VIDEO

Hitler’s Holocaust: Mass Murder. Videocassette. © MPR Film und Fernsch Produktion GmtH for the History Channel, 2000. Running Time: Approximately 50 minutes.

REVIEW

Hans Frankenthal opens the film Mass Murder with the following paraphrased recounting:

“Son, what do you see?”

“Through the slit in the sidewall of the cattle car, I can see that it’s getting brighter. I can see guard towers, soldiers, people in striped clothing, barbed wire, and machine guns.”

“We are in a concentration camp.”

Frankenthal, along with other survivors, then begins to give testimony on the camp experience, specifically focusing on the most notorious of the Nazi camps – Auschwitz.

The above exchange is made all the more effective for the viewer due to the fact that it is shot from a train actually approaching the camp. The next story told is of the selection process prisoners underwent upon disembarking from the train.

“Out, out, out!! Men to the right, women to the left, women with children further to the left!!”

This was the greeting for these weary, and doomed, travelers. We are told that experienced prisoners often tried to help the new arrivals. A man testifies that he approached a woman and asked her to drop the hand of a child. When she protested, he said that one day she would understand. The event is corroborated by a woman who says that she was forced to make the same decision – she did let go, and the child was taken away to the gas chamber. The basic rule in Auschwitz was that small children were sent immediately to the gas, usually with their mothers. For a woman to survive, she had to disassociate herself from the youngster. The moral issues raised in these few minutes can provide your classes with ample discussion possibilities. However, please stress that your students have no life references for what survivors of the Shoah endured, and there can be no judgment rendered on the choices they made.

The next segment of the film briefly discusses Operation Barbarosa (the invasion of the Soviet Union – this series of events is covered at length in the film Hitler’s Holocaust: Invasion) and the einsatzgruppen, and then moves into a lengthier discourse on Zyklon B. First used as a pesticide to combat the lice that carried typhus, the cyanide-based pellets were later experimented with as a killer of people. In August 1941 hundreds of thousands of Russian POW’s were ordered shot at the front or in the camps. As shooting had become recognized as mentally and emotionally injurious to the German soldiers charged with carrying out the executions, a cleaner, more “efficient” method was desired. On September 6 1941 approximately 600 Soviet POW’s and approximately 250 sick prisoners were gassed at Auschwitz – the first murder there with Zyklon B. John Dobai, a Hungarian Jew, remarks:

“When the killing of people was reduced to an industrial process, it removed the humanity from us all.”

As the first gas chamber became operational, its victims were still not Jews. That would change in late April 1942 when the decision was reached that Auschwitz would become the murder factory for the Jews of Europe. Survivor Samuel Pisar observes:

“All other camps were workshops. Auschwitz was mass production.”

In the fall of 1941, Birkenau was being built adjacent to Auschwitz and would become known as “Auschwitz II”. By June 1942 Jews were beginning to be killed there.

The filmmakers who put together Mass Murder do a nice job of mixing in the archival footage we’ve come to expect from this series, but with always a surprise or two. In this installment, viewers are shown a close-up of the Death’s Head collar pins worn by some members of the SS. This is used during a report by a survivor who witnessed an SS man out of uniform, and how average he looked – but as he dressed, we are told that he became a monster, a dominator and evil; perhaps clothes do make the man… As we are shown portraits of several SS soldiers, the narrator uses the phrase “ordinary men” (a homage to the book of the same name by Christopher Browning) and tells that they were “lords of life and death”.

Another highlight of this video is testimony given by Gerhardt Riegner, who in August 1942 wrote from Geneva to alert the world of the plight of Europe’s Jews. You can read about his memorandum here: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Riegner.html.

His actions closely followed the events of July 14-15 1942, when thousands of Jews were arrested in the major cities of Europe and taken to the East. A specific case study of the Jews of Amsterdam is examined in detail and contains footage of Jews being evicted, their possessions loaded onto moving vans, and explanation of transport in cattle trucks – Harry Lowit describes the transit as having no sanitation: “We were no longer considered human.” Of note is the report by Estrongo Nechama, who tells that once they reached Birkenau their first few weeks’ survival centered around rising at 5:00 am to a breakfast of coffee and 100g of bread, and two hours of calisthenics.

