Acting
This Oscar-winning documentary recounts the harrowing stories of five Hungarian Jews who endured the horrors of the Holocaust and Hitler's reign.
Today, the word "Auschwitz" is a synonym for the Holocaust. Thousands of Jews died there every day. With the help of some acted scenes, photos and graphics, the film tells of a day in May 1944. The starting point is a unique document: a photo album created by the SS perpetrators themselves. Almost all of the photos were taken at the end of May 1944, in just a few days. They show the cruel routine, the arrival of the victims, their "selection" on the ramp, the robbery of their property and the transformation of all those who were not immediately killed, into shaved, uniformed slaves. One survivor is Irina Weiss. On a photo she recognizes her little brothers and her mother - waiting unsuspectingly near the crematorium. The SS photographers captured all of this. Their identity is known today: one of them was Bernhard Walter, a "StabsscharfĂĽhrer" who lived with his wife and three children near the extermination camp.
Photography was strictly forbidden in Auschwitz. And yet there are several photo albums from the scene of the crime. Who took the photos - and why? That remained a mystery for a long time.
Three Greek Jewish men forced to endure work in the Sonderkommando in Auschwitz-Birkenau travel together to the death camp, in both remembrance and defiance of what they experienced there.
The last weeks in the Nazi concentration camp revealed through the touching stories of survivors such as Eva Kor and Samuel Modiano. Between suffering and resistance, the documentary explores human courage in inhumane conditions, revealing the hope that flourished even in the darkest moments. A powerful tribute to memory and freedom, essential for not forgetting.
