Auschwitz: The Nazis and 'The Final Solution' Analysis

Auschwitz: The Nazis and 'The Final Solution' (2005)

Directed by: Laurence Rees and Catherine Tatge
A 6-part docu-series by BBC

This docu-series has interviews of survivors, former Nazis and they show us the blueprints of the gas chambers, how the Nazis conceived the horrifying mass killings meticulously. At the ending, the narrator says that the purpose of this series is to remind ourselves what humans are capable of. We see a former Nazi Oskar talking about how he looked at it just like his duty, we also see an officer's document about his feelings and how he would go horse riding after killing some people, and even go back to his family. It's not only the Nazis, even some jews killed Nazis after the war as a form of retaliation and they didn't have any remorse about it either - a person says, 'I'm not guilty about what I did to him, I'm guilty about what I didn't'. It's easy for us to see things now in retrospect and say that they lacked humanity (which of course they did) but for the things the Jews would have witnessed and experienced - I think they naturally turn out to be that way.

I think it's important for us to see and read about war, not only to acknowledge and to be grateful for the peace we have but also to introspect and prevent similar pro-war thoughts - because once war is on, humanity is just weakness and it's only in hindsight that we look at Holocaust as a genocide and a mass murder, for the Nazis it would've just been duty and war. Life is Beautiful, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and Schindler's List are also some films which deeply impacted me about the Holocaust.