The Last Days (Steven Speilberg,Shoah,1998)[1Maven]

DVDrip, English audio and subtitles, NR, 1:27, PG-13
Academy Award Winner 1998 Best Documentary
Includes DVD "Outtakes" and "Stories of Liberation"

Directed by James Moll and executive producer Steven Spielberg, this powerful, Oscar-winning documentary recounts the harrowing stories of five Hungarian Jews who endured the horrors of the Holocaust and the reign of Adolf Hitler. In addition to the testimonials of the Hungarian subjects, this heart-wrenching film also features accounts from U.S. soldiers who participated in the liberation of 1945. Excellent educational tools for grades 9 through 12.

The Holocaust deniers will always be with us, spreading hatred and intolerance. They draw strength from simple human limitations. Those with comfortable lives cannot imagine that such horrors actually happened. In countries where governments regularly lie, why should people believe this uncomfortable truth? The answer is in the testimony of the thousands who gave evidence of what was witnessed with their own eyes. No amount of reading has the impact and authenticity of these first-hand accounts. Perhaps, if we teach future generations, long after the witnesses are gone, the truth will be remembered.

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In the last year of World War II, German defeat was inevitable. Yet rather than reinforcing his troops and focusing his efforts on battle, Hitler chose to renew his campaign to eliminate the Jews of Europe. Hungary, which had remained mostly untouched during the war, found her Jews being rounded up and shipped off to concentration camps where they were systematically and brutally killed during these last days. This documentary, directed by James Moll and produced through the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, whose goal is to document the memories of those who lived through the Holocaust, records the stories of five Hungarian Jews who managed to survive.

The five survivors, all now living in the United States, movingly tell how they made it and recount the tragedies they witnessed: Tom Lantos, a Congressman from California, whose 17 grandchildren are a gift from his two daughters to try to make up for the families Lantos and his wife lost; Alice Lok Cahana, an artist who uses her painting to testify to what she saw and to grieve for the meaningless death of her sister Edith; Bill Basch, who while working for the resistance escaped from Hungarian police by joining a group of Jews that were, unknowingly, being led to Buchenwald; Renee Firestone, an educator at Simon Wiesenthal Center's Educational Outreach Program, whose touching connection to the past is discovered in the simple gift of a bathing suit given to her by her father; and Irene Zisblatt, a grandmother who smuggled out, at tremendous risk, a few precious diamonds in order to buy bread when there was no more food to be had. Other interviewees include American liberators, a superkommando, and a Nazi doctor who performed experiments on camp inmates.

While the stories are tragic and watching this documentary is a tearful experience, the final message is one of hope, as the five people return to Hungary and the camps with their families to confront their pasts and say their prayers. While the occasionally graphic footage will disturb, this Oscar-winning film is one that should be shared with family as a way of educating and reminding us, "Never again."

Product Description
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The winner of the 1998 Academy Award for Best Documentary, this powerful film traces the compelling experiences of five Hungarian Holocaust survivors who fell victim to Hitler's brutal war against the Jews during the final days of World War II.

Including newly-discovered historical footage and a rare interview with a former Nazi doctor at Auschwitz, the film tells the remarkable story of five people - a grandmother, a teacher, a businessman, an artist and a U.S. Congressman - as they return from the United States to their hometowns and to the ghettos and concentration camps in which they were imprisoned.

Through the eyes of the survivors and other witnesses, The Last Days recounts one of the most brutal chapters of this dark period in human history, when families were taken from their homes, stripped of their dignity, deported to concentration camps and ultimately murdered. Above all, The Last Days is a potent depiction of personal strength and courage, and a testament to the power of the human spirit.

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Video: XviD MPEG4, 624x336, 23.976 fps, 1.0 Mbps
Audio: MP3, Stereo, 48 KHz, 109 Kbps
Keywords: Jews,Jewish,Judaism,Holocaust,WWII,Hungary,Educational,Shoah Foundation Institute

Film Links
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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0174852/

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00001O2GX/

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00007ELEV/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoah_Foundation

http://college.usc.edu/vhi/ USC Shoah Foundation Institute