In the Shadow of the Reich

Combining two hard-hitting documentaries by filmmaker John J. Michalczyk on a single DVD, the first program Nazi Medicine (1997) chronicles the horrors perpetrated by Nazi doctors in the name of “saving” the Fatherland from the “sickness” caused by Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and others. Tracing the history of the doctors' pre-Nazi death camp dabblings in eugenics (an interest that was shared, incidentally, by American doctors in the earlier 20th century) through the "crimes against humanity” later perpetrated under Hitler's "final solution," the program includes painful-to-watch interviews of survivors who, as children, suffered at the hands of the "angel of death" Josef Mengele, as well as graphic archival film footage and photographs. Despite the fact that thousands of Nazi doctors participated directly or indirectly in the atrocities, only 16 were convicted, and nine were out of prison by 1967. The second documentary, The Cross and the Star (1992), outlines the longstanding, complicated relationship between Christians and Jews, describing the mindset of racial and religious superiority of the former as a basis for genocide toward the latter (as one interviewee put it, “the Holocaust didn't happen overnight”). The program looks at the Vatican's activities during the Holocaust, Hitler's attempts to unite Christian churches under one Nazi church, and the prejudicial acts against Roman Catholics in Germany, among other subjects. Although the program is predominantly talking-head, the interviews--including those with Jewish and Christian clergy talking about reconciliation--are gripping. DVD extras include the bonus short "A Window Into the Camps," and the photo tour "Inside the Reich" consisting of mostly uncaptioned photographs. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (S. DeMasi)