Description: Here in their own words are the diaries and documents, woven into a chilling narrative, from the longest surviving concentration of Jews trapped in the Holocaust. This unusual film received the European Film Critics' Prize and was a widely acclaimed Holocaust Remembrance Day Special on PBS. Artistically melding the writings from the ghetto with thousands of authentic photographs taken there of Jewish life during the Holocaust, the film offers an unprecedented opportunity to feel the hope, despair, confusion and fear of the Jews who were held and worked as slaves for the Nazi war movement, but who never surrendered the best of human nature: love of family, creativity, the right to think. Highly recommended by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Library Journal (Best of the Year), the NY Times and San Francisco Examiner (Best of the Year) the film and its companion volume--also entitled "Lodz Ghetto" and available at Amazon.com--are considered two of the finest resources in Holocaust studies.
Amazon.com: This innovative documentary about the Nazi occupation of a populous enclave of Jews in Eastern Europe weaves archival footage with material shot in the 1980s to evoke the spirit of the trapped inhabitants and their desperate struggle to survive. The Polish city of Lodz held the second largest Jewish community in Europe, and the invading Nazis ringed the Jewish neighborhood with barbed wire. All Jews in the area, nearly a quarter million people, were forced into what soon became known as the Lodz Ghetto. The inhabitants of the ghetto steadfastly endured hunger and other great hardships, and valiant efforts were made just to maintain normal lives. Factories were kept in operation under an audacious plan for the ghetto to survive economically, and to keep some semblance of cultural life, classical music concerts were held. But as survivors of the ghetto movingly relate in the narration, the community was doomed. Deportations to the concentration camps began, and this film presents the drama in heartbreaking fashion as photographs of ghetto children are shown against a voiceover of one of the ghetto's leaders painfully explaining that the Nazis are demanding that the community must hand over 20,000 people. This is a brilliantly conceived film that does a fine job of making history that should be known come to life in very human terms. --Robert J. McNamara
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - An excellent, memorable work
I have been using this video in my courses since it was released. The film tells the story of the Lodz ghetto through a well-crafted mosaic of first-person accounts and archival films and photos. The former include ghetto diaries, chronicles, speeches by Rumkowski, posted SS "announcements," and similar. The latter include occasional images of contemporary Lodz overlaying images from the time of the ghetto. The voices, including Jerzy Kosiniski who "speaks" Rumkowski (what better choice?), are conveyed with power and precision. The selections read are as various and well-chosen as could be ... Read More
Rating: - Great film -- Terrible DVD!!!
This is a great resource for students of the Holocaust. However, the poor transfer to the DVD ruins the film. At 55 minutes the DVD stops playing. There is no chaptering on the DVD, so you cannot easily find key episodes to show to students. In short, this is a BIG rip-off [...].
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