Reexamining Key Facts in Jewish Holocaust Illusions

A Film Unfinished features a totally different perspective on the Warsaw Ghetto films.

Scene from A Film Unfinished

(ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.) - As a writer today, I have no problem taking a hard look at the claim of six million Jewish people having perished during the Holocaust. It seems distinctly possible that the figure has been inflated to further underscore the tragedy of the Jewish people. Maybe it has.

But at the end of the day, this numeric question remains, at best, exactly that. My point is that minimizing other aspects of this tragedy; questioning whether or not there were gas chambers, or whether the Jewish people were singled out, is moving into an area that discounts the tragedy.

My suggestion to anyone with real questions, is to visit a public library and spend time with books that explore the highly detailed history of this time period. A lot of material was published immediately after the war.

Here in Albuquerque, New Mexico, PBS just played a special program that originated from Channel 10 in Israel, about the Warsaw, Poland Ghetto films that the Nazi's engineered to appear 'not so bad' to the Red Cross and others. A Film Unfinished defies the senses.

The tragic stories of what the Nazi's did, how they made Jewish people parade by fly-covered corpses and act as if they were not phased. One woman featured on the PBS program was a small child during the horrors of 1942, but she says that her tender age did not spare her from becoming extremely indifferent to the suffering around her; it was the only way she could possibly survive.

This epic human tragedy stole the lives of Roma, academics, scientists, authors, journalists, homosexuals, political activists, and of course many others.

There was a particular type of approach used by Nazi Germany; a certain level of sophistication, that removes any hint of humanity.

After the movies were done, many of the people used in them died. These are young children, without a hint of youth on their faces. Old people, who wished they were already gone. The Nazi's recorded scenes of gaunt men stepping into a pool, naked, and then younger women were made to enter the same pool. It was utterly humiliating, and that was the point.

The documentary came to life when a reel of film was discovered in 1998, that allowed researchers to suddenly see the Warsaw Ghetto films in an entirely different light. One film was discovered shortly after WWII ended, labeled as "Das Ghetto" and for years, this became the accepted evidence of what we knew, since there were few if any survivors.

However the reel discovered in 1998, "radically complicated the scholarly interpretation of 'Das Ghetto,' PBS explains.

The footage which includes scenes of the original Nazi film crews, greatly supplements what the earlier film had shown, and in many cases there are multiple 'takes' in which the Jewish people are directed.

From PBS

A Film Unfinished presents the raw footage of the latter reel in its entirety, carefully noting fictionalized sequences (including a staged dinner party) falsely showing "the good life" enjoyed by Jewish urbanites. We also glimpse the filmmakers forcing some of the more prosperous Jewish inhabitants to ignore the corpses lying in the streets.

Without forcing any conclusions about what the object of the propaganda film, director Yael Hersonski offers insight into how what we believe to be definitive and historical is not always what it appears to be.

Yael Hersonski was content editor of the documentary program on Channel 10 in Israel, which won the Israeli Academy Award for Best Documentary Television Program in 2004. She now directs documentary and fictional drama programs for Israeli television. A Film Unfinished is her first feature documentary film, and was made with Senior Producer Noemi Schory and Producer Itay Ken-Tor.Yael Hersonski was content editor of the documentary program on Channel 10 in Israel, which won the Israeli Academy Award for Best Documentary Television Program in 2004. She now directs documentary and fictional drama programs for Israeli television. A Film Unfinished is her first feature documentary film, and was made with Senior Producer Noemi Schory and Producer Itay Ken-Tor.

When they weren't being humiliated, Jews were beaten and murdered. The Nazi's fell into the worst genocidal patterns ever known to man.

Many who survived were sent to Treblinka, which was one step shy of checking out for good.

Regardless of the fact that Israel today regards life of Palestinians at a marginally higher level than the Nazi's did for the Jews, there is no point in short selling the Holocaust. Yes, it is true that the Jewish people, even if the number is six million, were a small percentage of the overall number of civilians killed in the war, but what if it was five million, or four or three, what difference does it make?

I can review the documents, watch the films, read the history, but much of what I know in my heart comes from discussions of the war in Europe and the concentration camps with Americans who were there.

It is true that YouTube videos exist, that feature U.S. and British commanders talking about the concentration camps at length and never mentioning Jewish people. But there were many people killed who were not Jewish, and exactly how it played out could involve a lifetime of study. I just know after watching A Film Unfinished, that none of us should ever minimize the suffering of human beings, particularly those who lost millions of people, regardless of exactly how many million.

As a youngster, I saw original photos of piles of human bodies in at least one of the camps that my father's friend Basil Dell liberated.

Instead of questioning the numbers of the Holocaust, we should today ask real questions about why Israel lets Holocaust survivors live poor and needy. Most Americans wouldn't guess that thousands of people who survived the concentration camps of Europe, today live in Israel in abject poverty, but they do.

According to the NY Times in Jerusalem in 2007, "Nearly one-third of the estimated 260,000 Holocaust survivors here are now living in poverty. According to a report by the Holocaust Survivors' Welfare Fund timed to be released around the official day of remembrance, thousands of people who escaped death camps are struggling to get services like medical care or sufficient pensions."^[1]

It turns out that if Jewish people didn't move to Israel in the first few years after WWII, they were not entitled to the same benefits. Many came in the 1950's and later, and because of that timeframe, they are the poverty stricken survivors of today, who are still used as an excuse to justify Israel's military violence against its Arab and Christian neighbors.

The real truth about the Holocaust, is that Jewish people suffered in ways that even some of the most depraved individuals could not comprehend. Of course that is exactly what happened in Gaza at Israel's hand in 2008 and 2009, and continues today.

Anybody who would hurt a child voids their own ticket in humanity, and to go after entire families, and people who are not just Jewish, but friends of Jews? People whose blood is partly Jewish? I give the reader credit to already know that Hitler himself was part Jewish. He had it out for this religion and that is the inescapable truth.

Others suffered also, and it was terrible, as life is for the Palestinians today. Perhaps people in Israel will see this film and form a different picture in their own minds about the oppression they represent for Palestinians, and what they have themselves become today. Many never would have imagined David becoming Goliath; separate laws and roads for Jews and non-Jews, but it happened and it is apartheid.

STAY HUMAN - Vittorio Arrigoni

^[1] Support for Survivors of the Holocaust in Israel

April-16-2007: Many Holocaust survivors living in poverty, report says - By Jennifer Medina NY Times

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Tim King: Salem-News.com Editor and Writer

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