Custaryans

The Holocaust is one of the most documented, witnessed and written about events in history, so why is Holocaust denial back on the political agenda? What has happened in the 75 years since the liberation of the camps to have so skewed the picture? And, if it matters, why does it matter?

By tracking scientists and Holocaust survivors in Lithuania, The Good Nazi tells the story of a Schindler-type Nazi officer who turned his back on his dark ideology and risked his life to save hundreds of Jews.

In Iasi, Romania, from June 28 to July 6, 1941, nearly 15 000 Jews were murdered in the course of a horrifying pogrom. At the time, the programmed extermination of European Jews had not yet began. After the war, the successive communist governments did all they could to ensure the Iasi pogrom would be forgotten. It was not until November of 2004 that Romania recognized for the first time its direct responsibility in the pogrom. All that remains of this massacre are about a hundred photographs taken as souvenirs by german and romanian soldiers, and a few remaining survivors.

On July 4th, 1946, the crowd in Kielce, Poland, slaughtered forty-two Jews and wounded many others. Forty years later, in 1987, Marcel Łoziński visited those places and met some witnesses of the carnage.

How much should you negotiate with the enemy? In Israel, the debate over that question evoked fury to the point of assassination. Such was the case of Kasztner. Dr Israel (Rezso) Kasztner, a Hungarian Jew who tried to rescue the last million Jews of Europe by negotiating face to face with Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann, was gunned down by another Jew who never set foot in Nazi Europe. After 50 years, his assassin Ze'ev Eckstein breaks his silence on the fateful night he shot and killed Kasztner. (Storyville)

Czechoslovakian Zbynek Brynych directs this psychological drama set in World War II Terezin ghetto. A dark, visual portrayal of the trials and tribulations the Theresienstadt people faced on a daily basis presented in a series of memorable stories. Their hopes and dreams unfold against the perpetual threat of deportation (or worse) by the Nazis. Based on the novel "Night and Hope" by Arnost Lustig.

A double portrait of two dictators who were thousands of miles apart but were constantly fixated on each other.

PENCOERIAN BALIK!

Documentary of Daniel Schubert's grandmother, Martha Katz, a Holocaust survivor.

During the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944, thousands of American GIs were captured by German forces. Berga: Soldiers of Another War, the final work in the distinguished career of four-time Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Charles Guggenheim, is the untold story of 350 American POWs caught in the tragedy of the Holocaust. In blatant violation of the Geneva Convention, the Jewish American soldiers in the 106th Infantry Division, together with those who had "Jewish-sounding" names or who "looked" Jewish, were shipped off to the slave-labor camp at Berga am Elster, a satellite camp of the infamous Buchenwald.

In an article on the Vatican and the holocaust at Jewish Virtual Library it says: “Pope Pius XII’s (1876-1958) actions during the Holocaust remain controversial. For much of the war, he maintained a public front of indifference and remained silent while German atrocities were committed. He refused pleas for help on the grounds of neutrality while making statements condemning injustices in general. Privately, he sheltered a small number of Jews and spoke to a few select officials, encouraging them to help the Jews.” This is a highly interesting documentary on this controversy.

Through interviews we meet some of the people who risked their lives to hide Jewish children during World War II and how this experience has continued to affect the survivors.

On June 29, 1941 thousands of Jews were herded into a courtyard in Iasi, Romania and were massacred by German and Romanian soldiers. Many of the Jacobovicis of Romania died that day. Canadian filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici goes back to the land of his forebears and explores issues of memory - his and Romania's. Charging the Rhino is a documentary about the Romanian Holocaust. Romanian fascists shot filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici’s father, Joseph, during WWII. Romanian communists shot his cousin, Sasha, during the Cold War. Through their stories the film explores the devastating history of fascism and communism in Romania and the life-altering affect it had on the psyche of those who endured Romania’s unimaginable.

Their names are Chorowicz, Cyroulnik, Glichtzman, Feldhandler... They were born in France, after the second world war. Their families came from Central and Eastern Europe in the 20s and 30s, fleeing antisemitism and poverty. After the Holocaust, they grew up among ghosts, between anger, a desire for vengeance and a will to change the world. In the 60s and 70s, they became activists. Through their personal stories and the tale of their internationalist and antifascist struggle, the movie shows the audacity of those years of dissent.

For six female Holocaust survivors, liberation from the camps marked the beginning of a lifelong struggle.

Every year since 2011, a unique beauty contest has been taking place in Haifa. The contestants are female survivors of the Holocaust. In the midst of this flashy spectacle, their personal traumas remain as deep as ever. There are many things about this contest that are controversial: it is organized by the right Zionist organization, the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, and the dubious contest itself rises the public indignation of various speakers, including other survivors.

Forty years after the release of Claude Lanzmann’s monumental film Shoah, Guillaume Ribot reveals the director’s relentless pursuit to tell the untold, using only Lanzmann’s words and unseen footage from the masterpiece.

Once upon a time, a poor woodcutter and his wife lived in a great forest. Cold, hunger, poverty, and a war raging all around them meant their lives were very hard. One day, the woodcutter's wife rescues a baby. A baby girl thrown from one of the many trains that constantly pass through the forest. This baby, this "most precious of cargoes", will transform the lives of the poor woodcutter's wife and her husband, as well as those whose paths the child will cross—including the man who threw her from the train. And some will try to protect her, whatever the cost. Their story will reveal the worst and the best in the hearts of men.

After losing his parents, a young Jewish boy wanders Eastern Europe, seeking refuge during World War II.

In 1943, Max Fronenberg spent one year digging a secret underground tunnel to escape out of a prison camp in Warsaw, Poland during the Holocaust while saving fifteen other prisoners in the process and forced to leave behind the love of his life, Rena, in the prison.