Three Days in Auschwitz

Artist-filmmaker Philippe Mora embarks on a long and intensely personal journey to try to understand the horrors of the Auschwitz death camp, a major extermination center where European Jews were put to death by Nazis during the Holocaust. Mora, born several years after the end of WWII, has strong reasons for his interest, including a still-living mother who barely escaped being sent to Auschwitz from another camp, a late father who fought bravely for the French Resistance, and eight extended family members who died during Hitler's “Final Solution.” While the film is full of memories and Mora's sincere efforts to express something so difficult to comprehend, Three Days in Auschwitz can be sometimes a little opaque (although how can you offer an ultimate definition of the horrors of Auschwitz?). Still, Mora's images of the Auschwitz camp—now a memorial overrun with tourists—are sometimes startling and his detailed historical knowledge is impressive, while his own paintings and chalk drawings capture the evil of both the camp itself and the Third Reich in general. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (T. Keogh)