The summer of 1945. Tadeusz, a former Home Army (AK) soldier who lost everything in the war, is journeying across Masuria. He arrives at the home of a German soldier's widow. Rose, who lives alone on a large farm, gives him a cool welcome but lets him stay the night. Tadeusz repays her by helping around the farm. Though she won't admit it, Rose needs protection from looters who keep coming to the farm. Gradually Tadeusz discovers the reasons for her solitude. Amidst a landscape ravaged by war, an impossible love is born between two people from distant worlds.
A feature film. A young Dutch boy meets a Canadian soldier during the final months leading up to the liberation of the Netherlands from Nazi occupation during World War II. The bond evolves between the two, that leads into a sexual relationship.
Film based upon the autobiographical novel of the same title by ballet dancer and choreographer Rudi van Dantzig
A feature film.Frenchman Abel Tiffauges likes children, and wants to protect them against the grown-ups. Falsely suspected as child molester, he's recruited as a soldier in the 2nd World War, but very soon he is taken prisoner of war. After shortly serving in Goerings hunting lodge, he becomes the dogsbody in Kaltenborn Castle, an elite training camp for German boys. Completely happy to take care of these children, he becomes a servant of Nazism, catching boys from the area as supplies for the camp.
Based on the novel The Erl King by Michel Tournier.
A drama about a Polish Catholic farmer living under the wartime Nazi occupation, that shelters an Austrian Jewish woman, Rosa, who leaped with her husband from a deportation train going to through Silesia. Bittere Ernte (or Angry Harvest) was nominated for an Academy Award in the category of Best Foreign Language film on behalf of West Germany.
Final part in the BBC 6-part documentary series; ‘Liberation and Revenge’ completes the history of Auschwitz. As the end of the war approached, Auschwitz officers tried to hide the evidence of their crimes but were not completely successful. After liberation, survivors searched for their family and tried to return to their prewar homes, but former communities and neighbors did not always welcome them. As evidence of war crimes emerged, some senior SS officers were tried and convicted; others were allowed to resume their lives. Over 4 years, 1.3 million people were sent to Auschwitz and 1.1 million people died...
Fifth part in the BBC 6-part documentary series; ‘Murder and Intrigue’ explores the web of international politics spun during the last nine months of 1944. By that spring, the Allies knew about Auschwitz and had the military capability to bomb it. Yet despite the pleas of Jewish leaders, the British and Americans decided not to bomb the railways or gas chambers. During the spring and summer, hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz at a time when the killing machinery had been honed to perfection. That autumn saw a significant act of resistance in Auschwitz, when a group of Jewish...
Forth part in the BBC 6-part documentary series; ‘Corruption’ reveals why Auschwitz was unique in the Nazi state as the only site that was both a concentration and an extermination camp. The reason was simple-money. At Auschwitz, the Nazis wanted to kill "useless mouths" instantly and work stronger prisoners to death as slave laborers in places like the nearby IG Farben factory. Meanwhile, the SS profited from the belongings of those they killed-so much so, that in the summer of 1943, an investigation was launched into corruption in the camp and the commandant was removed. Elsewhere, individuals and nations are...
Third part in the BBC 6-part documentary series; ‘Factories of Death’ examines the annihilation system that the Nazis spread throughout Europe, with Auschwitz as the hub. It tells why the first transport of Jewish men, women, and children interred at Drancy, outside Paris, were transported to Auschwitz in March 1942 and what happened to the children who were rounded up without their parents. Genocide is being perpetrated not only at Auschwitz, but also at other camps, such as Treblinka, Belzec, and Sobibor. In the final segment, Linda Ellerbee talks with Deborah Dwork, Rose Prof. of Holocaust History at Clark...
Second part in the BBC 6-part documentary series; ‘Orders and Initiatives’ highlights the crucial decision-making period of the Holocaust, encompassing the secret plans of Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, and Reinhard Heydrich. At a conference at Wannsee in January 1942, the participants work toward finalizing their goal-the systematic genocide of an entire people. The first gas chambers are built at Auschwitz and the use of Zyklon B is developed. German doctors arrive to oversee each transport, deciding who should live and who should die. In the final segment, Linda Ellerbee talks with Claudia Koonz, prof. of...
First part in the BBC 6-part documentary series, ‘Surprising Beginnings’ (March 1940-September 1941), sets the stage for the series and examines the radical increase in violence against all opponents of the Nazi state during this 18-month period. In particular, the program explores the importance of the German Army's invasion of the Soviet Union during the summer of 1941 and connects this campaign to the first gassing experiments in Auschwitz, which were aimed at Russian prisoners of war, not Jews. In the final segment, Linda Ellerbee talks with Michael Berenbaum, professor of theology at the University of...