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Cinema has a complicated connection with the Holocaust. The topic often attracts attention, as it provides a way to convey moral weight, intense emotions, and extreme consequences – all elements that storytellers strive for. However, there is also a risk of mishandling the subject.
Attempting to portray the atrocity of the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis, has the potential to diminish its impact. For instance, even if an actor were to undergo an intense diet, they could never truly replicate the emaciated “Muselmänner” who were present in the concentration camps. The horrors that can be depicted on film will always pale in comparison to the true horrors experienced.
Some people have a desire to focus on the stories of those who survived the Holocaust, rather than those who perished. This may be one reason why Schindler’s List, which won an Oscar, has received both praise and criticism. Filmmaker Stanley Kubrick even abandoned his own project about the Holocaust after seeing Spielberg’s film, stating that it was more a story of triumph than a portrayal of genocide. Kubrick remarked, “The Holocaust is a tragedy of 6 million deaths, while Schindler’s List only highlights 600 survivors.”
However, any movie that remains faithful to the core of those occurrences – one that boldly gazes into the unknown – runs the risk of being unpleasant or even unviewable. This, combined with the concern that as the last survivors pass away and the Holocaust becomes a distant memory, interest in events from 80 years ago would decline and it would eventually become a part of history, led many to believe that film would gradually turn its attention elsewhere. But this belief was incorrect: instead, the emergence of three new films serves as evidence that cinema cannot resist revisiting the subject.
Those movies could not be more different. They share a tacit belief that the Shoah remains humanity’s ultimate moral test case, one that reveals the extent of our capacity for evil and the resonance and relevance of which only increases the further away it gets. Besides that, each film finds its own way to wrestle with – or avoid – the quandaries inherent in putting the Holocaust on screen.
One Life, directed by James Hawes and starring Anthony Hopkins as Nicholas Winton, tells the story of a London stockbroker who, along with his mother (played by Helena Bonham Carter) and a small group of individuals, organized an unofficial rescue effort to bring 669 Jewish children from Prague to Britain. The film focuses on the time just before the start of World War II, with Johnny Flynn playing a young Winton, and also explores Winton’s retirement many years later. By avoiding depictions of the horrors of war, such as Auschwitz and gas chambers, the film leaves these images to the audience’s imagination and to Winton himself as he reflects on the fate of the children he was unable to save.
This is one of many references to Schindler’s List. Both movies focus on people who saved others, but did not take credit for it. Instead, they were haunted by the ones they were unable to save. In the final moments of Spielberg’s film, Schindler (played by Liam Neeson) says, “I could have saved more… I didn’t do enough.” Similarly, an older Winton is shown constantly flipping through a photo album, looking at the faces of those he was unable to rescue.
Similar to the film Schindler’s List, One Life concludes with a poignant and emotional ending. Spielberg chose to end the movie by showcasing real-life footage of the survivors who were saved by Schindler, as well as their descendants. The climax of One Life features a re-enactment of a 1988 episode of BBC TV’s That’s Life!, in which Esther Rantzen surprised Nicholas Winton by inviting all the individuals in the audience who owed their lives to him to stand up. The film serves as a prequel to this powerful and touching moment. Kubrick believed that the only Holocaust film worth watching is one that allows viewers to turn away from the deceased and instead focus on the small number of survivors and those who aided them.
Many Holocaust films often lack a prominent portrayal of Jewish characters who are actively involved and have their own agency. Instead, they are often depicted as passive victims waiting for a non-Jewish hero to save them. While the film One Life does mention the Jewish roots of the Winton family, the children are primarily shown as generic European refugees without much explanation as to why they are not safe in Czechoslovakia and why Britain refuses to take them in. The trailer for the film also does not mention the word “Jewish”.
This could be due to the tendency, often seen in Holocaust remembrance, to portray it as a universal occurrence of humans being cruel to one another, rather than recognizing it as a targeted effort to eradicate Jews that was fueled by centuries of antisemitism. It may also be influenced by the longstanding discomfort in Hollywood with telling Jewish stories, which is amplified by the desire of Jewish writers and producers to appeal to a wider audience. For example, a Jewish NBC executive once expressed concerns that the debut episode of Seinfeld was “too New York, too Jewish” before hesitantly greenlighting a shorter initial season.
The absence of Jewish characters is a deliberate and central aspect of the unsettling new films related to the Holocaust, particularly Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest. Based on Martin Amis’s novel, the film portrays the everyday life of Rudolf Höss’s family, the commandant of Auschwitz. The mundane activities of the family, such as picnics and kitchen work, are shown without much narrative drive. However, the film is gripping because of the glimpses of the camp that can be seen on the edge of the frame or in its peripheral vision (similar to the approach used in the acclaimed film Son of Saul). The Höss family lives within the confines of history’s most infamous death camp, with Auschwitz just beyond their garden wall.
Frequently, our observations are quite ordinary. Small talk between Frau Höss and the other SS wives; the children playing; Höss riding his beloved horse for leisure, relaxing after a particularly challenging day at work. However, what lingers in your memory are the sounds, particularly a deep, rumbling noise that seems to come from the depths of the Earth – as if the gates of hell had been opened. This demonic hum, interspersed with gunshots, screams, and the clatter of arriving trains, serves as background noise for the Höss family and their guests. But for the audience and their imagination, it represents the sound of ovens, furnaces, and human suffering.
