Holocaust: Night Will Fall: Ch4 9pm.

[Patch1875]

I've recorded it also, seen a couple of minutes half way through which was enough to make me think again about watching it.

[scovette]

Raify said:

It said in this show last night that the Imperial War museum had finished Hitchcock's film according to the script and notes left behind. Anyone know if they're going to show it? I just checked the imperial war museum web site and couldn't find anything...

It'll be shown in Germany and the US on Tuesday (to coincide with Holocaust Remembrance Day). Not sure about the UK. There's a version which is which is one reel shorter shown on US tv in the 80's and is avaialable on the PBS website. It's also on youtube.

[B17NNS]

Harrowing stuff. Off to Auschwitz with my dad in the Spring. Almost unbelievable that man can be so vile.

[EarlOfHazard]

B17NNS said:

Harrowing stuff. Off to Auschwitz with my dad in the Spring. Almost unbelievable that man can be so vile.

I've been there: be prepared!! Take tissue as it gets very dusty.

[Siko]

Raify said:

I read Auschwitz: The Nazis & The 'Final Solution' by Laurence Rees a while ago. (Very good book on the subject)

IIRC, less than 10% of the SS involved in the holocaust were ever prosecuted.

It said in this show last night that the Imperial War museum had finished Hitchcock's film according to the script and notes left behind. Anyone know if they're going to show it? I just checked the imperial war museum web site and couldn't find anything...

Not a popular fact, but the majority of the SS were not directly involved in the Holocaust. There was a clear difference, mostly lost due to the awfulness of the Holocaust, between the SS Einsatzgruppen/SS concentration camp guards and the 'fighting' SS, brutal soldiers as they were.

[uknick]

selym said:

Correct. A smart move which ensured the focus was never shaken from the subject matter.

I believe the original broadcast of the World At War episode dedicated to the Holocaust also was shown without adverts as a mark of respect.

[Legacywr]

Adrian W said:

Legacywr said:

They were in the fifth year of the biggest war in history, we are in no position to judge them!

Oh course we are, next you'll be denying it ever happened, what a stupid thing to say.

?

I'm referring to the claims that some of the liberating troops shot the SS guards on the spot! :/

[anonymous-user]

londonbabe said:

had they found any Germans at that moment, would have killed them on sight..

I'm going to suggest that there is a world of difference between shooting someone in cold blooded anger, and knowingly locking up millions in labour camps for years until they starved or froze to death, or were executed. The suffering of the victim is a magnitude different imo.

[parkus]

I've seen many a film with grotesque violence, gore, etc and really disturbing physchological thrillers that leave you feeling lost, not to mention 'those' online videos of beheadings, people on fire, etc that do the rounds every so often.
But nothing has come close to this program. So shocking seeing bodies that are literally just skin and bones being carried like a length of 2x4 because of how little they weigh; the sacks of human hair which had been meticulously weighed and labelled and sorted. Truely industrial murder.

I'm in two minds whether to recommend it to the other half to watch..

[NDA]

Patch1875 said:

I've recorded it also, seen a couple of minutes half way through which was enough to make me think again about watching it.

You should watch it, despite it being so difficult to watch.

I'm not sure any of us have the capacity to understand the suffering, but personally I would not abandon those victims by not watching - if that makes sense?

I recall seeing a program recently about another death camps that the Germans had successfully cleared/cleansed before the allies arrived. Tens of thousands died there and nothing can be found of them. The occasional tooth and, memorably, a single button. It beggars belief.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Tango13 said:

I watched a documentary years ago that contained footage of US troops shooting the German guards out of hand, no trial, no judge or jury, just put against the wall and half a clip from a Thompson.

Who cares?. Having liberated the concentration camps, I'm surprised the allies didn't do that to all of them after what they found.

[drivin_me_nuts]

What I find I comprehensible is the planning behind the camps. How many 'management meetings'.would it have taken. I'm sure a few years ago I watched a documentary where they talked about the crematorium design and the engineering drawings and specifications. Even writing this it gets me thinking about the draughtsman who drew in ink... Did he/she know what they were drawing. And if they did, what did they think.

I don't want to make a link to recent activities in Europe, but for the older generation, for the survivors who say they don't feel 'safe' in europe, I cant help but think it must raise some pretty horrendous nightmares and memories.

It must be be terrible thing to have lived with the first hand experience that those guarding you had everything intention to erase every part of your existence from the face of th earth and turn you very carcass to products.

[GadgeS3C]

Watched it this afternoon - thought I might need a daylight walk after, I wasn't wrong.

For all the horrific images, it was how difficult some of those that discovered the camps found talking about it, so many years later, that made it so real.

[Jasandjules]

I shan't watch this as I've seen more than I'd like already.

But I am curious to know what people found so harrowing? - I mean this insofar as some of the footage I've seen before will never leave my mind, so I wonder if there was anything worse than I have seen already. Somehow I doubt it.

[drivin_me_nuts]

... The well thought out and implemented process.

[dave_s13]

And what was the human hair actually used for?

Can anyone recommend some good reading around this subject, it's unpleasant but on the other hand also quite fascinating to learn about how such things can happen.

[dave_s13]

Jasandjules said:

I shan't watch this as I've seen more than I'd like already.

But I am curious to know what people found so harrowing? - I mean this insofar as some of the footage I've seen before will never leave my mind, so I wonder if there was anything worse than I have seen already. Somehow I doubt it.

I suppose it was the scale and brutal outcomes that were shown in such detail. Images of emaciated corpses being slung over the shoulder of some unhappy bod as they sling the remains unceremoniously and without dignity into a mass grave. Not something you see often on mainstream TV.

[LaurasOtherHalf]

dave_s13 said:

And what was the human hair actually used for?

Socks for submariners. Also insulation.

[MrMagoo]

A book worth reading with regards to the allied soldiers reaction upon entering these death camps would be 'The Liberator' by Alex Kershaw (I believe, it's been a while and as I'm on my phone it's difficult to check)

It's about the American 'thunderbirds' and in particular captain Felix Sparks and the liberation of Dachau. Very eye opening account, and also about the conflict in Italy which was every bit as bloody and brutal as that in Normandy etc.

[don'tbesilly]

MrMagoo said:

A book worth reading with regards to the allied soldiers reaction upon entering these death camps would be 'The Liberator' by Alex Kershaw (I believe, it's been a while and as I'm on my phone it's difficult to check)

It's about the American 'thunderbirds' and in particular captain Felix Sparks and the liberation of Dachau. Very eye opening account, and also about the conflict in Italy which was every bit as bloody and brutal as that in Normandy etc.

http://www.scrapbookpages.com/dachau/FiringSquad.html