis sought to complete their war against the Jews while the Jews hoped to hang on long enough to taste freedom.
The Perpetrators
The Victims
