Jewish Exponent (2015) - Documentary Evidence On Display
Details
- newspaper article: Documentary Evidence On Display
- author(s): Greg Salisbury
- journal: Jewish Exponent (22/Jan/2015)
- issue: volume 237, issue 17, page 14
- journal ISSN: 0021-6437
- publisher: Jewish Exponent
- keywords: Documentary films, Holocaust, Survivor, Television directors & producers, Television programs
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Abstract
He said he felt a sense of urgency to get as many of those who lived through that time - survivors, cameramen, editors - on film. By having people like [Eva Kor], a victim of [Josef Mengele] who survived Auschwitz with her twin sister, and Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who survived both Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen, tell their stories, Singer allows viewers to catch their breath and put faces to the barbarity. (Coincidentally, both Kor and Lasker-Wallfisch are also featured in Voices From Auschwitz, a CNN documentary that will be shown on Jan. 26.) "I knew that a new generation needed the visual images to really understand mankind's ability to brutalize fellow humans," he said. "It was a matter of judgment about making sure the film material was in context and not voyeuristic. It has to be difficult to watch if it is to have any impact; it has to take viewers out of their comfort zone." Part of the survey was shown on British television in the 1980s, but it wasn't until 2014 that the country's Imperial War Museum completed a four-year effort to reconstruct Bernstein's complete vision, including the final reel and its all-too-relevant final words: "Unless the world learns the lessons these pictures teach, night will fall. But, by God's grace, we who live will learn." *