The most gripping story of this episode in the series is told by Roman Frister. As part of the theme of bread and survival, Frister tells that he was raped, but as the perpetrator held a piece of bread to his mouth and Frister was hungry, there was no struggle. The story is compounded when Frister relates that, perhaps in an effort to cover the crime (no accuser), the rapist stole Frister’s cap. Since one without a cap would certainly be shot at role call the next morning, Frister was faced with only two alternatives: acquire someone else’s hat, or die. He decided to steal, and heard the gunshot the next morning at dawn as a prisoner he did not know was shot in his place. Students were overcome with, first, his courage to recount the rape, and second, the choice he was forced to make; he continues to live with the guilt.

The bystanding stance taken by the Allies and Vatican is touched on briefly, and there is an emotionally moving set of scenes of piles of suitcases, toothbrushes, eyeglass rims, and shoes. What non-Jews knew and when they knew it is discussed, and the film also examines what even Jews in the midst of the onset of Nazi terror knew and when they became aware of their final fate. The film concludes with statements from several sonderkommandos. Their recollections truly bring the viewer face to face with consummate evil.

“People were unsuspecting, still laughing, asking where they were… If we told them, they suffered more. They were told to tie their shoes together, pile their clothes – then go to the shower. ‘When you are cleaned you will go into the camp to work.’ This was the deception.”

Jehoshua Rosenblum, telling of scenes in the woods in front of Crematorium 4 at Auschwitz

PASSAGE/QUOTE FOR CLASSROOM USAGE

In the first half of the film, God or the concept of gods is called into question. Put the following two quotes on the chalkboard, in a PowerPoint, or on an overhead transparency and have the students read them:

“They were like gods; they could shoot you and nobody would ask questions… There were no rules; life was fairly worthless. Survival became a day-to-day struggle.”

Harry Lowit, speaking of the SS men stationed in Auschwitz

“We called on God to help us, but God didn’t help us.”

Estrongo Nechama, speaking as a survivor of Auschwitz and of his daily existence there

Ask the following questions:

1. How is the concept of God or gods dealt with in these two quotations?
1. In what way did the SS try to turn themselves into God in Auschwitz?
2. Did the SS succeed in doing so?
2. What is the attitude of each speaker toward the God concept?
1. Why didn’t God answer the cries of the doomed prisoners?
3. What relationship can you find between the first quote and the concept of gods and the second quote and the concept of God?
1. What can be done to prevent human beings from acting like God?

RATIONALE FOR USAGE/UNIT RELEVANCE

The film Mass Murder ties in with any discussion of camps, the einsatzgruppen, or victims of the Holocaust in general, and also nicely accompanies any readings that might be used on these subjects. It can also be effective in a unit of study on perpetrators and collaborators, as many gentiles were responsible for identifying Jews to the Nazis. Children are discussed, especially in the first half of the video.

CLASSROOM METHOD OF USAGE

As stated earlier, the film may be shown in its entirety or broken into segments for smaller blocks of discussion.

STUDY QUESTIONS/DISCUSSION GUIDE

Please pass out the following note-taking form before viewing the film Hitler’s Holocaust: Mass Murder. Students should take notes individually. At times when the teacher might provide a break for discussion or clarification of some of the issues in the film, students should be allowed to compare their graphic organizers with other students’ thoughts.

Upon completion of the film, make a similar form on the chalkboard and allow students to come up and write some of their thoughts. This will spawn ample discussion, as students will want to ask for more information about all of the categories listed. Be prepared to offer names of books or effective websites where students may go for additional research/reading.

Social Injustices Name ____________________________

Hitler’s Holocaust: Mass Murder

Using the format below, take notes on the video. There are no “right” answers; write down thoughts, quotes, events, etc. that you see in the film. Use the back if you need more room.

AUSCHWITZ: “A Different Planet”

What the camp looked/felt like ___________________________________________		Selections ________________________
	Issues of Morality

Children

________________________

Doctors

________________

The people outside – what they knew

___________________________________________________