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SCHINDLER  (n.d.)

Sch

Documentary of Oskar Schindler, a spy for the Nazis and profiteer, who saved the lives of over 1,000 Jews. Includes interviews with Schindler’s widow; his driver; both Amon Goeth’s maid and mistress; and survivors and witnesses. Includes archive film and photos. Note: Includes scenes of atrocities.

Color/B&W. 1 hr. 22 min.  AGE: 14 to Adult

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SCHINDLER'S LIST  (1993)

Sch

Winner of seven Academy Awards, this film presents the true story of Oskar Schindler—member of the Nazi party, womanizer, and war profiteer—who saved the lives of more than 1,000 Jews during the Holocaust. Schindler opened a crockery factory in Kracow after the German invasion of Poland. He was a shrewd manipulator who cooperated and socialized with the Nazis to gain their good graces, but employed a Jewish accountant to run the business. The accountant then hired a workforce of Jews. At the end of the war, Schindler used his fortune to buy back the lives of his Jewish workers from the Nazis, refusing to allow the workers to be shipped to extermination camps. Based on the book Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally. Directed by Steven Spielberg, with unforgettable performances by Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley and Ralph Fiennes. Study guide available. Note: This masterful Spielberg work was a primary force in bringing about Holocaust awareness in the 1990’s, after which Holocaust education became mandatory in many American schools.

The library has two versions of this video:Regular format and letterbox.

Color/B&W. 2 cassettes. 3 hrs. 17 min. Rated R.  AGE: Adult

F

7TH HEAVEN: I HATE YOU  (1997)

Sev

Outstanding episode of a family-centered television series which focuses on the Holocaust and on hatred. The main story involves a young boy, Simon, who sees a number tattooed on the arm on an elderly woman who lives in his neighborhood. His father then tells him about the Holocaust. Simon is determined to find out his neighbor’s personal story—especially since his teacher has assigned each class member to interview an older friend or relative about a historical event. After a classmate announces that his father told him the Holocaust is a made-up hoax, Simon decides he must do something. In a very moving scene, he brings his neighbor to speak to the class about her experiences in Auschwitz. The episode also deals with other facets of hatred. In one subplot, two of Simon’s sisters make fun of their older brother’s new girlfriend, hating her without even knowing her. In another subplot, the youngest child in the family tells her mother, “I hate you,” after her mother makes her clean the bedroom wall she has drawn on. All three girls learn that hurtful words and inconsiderate actions have consequences, and that saying “I’m sorry” is not always good enough. Note: This is a powerful and highly instructive episode for warning young people about the power of hatred and as an introduction to the Holocaust.

Perfect for classroom use. Leave time for discussion afterwards. Teachers or parents must preview the survivor’s testimony (near the end of the episode) to determine suitability for younger audiences.

1 hr.  AGE: 13 to Adult

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SHIP OF FOOLS  (1965)

Shi

Powerful drama based on the novel by Katherine Anne Porter about human nature which looks at a group of passengers aboard a luxury liner bound from Mexico to Germany in 1933. The film examines how these characters continue to delude themselves in their personal lives and in their relationships with each other. The passengers include an intellectual dwarf; a Spanish noblewoman being deported as a political prisoner; a German newspaperman; a member of the emerging Nazi party; a German Jewish businessman; a German doctor whose patients make him ill; a number of Americans including an artist and his lover; an aging divorcee; an alcoholic ex-ballplayer; a group of Latin dancers; a mass of Mexican workers in the steerage class; and other assorted characters. From a Jewish perspective, this film is valuable for its portrayal of German attitudes towards Jews just prior to the war—as well as the attitudes of German Jews. Includes strong performances by Simone Signoret, Vivien Leigh, Michael Dunn, Jose Ferrer, Lee Marvin and Oskar Werner. Nominated for eight Academy Awards.

2 hrs. 29 min.  AGE: 14 to Adult

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SHOAH  (1985)

Lan

Claude Lanzmann's monumental epic on the Holocaust contains none of the horrifying images that we expect from a film about the Holocaust. Instead, we are presented with an assemblage of witnesses—death camp survivors and Nazi functionaries—whose combined testimony amounts to one of the most shattering documents ever recorded. Described as a “monument against forgetting,” this production combines contemporary footage of the places where the events took place and interviews with Jewish survivors. Nazi commandants, Polish onlookers and other eyewitnesses help to create this shattering historical document. Study guide available. Note: Some stories are divided over two videotapes.

