Summaries

Synopsis

Simon Wiesenthal stands outside the Mauthausen concentration camp, lamenting the desire of some to forget the Holocaust, and others to deny that it ever happened. As the only surviving member of his family, Simon can never forget, and fears that it may happen again.

In the late nineteenth century, most of the world's Jewish population lived in more than 10,000 small communities called "shtetls," scattered throughout central Europe and the Russian Empire. Though many lived in poverty, these communities produced scholars, poets, and philosophers. Because of their unique traditions and style of dress, they were often treated with suspicion by their gentile neighbors, and were resented by religious leaders for their rejection of Christianity.

Following World War I, Europe's 9,500,000 Jews looked forward to a more peaceful, democratic, and just world, but the economic depression of the 1920s destroyed such hopes. Many Europeans took their frustration out on the Jews, especially in Germany, where Nazi Party leader Adolph Hitler called for the removal of all "non-Aryan" ethnic groups. Hitler's vision of a German "master race" appealed to a people devastated by economic hardship, and following his rise to power, Hitler proceeded to remove people he determined to be "inferior," such as Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, and the disabled, from German society.

Dachau, the first German concentration camp, opened in March 1933, as a prison for political dissidents, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and prominent Jews. The government ordered a boycott of Jewish businesses, and banned the works of Jewish musicians, artists, scientists, writers, and entertainers. Jews were driven from their homes, and German children were indoctrinated with anti-Semitic propaganda. Germany hosted the 1936 Summer Olympic Games, which Hitler saw as an opportunity to demonstrate the superiority of his "master race." He was proven wrong, however, when African American Jesse Owens won four gold medals.

In 1938, thirty-two nations discussed the possibility of offering asylum to German refugees, but none would expand their immigration quotas to accommodate them. Later that year, Jewish communities were devastated as Hitler's Storm Troopers committed acts of vandalism, rape, and violence as retribution for the assassination of a German diplomat by a Polish Jew. As Germany expanded its borders into Austria and Czechoslovakia, more Jews became victims of Hitler's oppression, yet no other nation offered them asylum.

In 1939, a ship loaded with Jewish refugees sailed to Cuba, then to the United States, but neither country allowed the passengers entry, and they were returned to Germany. Following the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Jewish population was quarantined in ghettos. Meanwhile, the Hitler regime ordered the execution of 70,000 disabled Germans for being "unfit to live."

With World War II underway, Germany invaded the neutral nations of Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg, followed by their occupation of France, which placed 500,000 more Jews under Nazi rule. However, the persecution of Jews and other minorities was often delegated to citizens of occupied nations, with few offering aid to the victims.

In 1941, Germany invaded its former ally, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). As the Nazis advanced eastward, task forces, called "einsatzgruppen," massacred Jewish villagers, disposing of the bodies in mass graves. Although many Jews resisted, many more succumbed, either because they were weak from starvation, unarmed, unwilling to abandon their children and elderly relatives, or could find no refuge. In the course of 15 months, einsatzgruppen killed one million Jews, yet the German government sought a more efficient system.

The first "death camp" opened late in 1941, and in January 1942, fifteen German officials held a summit to determine methodology. They planned to separate the prisoners by gender and place them in labor details, where most would likely die through "natural reduction." The survivors would then be executed to prevent re-population. Euphemisms were created to assure prisoners that they were not in danger: "deportation" became "resettlement"; "selection for death" became "special treatment"; "gas chamber" became "shower." News of the camps received little attention from Germany's enemies, and in October 1943, as Jews were deported from Rome, Italy, Pope Pius XII made no public protest.

As the western allies invaded Europe, they ignored pleas from Jewish leaders to bomb the gas chambers, choosing instead to destroy nearby factories. A Hungarian survivor recalls the efforts of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who rescued 30,000 Jews bound for the Auschwitz death camp, by allowing them entrance to Sweden.

Leon Kahn, a Polish Jew who witnessed the slaughter of several family members, discusses the dilemma he faced when his mother refused to escape their village. Aware that she would likely die in a concentration camp, Mrs. Kahn still insisted on staying with her elderly mother. She absolved Leon of any responsibility and allowed him to escape to safety, but he still regrets his decision.

The few remaining residents of the ghetto in Warsaw, Poland, staged an armed revolt during the spring of 1944, though none survived. A young Auschwitz inmate named Roza Robota smuggled explosives to a resistance group inside the camp. The group sabotaged a crematorium, killing five German officers and freeing several prisoners. Roza was later tortured and executed, but never betrayed her comrades. As Soviet troops approached Auschwitz, prisoners were transported to other camps. Among them was author Anne Frank, who later died at Bergen-Belsen.

When the Ohrdruf camp was liberated by American troops in April 1945, General Dwight Eisenhower was so horrified, he invited twelve leaders of Congress and twelve prominent newspaper editors to witness the carnage. British reporter Richard Dimbleby described the open graves and decaying bodies to radio audiences in England. Despite German efforts to conceal the genocide, the liberating armies found numerous artifacts left behind by the victims, such as luggage, clothing, eyeglasses, and toys. Thousands of Nazis were arrested at the end of the war, but none took responsibility for the Holocaust, nor did any of the religious leaders or heads of state who might have been able to stop it.

In the final scene, at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Simon Wiesenthal places a note in a crevice between two stones, which reads, "I am my brother's keeper."