A Film of Hell Itself

His dark eyes darted from face to face, hollows in his cheeks giving him a death’s head look. His voice was strong, and he spoke good English.

“My friends, I will now to show you something not seen anywhere outside Germany. To the free world, these are only ugly rumors of unspeakable acts. Many deny such things are possible. But I tell you now I have seen them with my own eyes. None would believe it, so we made this movie despite the danger. They would try to kill us who take such films. The Nazis must keep their secrets.”

Friday Fictioneers

Note:


The internationally recognized date for Holocaust Remembrance Day corresponds to the 27th day of Nisan on the Hebrew calendar. It marks the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. When the actual date of Yom Hashoah falls on a Friday, the state of Israel observes it on the preceding Thursday. This year it begins at sundown on May 1st, 2019

21 comments

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  1. gahlearner

    I can imagine how people from outside of Germany had a hard time believing what was really going on until they saw the evidence. Todays rising level of denial is unbelievable.

    • J Hardy Carroll

      Three iconic Hollywood directors — John Ford, George Stevens, and Samuel Fuller — filmed the newly liberated Nazi concentration camps in the closing days of the war. They saw horrors that indelibly shaped their subsequent work, but were able to document the fact of this genocidal atrocity for history. Holocaust deniers are the worst of the worst, but genocide is not unique to the Nazis. The United States killed more than half a million Filipino civilians between 1900 and 1903 when the armed forces invaded their country. Stalin is estimated to have killed or imprisoned upward of five million people during his numerous purges. We must be ever watchful, especially as the US seems to be gearing up for it again.

    • J Hardy Carroll

      This is a little snippet from a novel I wrote where an escapee from the camps has managed to smuggle out a movie as proof of Nazi atrocities. It’s shown to the men in the spirit of “why we fight.” Thanks for reading and commenting.

  2. Dale

    I can only imagine how very dangerous it would be for those who risked all to show the world what was going on. Excellent one, Josh.

  3. Sandra

    I lived in Germany for some time in the nineties. It was hard to grasp what had gone on in the past, or been allowed to go on, in the context of the lovely friends I made there. Nicely told.

  4. subroto

    It is so different now where due to the power of the internet and social media such clips can come to light quickly. But it is hard to imagine in those days how such news would have filtered out. When people were dying in gas chambers did the world really have no idea, or they did they simply not care because it had nothing to do with them?

    • J Hardy Carroll

      I think we take it for granted now, but at the time such things were so horrific that nobody could even conceive of them. There is a movie on Amazon called conspiracy that talks about the meeting the Nazis had to determine what to do with the Surplus population. It is chilling to watch how legal everything was. Thanks for stopping by and commenting

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