In English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Polish and Yiddish with English translation and subtitles.

Color/B&W. 5 cassettes. Approx. 2 hrs. ea.  AGE: 14 to Adult

PART 1. Deals at length with the camps at Auschwitz, Chelmno, Sobibor and Treblinka, and the towns of Auschwitz, Kolo and Wlodawa. Lanzmann interviews survivors, villagers and railway workers about subjects including train convoys, the first day in a camp and the fate of the towns’ Jews.

PART 2. Deals with the camps at Auschwitz, Belzec, Chelmno (at length), and the towns of Grabow (at length) and Berlin. Includes interviews with historian Raul Hilberg, an SS officer, a police guard, a gas chamber worker and many villagers. Subjects include gas vans, gas chambers and the towns’ Jews.

PART 3. Deals with Treblinka (at length) and Auschwitz. Includes interviews with a survivor, many villagers, an SS officer and a barber.

PART 4. Almost totally about Auschwitz, gas chambers, acts of resistance, and the rounding up of Jews from Czechoslovakia and on the island of Corfu. Includes an interview with Raul Hilberg.

PART 5. Witnesses life and death in the Warsaw Ghetto. Interviews survivors and a Polish government courier. Raul Hilberg and a Nazi deputy ghetto commissioner discuss the president of the ghetto, Czerniakow.

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THE SHOP ON MAIN STREET  (1965)

Sho

Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Film, this story personalizes the horrors of the Nazi occupation by focusing on one relationship. It tells of the friendship of an elderly, hard-of-hearing Jewish woman who owns a button shop and the good-natured carpenter appointed by the Nazis as her Aryan controller. Raises the issues of moral responsibility versus obedience to authority and power versus powerlessness.

In Czech with subtitles. B&W. 2 hrs. 8 min.  AGE: 14 to Adult

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SHTETL  (1996)

Sht

A Frontline presentation of director Marian Marzynski’s affecting look at how the Holocaust erased Jewish culture from the shtetls of Poland. A Polish Gentile researcher, a Chicago Jew and a Polish-born American Jewish translator join forces in Bransk, Poland, to uncover the story of what happened to this shtetl during the Holocaust. They discover much remaining Polish anti-Semitism and denial of what happened through many interviews with current Bransk inhabitants. They also talk to Bransk survivors in Israel and America, and at the end we follow another Bransk-born American Jew who returns to talk with people from his home village. Study guide available.

In English with some Polish subtitles and translations. 3 hrs.  AGE: 14 to Adult

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SILENCE (1998)

A haunting short film based on the true story of Tana Ross, a Jewish woman who was hidden as a young child in Theresienstadt by her grandmother. Tana and her grandmother were sent to live with relatives in Sweden after liberation. Once there, she was told by all to be silent and to forget about the past. At 20, Tana was given letters her mother wrote to Sweden before the war – letters begging relatives to try to find a way to bring them over. It was not until after she turned 50 that Tana was able to break her silence and tell her story – in this film. The film is done very artistically, with unusual animation, often against documentary film footage. It includes some symbolic sophisticated imagery, and the viewer may wish to watch it more than once to appreciate some of the nuances. Note: This can be used as a trigger film in classrooms to generate further discussion. Topics would include the perspective of a child during the war, the theme of silence after the Holocaust, and discussion of some of the imagery in the film. Audiences will interpret this film differently based on their experiences, perceptivity and sophistication.

10 min.  AGE:  14 to Adult

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65316: AUSCHWITZ SURVIVOR  (1993)

Aus

Documentary recalling life and death in concentration camps during World War II with its focus on one man, Mike Vogel, a survivor of Auschwitz.

1 hr.  AGE: 14 to Adult

Isabella Rossellini and Jeroen Krabbe star in this beautifully filmed drama based on a true story about the effects of the Holocaust on an affluent Italian family. Krabbe plays Wilhelm, a sophisticated and assimilated German Jew who lives with his beautiful Christian wife and two daughters in a villa in Tuscany in 1944. Two young nieces, Penny and Baby, come to live with the family after their parents are killed in an automobile accident. The story is told through Penny’s eyes, as she and her sister integrate into their new family. Much of the film is a coming-of-age story, as Penny acclimates to her new family and school, has religious struggles and befriends their peasant neighbors. When the Nazis occupy Italy, Wilhelm is repeatedly warned by friends and even clergy, to flee with his family to safety, as he is a Jew. A proud and idealistic man, Wilhelm refuses to escape or to hide, saying that a man must live with some dignity and that he has done no wrong. It is only towards the end that Wilhelm sees he has no choice but to leave. Then tragedy unexpectedly strikes the family at the very brink of liberation. Based on the autobiographical novel by Lorenza Mazzetti. Note: Similar to “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis,” this poignant film explores the reactions and the fate of many of Italy’s assimilated Jews during the Holocaust. Includes scenes of violence.

