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steve2470

(37,456 posts)
Fri Sep 4, 2020, 03:28 PM Sep 2020

(Jewish Group) New movie "Final Account" details elderly Nazis horrible behavior

(my title, title of article was too horrible to me)

https://bit.ly/2QXVfrA (yes the link is safe, it contains the horrible original title)

VENICE—It is the vivid description over and over by different voices—sometimes with a wry laugh—of ( text redacted by myself, it is really horrible ) that makes British filmmaker Luke Holland’s Final Account both painful to watch and hard to turn away from. The most poignant aspect of the film is that it proves how state control and coercion can normalize even the most horrific acts, a lesson perhaps more relevant in today’s world than ever.

The 90-minute documentary, which screened Wednesday night at the scaled-down 2020 Venice Film Festival, boils down 12 years of work through 1,000 hours of footage and 300 interviews with the last living members of Hitler’s Third Reich. The men and women, who joined the Hitler Youth or who became SS members or Wehrmacht fighters, are now elderly pensioners whose denial about their complicity in the horror is unanimous, but whose memories are unnervingly crisp when it comes to their childhoods—which played out in Germany’s worst period under Hitler’s reign.

Most regret what happened as they deny they had anything to do with it—with the blatant exception of an elderly man named Karl Hollander who still honors Hitler and who says the numbers of those killed is exaggerated. Others wish that Jews had just “been driven from the homeland” rather than being executed.

Many of those featured have pristinely preserved their swastika-stamped membership cards to the Hitler Youth and the SS, unwrapping them for Holland with what can only be described as pride. Others had scrapbooks and other memorabilia of a time it is hard to fathom could have produced anything like a happy childhood, yet photo after photo shows these elderly people as smiling young children caught up in one of the bleakest moments of history.


Much more at article, it's pretty horrible these Nazis STILL are the same. I usually never redact direct article quotes but the article will both enrage and sadden you if you are Jewish or 100% in sympathy as I am.
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(Jewish Group) New movie "Final Account" details elderly Nazis horrible behavior (Original Post) steve2470 Sep 2020 OP
I had a college professor who was from Germany; madaboutharry Sep 2020 #1
I'm so glad Holland was able to finish this film before his death. This will be an important Karadeniz Sep 2020 #2
I will watch for it on Chai streaming service. marybourg Sep 2020 #3

madaboutharry

(40,149 posts)
1. I had a college professor who was from Germany;
Fri Sep 4, 2020, 03:38 PM
Sep 2020

He was my professor for a class called "Post-War German Literature."

On the first day he said: "The literature coming out of Germany in the post-war years is sparse. It is sparse because we murdered all the writers."

He emigrated to The United States because he did not want to raise his children in Germany. He would tell us that nazism never went away, it just went quiet.


Karadeniz

(22,267 posts)
2. I'm so glad Holland was able to finish this film before his death. This will be an important
Fri Sep 4, 2020, 04:41 PM
Sep 2020

Record for social scientists forever. Thank you for informing us of this.

marybourg

(12,540 posts)
3. I will watch for it on Chai streaming service.
Sat Sep 5, 2020, 11:26 AM
Sep 2020

But I’ll probably wind up just leap-frogging through it.

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