Holocaust narratives share sorrow of the era in epic docu.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 15+?
Any Positive Content?
Violence & Scariness
a lot
References include prisoners placed in crematoriums and gas chambers and vans, bodies crushed into powdered bone and deposited into rivers, and corpses put in ditches and buried in mass graves. Other mentions include prisoners shot, beaten, or committing suicide, thrown on top of each another in railroad cars, and asked to undress by camp guards for the "disinfection squad."
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Swear words include "a--hole," "hell," and “s--t." Slurs include "bastards," "filthy swine," and use of the anti-Semitic phrases such as "Final Solution," "Jewish problem," and "Jew language."
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Images include packs of cigarettes as well as the director, a language translator, and interviewees smoking. Glasses of beer and bottles of alcohol are displayed inside a restaurant. There's a discussion about vodka given as a form of payment instead of cash to train workers to use it to relieve their stress from the sound of screams and smell of the prisoners inside railroad cars. Mentions include an individual reportedly using barbiturates to end their life, and claims of another person drinking heavily.
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Storefront signage of businesses. Images of Saurer trucks and allegations of their use by Nazi officials to transport Holocaust prisoners to concentration camps.
Positive Messages
a lot
Never forget the past. Intolerance is unacceptable.
Positive Role Models
some
Residents near concentration camps recall offering water to prisoners. "You can be killed for giving a glass of water," says one individual, "but we gave them water anyway." Survivors recollect involvement in the Resistance movement against Nazis.
Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that Shoah is a nearly 10-hour documentary about survivors, witnesses, and others who share their accounts of the horror of the Holocaust. The film doesn't show archival or graphic footage and contains English subtitles. References include prisoners placed in crematoriums and gas chambers and vans, bodies crushed into powdered bone and deposited into rivers, and corpses put in ditches and buried in mass graves. Other mentions include prisoners being shot, beaten, or committing suicide, thrown on top of each another in railroad cars, and asked to undress by camp guards for the "disinfection squad." Swear words include "a--hole," "hell," and "s--t." Slurs include "bastards," "filthy swine," and use of anti-Semitic phrases such as "Final Solution," "Jewish language," and "Jew problem." There are images that include the director, a language translator, and interviewees smoking. Bottles of alcohol and glasses of beer. There's a discussion about vodka given as a form of payment to train workers to use it to relieve their stress from the sound of screams and smell of prisoners. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails.
This film took a long time for me to get through...it is after all 9 hours, and although you can make the argument that you can trim the documentary here and there this is a journey that takes a long time and the stretching and manipulation of time is essential to the viewing experience. I watched this film over many sittings over the course of a week and found the delivery gripping and compelling. Lanzmann offers a film about the Holocaust that is matter-of-fact, without sentimentality. And all of the interviews, presentations, and translations serve this purpose. It is truly incredible and works extremely well with the subject matter. Lanzmann's film is captivating for 9 hours...not many can come close to that level of focus and storytelling.
What's the Story?
SHOAH is a nearly 10-hour documentary from French filmmaker Claude Lanzmann. Originally released in 1985, it features interviews with Holocaust survivors and others who share their personal stories about the murder and persecution of Jewish people by the Nazis.
Lanzmann, who is also a journalist, uses solid interviewing skills to reveal unspeakable Holocaust memories through first-person testimonies. "Every day, we saw thousands and thousands of innocent people disappear up the chimney," reveals Shoah's Filip Müller, a Slovak Jew and survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp. "There they came, men, women, children, all innocent. They suddenly vanished, and the world said nothing! We felt abandoned. By the world, by humanity." Shoah remains today an essential film to educate about the history of the Holocaust and the issue of intolerance.
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Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.
By Sabrina McFarland
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