"Fateless" was a good one, too.

Edges was a good movie. I'll have to check out Fateless.

I watched a holocaust related movie last night called 'Defiance' (2008) starring Daniel Craig. A good watch imo.

Based on true events involving the Jewish Bielski brothers in Nazi-occupied Belarus who escape the towns & villages and escape into the Belarussian forests, where they join Russian resistance fighters and endeavor to build a village in order to protect themselves and about 1,000 Jewish non-combatants.

Tuvia & Zus Bielski emigrate to New York years later , but Asael Bielski joins the Soviet Army and is killed within 6 months.

Maybe because I grew up Jewish and learned about the Holocaust from actual survivors, including classmate's parents, and viewed dozens of pictures from 1945 in books, I have trouble watching films about it. I've owned Schindler's List on DVD for a few years, but haven't been able to watch it yet. It's etched into my brain what happened to the victims. Having seen the tattooed numbers on people...it's just very hard.

Wolf-Pup (imported) wrote: Wed Jan 11, 2012 2:41 pm Maybe because I grew up Jewish and learned about the Holocaust from actual survivors, including classmate's parents, and viewed dozens of pictures from 1945 in books, I have trouble watching films about it. I've owned Schindler's List on DVD for a few years, but haven't been able to watch it yet. It's etched into my brain what happened to the victims. Having seen the tattooed numbers on people...it's just very hard.

I watched Schindler's List at home all alone by myself. I turned it off twice with the intent never to watch more. But I did watch until the end, eventually.

There is no "sugar coating" nor does the camera "turn away" when truly evil things happen. A very rough movie.

I think it was a very important film, but one I will never watch. I watch movies to be entertained, that was anything but entertaining.

River

Okay, I'm coming in really really late on this discussion, but I only just caught this movie on Netflix.

Here's my take. It was completely pandering. Worse. It failed as a story for me.

There was a potential movie to be told there. What was that time like form the perspective of the Germans? What lies did they have to tell themselves to overlook the horror happening just down the road? How could they so easily part with their humanity?

What I got instead was a spoon fed narrative, that glazed over the real horrors and atrocities being committed. The movie turned away from anything approaching reality. In fact the very moral of the story is that atrocities can be overlooked until they happen to you. It is a premise I reject.

I shouldn't reject a story like this, unless I can identify where it could have been told better. For me, the story would have been better if instead of a concentration camp the house was beside, it was a Jewish ghetto. You could more easily believe the friendship between the two boys then. (though you'd lose the pajama reference.) Show the son of a soldier watching his father smash windows, and beat innocent people in the streets. How would the soldier justify that to his own child? How do both children remain innocent while surrounded by all the hate man has for his fellow man?

Perhaps the boys share a special trinket. Something with meaning for them both, and unites them as similar souls.

Finally, show the purging of the ghettos. Have the German boy be given an option to help his friend escape, or turn him in. The boy struggles with his choice, but ultimately does what all good Germans do, and turns his friend over to his father. It would be a harrowing scene to watch. Family or friendship? Good or Evil? The little Jewish boy is last seen being loaded onto a cattle car.

Finally, show the German boy, a little bit older, and the war over. His school class is brought to the concentration camp to witness what really went on there. In one of the rooms filled with the personal effects of the victims, the German boy discovers the trinket that he and the Jewish boy shared. He finally knows the fate of his friend, and is overcome with grief. He finally understands what he was complicit in.

It would be a story much more historically accurate, and far less pandering. It would place the burden of guilt on even the youngest of heads.

That's the story I wanted to see when I played this movie. The story I got was much more insulting to my intelligence.

Again, I apologize for my VERY late response to this film, but in my defense, I only just watched it.

"The Island on Bird Street", about a boy who is left behind hiding in a deserted ghetto, is a much better film.

If an eight-year-old boy could not have seen that the prisoner was an ill-treated prisoner, then he must have been extremelt stupid. It might have worked for a four-year-old maybe, but then a four-year-old would not have been wandering around alone. It was not believable.

The father in Boy in the Striped Pajamas knew what was going on as did his wife. His son was about ten years and would have no clue at his age.

Nowadays, there are seniors in high school who have never heard of the Holocaust nor could they find Germany on a world map.