To be kept in our memories
"Survivors of the Holocaust"

At the end of Second World War, english and american troops registered with horror,
the existence of large commom graves where were hidden and buried the
bodies of the victims of the atrocities commited by german nazis.

It is very difficult to watch the documentary "Survivors of the Holocaust" and don't get sensibilized with all the pain and suffering felt by jew prisoners of the concentration and extermination camps in Nazi Germany. The images and statements given by the survivors are a valuable document for historians, specially for the ones that dedicate their time to analyze carefully the growth, victories and defeat of the nazi and fascist regimes in Germany and Italy after the First World War.

This documentary was made because of a major effort of the Survivors of the Shoah Foundation (Shoah means holocaust). This institution was created in the period in which Steven Spielberg was making his movie "Schindler's List". It is necessary to say that the foundation was created mainly because of Spielberg's strenght and devotion to this idea. He wanted to sponsor a group of researchers that could get statements from survivors that are living all over the world.

More than 50 thousand statements were given to the foundation. All of them were filmed or audio taped. The major interest was to make students understand the seriousness of the happenings that took part on concentration camps from statements given by the survivors that miraculously survived to the severe conditions and violences they suffered. It is remarkable that after more than 50 years, the images and stories can make the survivors and the spectators come to tears.

Tears are, however, totally understandable if we remember the conditions in which the prisoners lived under nazi control. It seemed to them as hell as we can see from their declarations.

It is necessary to understand the meaning of the word Holocaust so that we can comprehend exactly what was lived by the prisoners:

There is a straight reference to the happenings that took place in the time nazism controlled Germany; the word "holocaust" is also presented as a synonym of disaster or destruction made by war or fire. There seems to be a close relation between war and fire with what happened in Germany with the Jews in concentration or extermination camps.

This relation can be understood as we think about bodies being burned or violences being commited against the prisoners. It wouldn't be reasonable if we didn't call the reader's attention to the punishments applied to the german's prisoners of this period. Madmen's punishments such as slavery, brain wash, scientific experiments such as the ones made by Josef Mengele or, the worst, death.

To understand this holocaust phenomena in a better way we must find out what was the Nazi proposition and history, to understand it, take a look at the definition given ahead:-

From this definition we begin to understand the reasons that made the nazis attempt one of the most hateful and destructive persecutions of all times. Specially because Nazism is presented as a racist belief that stood for the idea that arians were superior to other human beings, their needs and interests. All of this, also related to the idea that Germany had to expand its territory and wealth. The worst part of the definition is to know that there are, still, political groups influenced by the nazis.

How can we deal with that? In what way can we make nazism disappear from our planet? The preservation of the memory and extending the possibility of knowledge of this information made by the Survivors of the Holocaust Foundation are one of the best ways to avoid that the nazis examples survive in our world. It may seem to some people that it is not enough but if we keep preaching for tolerance, comprehension and peace among people…

Adolf Hitler's actions promoted the uprising of the ghettos, the concentration camps and, after that, the nazi extermination camps. In these places families were divided; the women went to one sector and the men to another. The ones that were considered weak or ill were killed to save money, food and medicine to the ones that could work as slaves.

The Movie

Realized in a very conventional way with a very conservative narrative structure, the documentary doesn't seem to captivate the spectators attention; There is, however, a very strong subject that comes to life as soon as we can watch the statements given on the screen. They put us in front of one of the major crimes in the history of mankind.

Prisoners were burned alive in the crematory furnaces, families were split and destroyed by the insensitive and brutal nazi soldiers, prisoners had to live with such a low portion of food if they didn't want to starve to death, men and women had to dig their own graves, sexual abuses were often comitted, mad scientific experiments made with living people were realized, all of this actions were ways of punishing prisoners with cruelty…

There were so many atrocities made by the nazis that it seems difficult to me to write it down in a few lines. The statements found in the documentary display only a small part of the prisoners problems. It would be impossible to find out all the violences commited by the germans even if we could get the statements of all survivors in the world even because, with the death of millions of victims we lost the possibility of finding out the ways they have been tortured or killed.

The stories presented refer not only to the concentration camps period (and, afterwards, the extermination fields); they begin with the Hitler's government period in 1933. It make us feel that Hitler wanted to achieve what he had written in his book "Mein Kampf", where we can find the main ideas of the Nazi ideology.

After watching the movie, probably you will remember one of the statements given by a Jew prisoner in which he was obliged to put a man that was alive in a crematory furnace. He said that he could never forget the screams of the man in the burning flames. We also seem to feel the heat and hear the scream of pain made by all the victims…

The images of holocaust and World War II were an stimulus to north-american movie maker Steven Spielberg to produce one of his major hits, the awarded "Schindler's List". It's realism encouraged Spielberg to create the "Survivors of the Shoah" Foundation, an important contribution in the fight against intolerance.

For Teachers

1- A great work could be done with a research of images and the composition of a history on Jews persecution (as well as other minorities) made by the nazis. A group of panels worked artistically (drawings, collages, digital art, mosaics,…) with captions (or subtitles) produced after reading books and internet sites speciallized in the subject could sensibilize the students, the school and the community.

2- Reading the book "The Diary of Anne Frank", a precious and classical book that bring us to the Jews problems during the nazi period, could allow students to make comparisons with the panels and the documentary "Survivors of the Holocaust" to understand in a better way the Nazi phenomena and its consequences.

3- Researches about the Jewish community and its history, trying to understand the reasons that made them spread out in the world allow us to comprehend why they were chosen by the Germans to be persecuted so violently.

4- The search for statements can continue with the students actions. If they live in major cities, in which there is an expressive jew community, they can make field researches. If they are far away from the biggest jewish communities, they can make interviews through the internet.

João Luís Almeida Machado
Master Degree in Education, Arts and History of Culture (Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, in São Paulo); Professor at Faculdade Senac in Campos do Jordão; Middle and High School teacher; writes weekly columns for the website Planeta Educação

Send e-mails, comments, suggestions and critics for:
profjoaoluis@planetaeducacao.com.br


Technical Information

Survivors of the Holocaust

Country/Year of Production:- EUA, 1996
Lenght of Time/Gender:- 70 min., Documentary
Director: Allan Holzman
Producers: Steven Spielberg, June Beallor, James Moll e Jacoba Atlas.

Links
(in portuguese)
- http://www.estado.estadao.com.br/edicao/pano/96/03/29/provs292.html
- http://www.planetaeducacao.com.br/cinema/lista_schindler.asp

(in english)
- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117792/
- http://www.vhf.org/ (Survivors of the Holocaust Foundation Website)