Auschwitz Chronicle

A series of 5 films about Auschwitz death camp. 1. “The Longest Assembly,” tells a story from 1940, when the prisoners were made to stand for 20 hours on the prison grounds as a punishment for the escape of a fellow prisoner. Few survived. 2. This is the story of the camp orchestra, which played marches to the commandants leaving and entering the barracks and gave Sunday concerts of operetta, opera and dancing music for the camp staff and their families. 3. “The Birkenau Loading Ramp” episode is composed of some 200 photographs taken by a German camp photographer, constituting the documentation of the extermination of Hungarian Jews between May and July 1944. The ramp was where the prisoners were selected with only a handful sent to work. 4. The love story of Mala Zimetbaum and Edward Galiński. Their love for each other was born in Birkenau and that is also where it found its tragic end. 5. “Sonderkommando,” concerns prisoners working in the crematoriums. From time to time, the service staff would change, as the previous Sonderkommandos were also sent to the gas chambers.