5 movies and documentaries to watch on International Holocaust Remembrance Day

What did humanity learn after the horror of the Holocaust?

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(CNN Spanish) --

Every January 27, the world commemorates the victims of the Holocaust in an attempt to avoid a repeat of one of the most tragic chapters in history, especially when signs of anti-Semitism are still in force, and films and documentaries They can be a good tool to achieve it.

Between 1933 and 1945, the Nazi regime carried out a campaign to persecute and exterminate the Jewish population in Germany and in the territories occupied by its armies during World War II.

• The Holocaust also impacted Latin America.

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On January 27, 1945, the largest of the extermination camps set up by the Nazis, Auschwitz-Birkenau, was liberated by Soviet troops, and since 2005 this date has been observed worldwide as the International Day of Remembrance for the Victims. of the Holocaust.

The conspiracy of silence and its relationship with the Holocaust 2:48

When the war in Europe finally ended, on May 9, 1945, some six million Jews had been murdered across Europe, according to the United States Holocaust Museum.

The Holocaust, or Shoah, was widely portrayed in the arts and especially in the movies.

These are five films and documentaries that allow us an approach to the tragedy in order to never forget.

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Shoah (1985)

Running at nine hours and 26 minutes, Claude Lanzmann's documentary "Shoah" has become one of the most comprehensive and definitive film documents on the Holocaust.

This French production also stands out for not using film archives: its footage focuses on interviews with survivors, witnesses and even former Nazi officers carried out at the time of its filming, which took more than 11 years.

These interviews are barely interrupted by visits to cities and former concentration and extermination camps in 14 countries, closing a documentary film masterpiece.

Where to see it?

"Shoah" is available to stream on Amazon Prime, distributed by IFC Films.

Europe Europe (1990)

If the story behind "Europa Europa", the film by Polish director Agnieszka Holland released in 1990, were not true, it would be hard to believe: Solomon "Solek" Perel, a 13-year-old Jewish boy, survives World War II and the Holocaust by posing as a boy fascinated by Nazism who even joins the Hitler Youth.

The film, a co-production between Germany, Poland and France, adapts the biographical novel written by Perel to narrate the moral decline of German society as a whole, in the midst of a story of total survival, and also focuses on the Eastern Front and the suffering in Eastern Europe during the war.

Actor Marco Hofschneider plays Perel and a young Julie Delpy plays Leni, a member of the League of German Girls, the female equivalent of the Hitler Youth.

Where to see it?

"Europa Europa" can be seen in streaming format on Amazon Prime and Qubit.

Schindler's List (1993)

The most famous of the films on this list, and director Steven Spielberg's masterpiece, "Schindler's List" has become a central tool in keeping Holocaust memory alive and educating future generations;

much of what we imagine about the Shoah comes, in part, from the painstaking reconstruction made by this film.

The story, based on real events, stars the German Oskar Schindler in his transformation from an unscrupulous businessman to the savior of more than 1,000 Jews whose death in a gas chamber at Auschwitz was almost a certainty.

In the middle, the tape shows us, in a black and white of unbearable intensity, the implementation of the "Final Solution", the euphemism for the killing of Jews, the deportation of Jews to the ghettos, first, and then to the camps. of extermination, and the sometimes random brutality of Nazism, epitomized by Nazi commander Amon Göth (played by Ralph Fiennes).

Where to see it?

"Schindler's List" can be seen on Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Conspiracy (2001)

Far from the ghettos and concentration camps, this 2001 film focuses on one of the most important moments in recent history: the Wannsee conference of January 1942, when officials of the Nazi regime and the SS, paramilitary forces of the party, met to coordinate efforts and discuss how to implement the "Final Solution".

"Conspiracy", directed by Frank Pierson, is a dramatization of that conference, produced by HBO Films and the BBC, showing the debates, the fights and the coldness of the Nazi leaders in trying to kill the most people in the least amount of people. weather.

Kenneth Branagh stars as Reinhard Heydrich, Nazi security chief, and Stanley Tucci as Adolf Eichmann, the infamous criminal captured in post-war Argentina, in this dialogue-based, almost theatrical film necessary to understand how public policy can function in the service of genocide.

Where to see it?

"Conspiracy" can be seen streaming on HBO Max and Amazon Prime.

The Pianist (2002)

Adrien Brody played the Polish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman in this great film by director Roman Polanski released in 2002, winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes and three Oscars for best direction, best adaptation and best actor (Brody).

"The Pianist", like other films on this list, is a survival story based on true events, and set against the backdrop of the 1944 Warsaw uprising, in which the music of Polish composer Fryderyk Chopin also serves as an element. core narrative.

Where to see it?

"The Pianist" can be seen on Netflix and Amazon Prime.

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