We also hear the sound of whipping, a preferred form of punishment by the leaders of Auschwitz. We also hear birds singing, a reminder that even the skies were not silenced by the events happening below. The novel “The Zone of Interest” illustrates how people are capable of living in close proximity to horror and not only becoming accustomed to it, but also creating lives filled with peace, beauty, joy, and amusement – even having a small swimming pool for the children – in its presence. When her husband informs her of his upcoming transfer, Frau Höss becomes angry. To her, Auschwitz is their dream come true – a large house with grounds and staff – and she refuses to give it up.
We observe very little, yet imagine much more. We may catch a glimpse of a prisoner from the camp, dressed in a striped uniform, pushing a wheelbarrow or delivering a package to the commandant’s residence. We may also see the chimneys of Birkenau, releasing sporadic bursts of fire and constant plumes of suffocating black smoke. Perhaps we notice the ash being used as fertilizer in Höss’ neat garden, nourishing it with its nutrients. Or we witness the lady of the house distributing clothes to her female servants, keeping a luxurious fur coat for herself and testing out the lipstick she finds in its pocket. No one speaks aloud about the origin of these items or who wore them before. But everyone is aware. And we are aware too.
There is no denial, but rather a willed detachment. It relies on euphemism, often of the thinnest kind. We see a meeting between Höss and fellow officials, including a designer who assures him that a circular burn chamber will do the job more efficiently: “Burn, cool, unload, reload, continuously!” There is no need to say what is to be burned – or rather who.
In the end, today’s society is abruptly interrupted by a glimpse of Auschwitz in its current state. A group of cleaners can be seen silently tending to the floors and display cases of what is now a museum. This serves as a reminder that Auschwitz is still a part of our present.
The short sequences would fit seamlessly into the third installment, Occupied City, of the film series directed by Steve McQueen. Inspired by Bianca Stigter’s book, Atlas of an Occupied City: Amsterdam 1940-1945, the documentary spans four hours and 22 minutes. Through lingering shots of modern-day Amsterdam’s houses, streets, and inhabitants, the viewer hears a narrator recounting the events that took place in specific apartments and buildings during the Nazi occupation.
It shares the same radical response to the challenge of putting the Holocaust on screen adopted by Claude Lanzmann in his masterpiece Shoah, the nine-and-a-half-hour epic that, like Occupied City, included no archive footage from the Nazi era. Instead, that film sought to show that the Holocaust lived on in our world, chiefly by interviewing witnesses, survivors and even perpetrators who still lived, breathed and walked among us.
Occupied City lacks interviews, but instead of people, McQueen focuses on buildings, bridges, parks, and frozen canals. The accompanying voiceover reveals that each of these locations has a history that can evoke shock, fear, or inspiration.
It is the cinematic equivalent of the Stolpersteine, the “stumbling stones” embedded into the pavements of German streets, reminding those who walk by of the people who once lived on that spot. The camera takes us to the places where Jews once hid, where Nazi collaborators gathered, where resistance activists conspired.
We observe the red light district and the entrance to a building where a Jewish sex worker was accused of engaging in sexual activities with non-Jewish individuals. Nearby, we also see a concert hall where music composed by Jewish artists was prohibited and the names of Mendelssohn and Mahler were concealed. We come across the residence of a skilled counterfeiter who was able to create fake Brazilian birth certificates despite having no prior knowledge of them. Finally, we see the structure where a four-month-old infant was abandoned by their Jewish parents, who believed that leaving the child in the care of strangers would be safer than subjecting them to the harsh treatment faced by those who wore the yellow star.
During the Dutch famine of 1944-45, also known as “the hunger winter,” trees in the park were cut down for firewood. We also visit the hospital where Jewish women were forcibly sterilized and the house where a family of six Jewish refugees from Germany died by gassing themselves, with their housemaid choosing to join them. We discover that suicide was common during this time, with one man leaving a note for his neighbors that said, “Take what you want.”
In these narratives, Jews are unexpectedly featured as the main characters, providing a stark contrast to the other two films. The sheer number of stories, totaling in the dozens, creates a mesmerizing effect. Similar to Lanzmann’s Shoah, the length of McQueen’s film is significant: the Holocaust is an event that could be retold indefinitely. However, on screen we see scenes of everyday life, such as people conversing in cafes, a man playing guitar in his home, students in a school cafeteria, a couple watching television, a man petting a cat, and the Dutch prime minister making an announcement on a television in a kebab shop (filming coincided with the onset of Covid). While these scenes depict our modern world on the surface, the underlying theme is the Shoah.
The clash between the past and present is a frequent source of discomfort. A former Nazi prison camp now serves as a retirement facility. The once-gathered Dutch Nazi volunteer drivers have been replaced by teenagers rehearsing ballet. The location that once coordinated the deportation of Amsterdam’s Jewish population is now filled with children wearing backpacks and AirPods.
It reveals even less than The Zone of Interest, allowing our minds to fill in the gaps. It encourages us to contemplate how swiftly nature and human advancements work together to conceal the evidence of our wrongdoing and how easily we can forget – unless there is a strong will to remember, a will shared by McQueen and Stigter and, commendably, the creators of One Life and The Zone of Interest.
However, there is also a surprisingly optimistic message present in all three of these films. It is most evident in the expressions of the individuals skating and sledding on the frozen canals of Amsterdam in Occupied City. This message suggests that even in the midst of the darkest times, there is hope for a brighter future. We are reminded that difficult periods will eventually come to an end and a more peaceful era will emerge. Despite the challenges we may face in the present, it is still a better time to live than in the past. We are fortunate to be living in the present, even if we may not always realize it.
On January 5, One Life will be released. The Zone of Interest will be available on February 2, and Occupied City will be released on February 9.
Source: theguardian.com
