THE HOLOCAUST

A very good documentary on American Movie Channel  made the point that Hollywood really danced around the issue of the Holocaust for many years, a situation made additionally strange by the large number of Jews working in the film industry. Did they feel it was just too big? Too rough? Early films touching on the subject even use the term “non-Aryan”, which seems impossibly prissy. In any event, once it got going, Hollywood has done itself proud on what is arguably the biggest human drama of them all.

The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) is the ineffably sweet story of a young Jewish girl hiding out in an apartment owned by sympathetic Dutch gentile friends. Its impact remains strong, but it really only hints at the horrors of the Nazi regime. 

Interestingly, it was a TV mini-series that was the first film to really tackle the subject. Aptly titled The Holocaust (1978), it was strong stuff indeed. Notice that it took more thanr 40 years to face the horror head-on. The film stars Meryl Streep, Fritz Weaver, Ian Holm and Michael Moriarity. It was many people’s first realistic look at The Final Solution. 

Ms. Streep also appears as the title character in the heart-breaking Sophie’s Choice (1982). Kevin Kline and Peter McNichol are fine as her lover and a friend, but it is Ms. Streep’s Oscar-winning performance that carries this wonderful, horrible movie. The choice indicated by the title is a capsule of the Nazi inhumanity. To say more gives too much away. 

        A much more upbeat, uplifting film is Steven Spielberg’s towering Schindler’s List (1993), which won every award in sight. Liam Neeson is the title character, a gentile German businessman who single-handedly saves hundreds of Jews from the Nazi meatgrinder. The casual horror of some of the scenes is beyond appalling.  

Roman Polanski’s The Pianist (2002) is a more personal look at the Holocaust. Adrien Brody, in an Oscar-winning performance, is a world-class Polish concert pianist forced to hide out from the Nazis for the entire duration of World War II. He is saved by luck and the kindness of strangers, most notably a German officer!

Au Revoir, Les Enfants  (Good-Bye to the Children; 1987) is a heart-rending story that Director Louis Malle just had to make because it really happened in his life. His Catholic school in France decided to conceal several Jewish boys, risking the lives of everyone anywhere around.

Denial (2016) is a fascinating film about Holocaust denier David Irving  ( a wonderfully hateful Timothy Spall) suing American author Deborah Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz) for libel in England. Under British law, Ms Lipstadt as the defendant has the burden of proof. So her legal team must convince the court that the Holocaust was indeed real, not fictionalized as Irving claims. 

Shoah (1985) at 566 minutes is just way too long for everyone except true Holocaust fanatics.  

All of the films in this article are available on DVD. And all are definitely for adults only.