January 27th marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a day designated to honor the memories of those lost in the Holocaust. Various films have been released to honor the memories of these victims. Here are a few documentaries to consider this International Remembrance Day for your history or Jewish studies film collections.
Broken Dreams (2019)
This Polish documentary centers around the diary of Renia Spiegel and her sister Ariana, a child film star who lived in the city of Przemysl. Spiegel recounts her daily life leading up to the war. She was killed in July 1942 after escaping the Przemysl ghetto. Her diary was kept by her boyfriend Zygmunt Schwarzer and remained unread by the public for seventy years. This is a fascinating documentary, one that paints a harrowing picture of WWII Poland.
Read our review of Broken Dreams
Shoah (1985)
Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah is one of the most lauded films regarding the Holocaust. Clocking in at over nine hours, Lanzmann goes into exhaustive detail. Its four primary topics are the Chelmno extermination camp, the death camps at Treblinka and Auschwitz-Birkenau, and the Warsaw ghetto. Lanzmann interviews survivors, witnesses, and even those who perpetrated these crimes. The film is notorious for the inclusion of former SS officer Franz Suchomel, who details the death camps at Treblinka. This one is emotionally exhausting, but a must-see for historians.
Read our review for Shoah
Holocaust Hero: A Tree For Sugihara (1998)
Japanese diplomat Sempo Sugihara is sometimes known as the Japanese Schindler for his exploits during WWII. Stationed in Lithuania, Sugihara was supposed to be keeping tabs on Russia’s intentions during wartime. Sugihara instead became a godsend for Lithuanian Jews, helping them acquire visas and granting them safe passage in Japan away from the Nazi threat. This is an illuminating documentary about a lesser-known WWII hero.
Read our review of Holocaust Hero: A Tree for Sugihara
Surviving Birkenau: The Dr. Susan Spatz Story (2019)
This documentary features 96-year-old Susan Spatz, a survivor of both the Terezin concentration camp in Czechoslovakia and the camp at Auschwitz. Spatz discusses the various ways she survived the camps and goes into unsparing detail regarding how, near the end of the war, the Nazis knew the cause was lost yet tried exterminating as many Jews as possible. Detail into her post-war life, including enrolling in college at 40, also highlights the documentary.
Read our review of Surviving Birkenau: The Dr. Susan Spatz Story
Bearing Witness: American Soldiers and the Holocaust (2001)
Liberation of the various Nazi concentration camps came at a great personal, psychological cost to liberators and former prisoners alike. Bearing Witness uses archival footage of soldiers, nurses, combat photographers, and other servicemen to great effect. Interviews include the magnitude of the various horrors they experienced and the importance of passing on these stories to future generations.
Read our review of Bearing Witness: American Soldiers and the Holocaust