In Italian with subtitles.  1 hr. 42 min.  AGE:  17 to Adult

JHVC

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So Many Miracles  (1987)

So

Many of the Jews who survived the Holocaust owe their lives to "righteous gentiles" who imperiled their own lives by assisting Jewish friends and neighbors. The emotions of those years remain undimmed by the passage of time, as Jews recall the fateful decisions, personal courage, and twists of luck that helped them slip through the Nazis' killing machine. In So Many Miracles, survivors Israel and Frania Rubinek return to Poland to meet with Sofia, the woman who hid them. Aware of German atrocities, the couple had lived in a bunker in the town of Pinczow, fled, then returned to hide with Sofia, who sheltered them despite her husband's reluctance. They all stayed in the same house for over two years, narrowly avoiding detection at times. Their reunion, 40 years later, speaks of the power of bonds forged at a time when they were forbidden.

58 min.  AGE: 12 to Adult

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SO WE SAID GOODBYE  (1991)

So

Short Israeli drama in which Yackov watches as his son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren gather their things and prepare to leave Israel for a new home in Madrid. As he watches his grandson at the airport, Yackov has a flashback of his own childhood in Poland—where he left his mother and siblings in 1937 to join his father and older brother in Argentina. That was the last time Yackov saw his mother and younger siblings—they perished in the Holocaust. The film ends with Yackov’s grandson waving from the escalator and then switches to a scene of Yackov’s mother and siblings walking away from the boat dock.

In Hebrew and Yiddish with subtitles. 26 min. AGE: 12 to Adult

F

SOPHIE’S CHOICE  (1982)

Sop

Drama based on William Styron’s book about a Polish gentile woman who immigrates to America after World War II. Sophie survived a Nazi concentration camp and a life filled with turmoil during the war. Now in Brooklyn, she struggles with her haunting past and her relationship with her off-balance Jewish lover Nathan (Kevin Kline). Sophie and Nathan befriend a would-be writer, Stingo, and the trio discover secrets each of them is hiding. Meryl Streep won an Academy Award for her performance as Sophie. Note: Included here for its Holocaust content but not recommended as a primary source for Holocaust studies.

2 hrs. 37 min.  AGE: Adult

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SORROW: THE NAZI LEGACY  (1993)

Sor

A group of six Swedish teenagers—Jews and non-Jews—embark on a journey to Auschwitz to try to understand the Holocaust. Initially they meet at Wannsee—site of the meeting place where implementation of “the Final Solution” was determined. They also meet with Ruth Elias, a survivor of Auschwitz, and hear her story. At the conclusion, the group meets with Niklas Frank, son of a high-ranking Nazi official who was the Governor General of Nazi-occupied Poland.

33 min.  AGE: 12 to Adult

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THE SORROW AND THE PITY (1971)

Re-release of the classic epic length documentary about France during World War II and the complicity of the French with the Nazis. Filmed in the late 1960s, director Marcel Olphuls combines interviews of a wide variety of individuals in France. This includes those who collaborated with the Nazis as well as members of the Resistance and bystanders. Interwoven throughout are excerpts from newsreels and Nazi propaganda films. B&W.

In French with subtitles.  4 hrs. 20 min.  AGE:  17 to Adult

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SOSUA  (1981)

Sos

Story of how Sosua, a Caribbean island ruled by the Dominican Republic, became a refuge for Jews fleeing from the Nazis. At the Evian Conference in 1938, thirty-two nations met to discuss finding homes for European Jews, and only the Dominican Republic, ruled by dictator Rafael Trujillo (who had his own motives) offered sanctuary. The film tells the story of the group of Jewish refugees who found a safe haven in Sosua in 1940, and includes interviews with members of the current Jewish community there.

