Holocaust Education: Recommended Films
Anne Frank: Just a Diary. 28 min.
This film has won prestigious awards in both Europe and North America because it brings Anne Frank and her wartime experiences to life in a unique and detailed manner.
A 17 year old actress who is playing the role of Anne on stage researches the details of Anne’s diary, life and times in order to “be” Anne convincingly.
Main scenes from the play and back stage discussions with actors combine to present drama students with an excellent resource.
A Prayer for the Dead. Herzl Kashetsky. 1997. 27m.
This video discusses the exhibition of paintings and drawings by Canadian artist Herzl Kashetsky, who was inspired to create his art based on photos he saw of Bergen-Belsen and his own contemporary visit to several death camps. Alex Colville, who was a Canadian war artist, talks of his experience arriving at Bergen-Belsen just after liberation. The most telling moments in this low budget production are the heartfelt comments by the artists as well as their graphic images. [Canadian Jewish Congress, Montreal]
Each of us Has a Name. Cambium Film and Video Productions/Global TV, Fern Levitt and Arnie Zipursky, dirs. 1999. 52m.
This is a video of the 1998 March of the Living to death camps Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Majdanek in Poland. The viewer follows a Canadian group of students and the four survivors who accompanied them, all as part of the 7000 participants who made this pilgrimage. The varied and earnest emotions of survivors and students are palpable as they visit these sites, culminating in Majdanek’s “Mountain of Ashes” memorial, where a student reads the poem that gave the film its title. This contemporary video takes the viewer through these museums/memorials that bear witness to the Holocaust. [Global TV]
Long Way Home.
This documentary traces the stories of courage in the years between the end of World War II and the formation of the state of Israel. Includes archival footage, original broadcasts and personal testimonies from survivors of the Holocaust.
Pig Farm. 60 min.
A 2005 Canadian documentary about the persecution of the Roma (gypsies) in World War II. Not only is the story of their suffering rarely told, but today a pig farm covers the site of a former concentration camp for Roma in the Czech Republic, making even proper memorialization impossible. Featured at the second Holocaust Education Week in Halifax, November 2005.
Postcard from Auschwitz. 16 min.
Halifax filmmaker Eric Bednarski has matched the memoirs of a relative who fought in the Polish Resistance in World War II to historical and archival footage from the time, powerfully evoking emotions of the despair and hope that defined help define the era.
Sighet, Sighet. 74 min.
Elie Wiesel returns to the Hungarian town of his birth, Sighet, where the entire Jewish population disappeared in German cattle cars. Wiesel movingly and poetically narrates the search of his past in a town that was a center of Jewish life but is no more. A low key film – suited to audiences knowledgeable about the facts of the Holocaust.
Voices of Survival. Alan Handel dir. 1988. 56m. (narrator Stephen Lewis)
Six Canadian witnesses tell parts of their stories of surviving brutality, roundups, Auschwitz selection and their macabre Auschwitz “people’s game: gas or shower?” There is good use of historical footage and intercutting of a discussion about the Allied failure to stop the mass murder as well as Canada’s pathetic refugee record. [Canadian Jewish Congress, Montreal]
We Were Marked With a Big “A.”
A groundbreaking film, shown at the first annual Holocaust Education week in Halifax, November 2004. This documentary tells the story of the Nazi persecution of gay men during the war, who were interned in concentration camps. Features interviews from survivors. Produced by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (click here to visit the website).
Writing on the Wall.
On the traditional night of pranks, “mischief night,” three Catholic teenage boys deface a local Jewish temple and the rabbi’s home with anti-Semitic graffiti. The rampage happens to coincide with the anniversary of Kristallnacht, which marked a turning point in the Nazi persecution of the Jews. When the boys are caught and the judge is about to make an example of them with a harsh sentence, the forgiving rabbi stands up and asks the judge to remand the boys to him so that he may teach them what it’s like to be different, to be Jewish, and what the Holocaust was all about. The judge agrees, and, led by the rabbi, the boys are exposed to an enlightening educational experience in which they learn about Judaism and tolerance through innovative teaching tools, including a lesson in the origins of Christianity and Judaism and a personal look at the horrors of the Holocaust. Based on a true incident.