Alfred Hitchcock's Holocaust documentary to be released in full

[gilliam]

A documentary about the Holocaust partially helmed by famed director Alfred Hitchcock is due to be released in full for the first time.

The Independent reported Wednesday that the documentary will be shown in tandem with a new documentary, “Night Will Fall,” at festivals and in theaters, as well as on British television to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.

Hitchcock was approached in 1945 by his friend and producer Sidney Bernstein about the possibility of helping with a documentary based on footage shot in the Nazi concentration camps by British and Soviet army units. Upon first viewing the footage, the director of “Psycho” and “The 39 Steps” was reportedly so traumatized that he avoided the film studio for a week.

The project took longer than anticipated and by the time it was ready, in late 1945 the Allied military government in Berlin decided the film would do more harm than good to the effort to pacify the defeated Germans. Five of the original six reels of footage shot were placed in a vault in the Imperial War Museum in London, where they were discovered in the 1980s by an American researcher. The unfinished film, in which Hitchcock was credited as a “treatment adviser,” was shown at the Berlin Film Festival in 1984 and on PBS in 1985 under the title “Memory of the Camps”.

foxnews.com/entertainment/2014/01/08/alfred-hitchcock-holocaust-documentary-to-be-released/

 

[DexUK]

As someone with family background that comes from European Jewish ghettoes, I often tend to feel it’s my duty to watch such things - sort of as an act of remembrance for the inevitable (but unknown) lost cousins, if you will.

If this film is shown on television I’ll probably watch it, albeit with a heavy heart.

More broadly, I would suggest that less people will be as shocked by it now than would have been at the time it was made: we are generally very well educated on the subject matter these days and, as upsetting as it is, it isn’t as specifically shocking as we already know what to expect. It is certainly important though that societies never forget, lest we be doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.

 

[gracepoole]

More broadly, I would suggest that less people will be as shocked by it now than would have been at the time it was made: we are generally very well educated on the subject matter these days and, as upsetting as it is, it isn’t as specifically shocking as we already know what to expect. It is certainly important though that societies never forget, lest we be doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.

sigh And then there’s this:

The Incredibly Depressing Answers College Students Gave When Asked What the Holocaust Was and Where It Began

 

[gilliam]

sigh And then there’s this:

The Incredibly Depressing Answers College Students Gave When Asked What the Holocaust Was and Where It Began

Modern college students don’t know history, literature, philosophy and don’t know geography.

 

[lutheran_farmer]

If it traumatized Alfred Hitchcock…is it a good idea to watch it? I have seen several documentaries about the Holocaust and perhaps there is a limit as to what you should see. How would the victims choose to be remembered? Like stacks of cordwood or as real human beings that loved, lived, and had hopes and dreams and their very humanity stolen from them before being slaughtered? I think learning more about the people and what led up to the holocaust is more important as a ‘take home’ message. I can’t help but think too many stories of what the Germans did to their victims just shows the power of Germany and forgets the real families that were lost. There is a fine line there between watching enough to be horrified and watching enough to be traumatized. All should see some footage, but we need to remember how it happened to keep it from happening again. We don’t need lessons in cruelty and mass murder. We need lessons in compassion and empathy for others. We need to recognize the baby steps that led to the immense Godless nation that Germany became under Hitler. This new release…does it really feel like a good idea? Or is it exploitation?

 

[DaveBj]

Six reels = how many minutes, by 1945 film standards? I don’t know, but there’s a 53-minutes Hitchcock Holocaust documentary on Youtube. I’m not going to post the link, but it’s easily found.

 

[Good_Tidings]

As someone with family background that comes from European Jewish ghettoes, I often tend to feel it’s my duty to watch such things - sort of as an act of remembrance for the inevitable (but unknown) lost cousins, if you will.

If this film is shown on television I’ll probably watch it, albeit with a heavy heart.

More broadly, I would suggest that less people will be as shocked by it now than would have been at the time it was made: we are generally very well educated on the subject matter these days and, as upsetting as it is, it isn’t as specifically shocking as we already know what to expect. It is certainly important though that societies never forget, lest we be doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.

You can watch it at the following link. I just finished watching it and it is still gut wrenching.

rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/10/unseen-alfred-hitchcock-holocaust-documentary-memory-of-the-camps-to-be-released/

 

[Good_Tidings]

If it traumatized Alfred Hitchcock…is it a good idea to watch it? I have seen several documentaries about the Holocaust and perhaps there is a limit as to what you should see. How would the victims choose to be remembered? Like stacks of cordwood or as real human beings that loved, lived, and had hopes and dreams and their very humanity stolen from them before being slaughtered? I think learning more about the people and what led up to the holocaust is more important as a ‘take home’ message. I can’t help but think too many stories of what the Germans did to their victims just shows the power of Germany and forgets the real families that were lost. There is a fine line there between watching enough to be horrified and watching enough to be traumatized. All should see some footage, but we need to remember how it happened to keep it from happening again. We don’t need lessons in cruelty and mass murder. We need lessons in compassion and empathy for others. We need to recognize the baby steps that led to the immense Godless nation that Germany became under Hitler. This new release…does it really feel like a good idea? Or is it exploitation?

The film started by saying the Germans were relieved to have someone think for them. I think that message is important.

 

[gracepoole]

You are so right – in two respects…

First, a rabbi who had survived the Holocaust told me as we stood in Auschwitz, “You can now say that you’ve *visited *Auschwitz. You may never say that you’ve been *in *Auschwitz.” We can never truly know the level of horror experienced by the victims.

Second, *Maus *(I and II) are just a stellar set of graphic novels.

 

[DaveBj]

You can watch it at the following link. I just finished watching it and it is still gut wrenching.

rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/10/unseen-alfred-hitchcock-holocaust-documentary-memory-of-the-camps-to-be-released/

This version picked up a few extra minutes (including final credits) but otherwise it appears to be the same as the version on Youtube.

Edit: “Gutwrenching” doesn’t begin to describe it. My father (in Patton’s 3rd Army) was involved in the liberation of a camp that still had live Jews, and he said it was at that point that he saw GIs really begin to hate Germans. He never said much about it, but with all that I’ve read on the subject, I put 2+2 together and came to the conclusion that there may have been some summary executions of camp guards.