30 min.  AGE: 12 to Adult

F

STAR TREK: PATTERNS OF FORCE  (1968)

Sta

An episode of the science fiction series in which, on a routine check of the planet Ekos, Captain Kirk and Spock discover that the planet is controlled by latter-day Nazis. They learn that a Federation advisor’s plan to teach the planet efficient government techniques, using Germany’s model, got out of control, and the model of Nazism’s racial hatred has taken over. The Koshins, the natural inhabitants of the planet, are attempting to annihilate an entire race, called the Zaons (sounds like “Zions”)—a peaceful race who have been trying to aid them. The Enterprise team attempt to get to the heart of the problem and remedy the harm that has been done. Note: While not directly about the Shoah, this program may be a good discussion vehicle.

51 min.  AGE: 10 to Adult

F

THE SUMMER OF AVIYA  (1989)

Sum

The story of one summer in the life of a ten-year-old girl, Aviya, during the first year of Israel’s independence. Aviya has lived in orphanages most of her life. Her mother, a Holocaust survivor who was a partisan fighter during the war, walks a thin line between sanity and madness. Aviya returns home to her mother for the summer in this emotionally powerful film. The viewer sees Aviya grow toward maturity as she struggles with some very difficult situations. The film also illustrates how the Holocaust scarred not only its survivors, but also their children. Note: This is a true story based on the life of Gila Almagor—a prominent Israeli actress who portrays her own mother in this film.

In Hebrew with subtitles. 1 hr. 36 min.  AGE: 13 to Adult

Epic drama which follows five generations of a Hungarian Jewish family from the mid 1800’s to the mid 1900’s. Ralph Fiennes plays three generations of men in the Sonnenschein (“sunshine” in German) family – a grandfather, a father and a son. The film opens in the 1800’s when Emmanuel Sonnenschein immigrates to Austria-Hungary, where he marries, has two sons, and becomes a successful businessman using a family recipe for a distilled beverage. Fiennes first role is as Ignatz, one of these sons, who becomes a successful lawyer. Ignatz eventually marries his adopted sister and assimilates by changing his name and working his way up through government. His brother, a doctor, becomes a Communist and flees.

Eventually, Ignatz has two sons, and one of them, Adam (also played by Fiennes) becomes a doctor. His attempt to assimilate is to convert to Roman Catholicism, as does the woman he marries – and they have a son. Adam is a skilled fencer as well, and he joins the Hungarian army to win a place on its fencing team. He competes and wins an Olympic Gold Medal – but eventually, anti-Semitism reaches Hungary when the Nazis invade. Adam and his family are rooted out as Jews, and Adam faces a horrific death.

After World War II, Adam’s son Ivan (again played by Fiennes) becomes an investigator in the Soviet backed Hungarian government and seeks out ex-Nazis. A disillusioned Ivan becomes active in the 1956 Communist rising and ends up in jail. In each generation, the lead male tries desperately both to assimilate and to change the injustice he sees around him – always with disappointing results. Sunshine follows a century of Jewish Hungarian life, mirroring the experiences of the Hungarian Jewish community through changing times and changing governments. The film presents superb performances by Ralph Fiennes, Rosemary Harris and Jennifer Ehle. Note: Contains sexual situations, some graphic violence and adult language. One torture scene is particularly upsetting to view. Rated R.

3 hrs.  AGE:  17 to Adult

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SURVIVORS OF THE HOLOCAUST  (1995)

Sur

A chronicle of the Holocaust, as told by those who lived through it, including interviews, archival footage and photographs. Interviews were selected from the collection of the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, which was founded by Steven Spielberg and includes over 5,000 interviews. Note: The first 19 minutes of Copy 1 is a separate piece describing the work of the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation and how they are documenting the lives of Holocaust survivors around the world. This segment is hosted by Ben Kingsley and includes footage of Steven Spielberg discussing this project. Schools using this film for the teaching of Holocaust history may wish to fast forward to the beginning of the feature presentation—or should use Copy 2.

Copy 1, 1 hr. 10 min. Copy 2, 55 min.  AGE: 12 to Adult

JHVC

F

Swing Kids  (1993)

Swi

Swing Kids, based on a historical movement, is about a group of young men in Nazi Germany who defied the Third Reich to listen and dance to forbidden "swing" music from America. These "Swing Kids" make a moral choice to pursue their personal freedom at the risk of being sent to work camps. Robert Sean Leonard (star of Dead Poets Society) is Peter, the leader of a rebellious group of Swing Kids. Every week, Peter and his friends openly defy the Gestapo by dancing the jitterbug at parties in Hamburg. But as the pressure to join the Hitler Youth takes its toll on the Swing Kids, one by one, each is faced with a brutal choice—loyalty to their cause or loyalty to Germany's.

1 hr. 54 min.  AGE: 14 to Adult