This short documentary film was recommended to me by fellow OCA student, Stephanie. The film is mainly black and white stills of the Holocaust juxtaposed against colour shots of the camps taken in the 1950s. As viewers we already bring to the work our preconceived ideas of the holocaust - exposing the dark side of our humanity in a wider political and social context. For me, I was surprised not so much by the mass graves and piles of bodies - we are used to seeing them in the context of the Nazi machine, moving people through its mass extermination system; what struck me was some of the individual images that hint at the barbarity and torture just for the sake of it.
Flicking back and forth between the original stills and the colour scenes of the camps (they had been empty for around ten years when the documentary was made) shows how the horror can so easily be overlooked and erased from memory if we are not careful. It is important to remain vigilant to the possibilities that we can so easily turn to evil deeds under the right circumstances.
"There are those who look at these ruins today
As though the monster were dead and buried beneath them.
Those who take hope again as the image fades
As though there were a cure for the scourge of these camps.
Those who pretend all this happened only once,
At a certain time and in a certain place.
Those who refuse to look around them,
Deaf to the endless cry."
Alain Resnais, Night & Fog. (1954).
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