If you look at the types of movies that were made, there is no escaping that up through the 1980′s the Hollywood treatment of the Holocaust was very shallow and dismissive not counting documentaries.

Here is my list of Hollywood movies and television media that I feel offer the most to the viewer in the portrayal of events and figures of the Holocaust. I am not including any documentaries. I include foreign films if they had mainstream United States release. I am only including films whose main focus was the Holocaust as compared to the holocaust being just one historical event in the movie. A recent example would be Band Of Brothers. This mini-series addresses the Holocaust but is not about the Holocaust.

The Diary Of Anne Frank.

The 1959 version appears to be Hollywood’s first mainstream attempt to bring the Holocaust to the masses although it did so by sacrificing the depth and emotion of the Holocaust to give the public a Hollywood blockbuster movie. The movie itself was a Hollywood hit by the standards of the day. It won three Oscars. An interesting side note is that Audrey Hepburn turned down the role of Anne Frank because she herself lived in occupied Holland and witnessed Nazi atrocities first-hand. To get a feel for early Hollywood treatment of the Holocaust, the Diary of Anne Frank is a must see, but be sure to view the original before viewing the remakes.

Holocaust: A four-part made-for-TV mini-series.

That was the first major network big time portrayal of the subject. The series was a monstrous success, drawing a 49 percent market share. So many people watched this mini-series in New York City when first broadcast, that when commercials were on, the local water pressure dropped due to the large number of people using their toilets at once. It won Golden Globe and Emmy awards. It was very instrumental in rocketing the career of Meryl Streep. Michael Moriarty is brilliant as an out of work lawyer who enters the Nazi party and advances through brutality and helping implement “The Final Solution“. Interestingly the series was only as of May 2008 available on DVD in the United States. It had previously only been released in Europe. I am not sure if that was an economic issue, a rights issue, or once again an example of a much more apathetic view of the subject in the United States.

Hollywood did a very deliberate and calculated tap dance around the brutality and horror of the events. This resulted in some criticism that this mini-series trivialized the Holocaust and its brutality. The fact that it even received this criticism evidenced the willingness of U.S society to take a deeper look at these events. You really have to look at it in the context of television of the era. It went as far as it could within the constraints of what would be acceptable to advertisers, the audience of the day and the FCC. I believe you would receive a much more accurate, graphic, stark and brutal presentation if re-made for television today. While this mini-series certainly is not definitive historical portrayal of the events of the time, it is a must-see as the first attempt at bringing the Holocaust to the television masses. For once you can actually see it without having to wait for a re-broadcast. You can check out the DVD here.

Schindler’s List.

The Holocaust comes to Generation X with the Steven Spielberg story of Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist and Nazi party member who started out getting rich off the backs of Jewish slave labor and ended up finding his own humanity. He went on to save thousands of Jews from the gas chamber, risking both his personal wealth and his safety to save as many Jews as possible. He spent his entire fortune to bribe Germans and basically “buy” the Jews who worked for him. He kept them for the most part safe until Germany’s surrender. He ended up penniless. Today, there are more than 6000 descendants of “Schindler Jews” living around the world.

The movie itself is done in and black and white and riveting from beginning to end. When I saw this movie, I could hear sobbing all over the theater. Ralph Fiennes is absolutely brilliant as Amon Goeth, the brutal commandant of the Plazow forced labor camp. I view this movie as the first mainstream attempt to bring the true graphic brutality of the Holocaust to our doorsteps.

This is the Holocaust movie of our generation. If you asked 100 people under 40 what movie they last saw about the Holocaust, I would be shocked if the majority did not say Schindler’s List. The movie itself was a huge critical and box office success winning seven Oscars

CAUTION: GRAPHIC LANGUAGE AND VIOLENCE

Sophie’s Choice.

Sophie’s Choice is a brilliant performance by Meryl Streep as a Holocaust survivor with dark secrets in her family’s past. Her performance as Sophie Zawistowska is ranked #3 on Premiere Magazine’s 100 Greatest Performances of All Time. She won an academy award for her performance. It should be noted that this film was released 11 years prior to Schindler’s list. It contains one of the most heart wrenching moments in movie history when Sophie recounts the night she arrived at Auschwitz with her children, and of how she was forced by a Nazi officer to choose life for one child and death for the other. You can watch the scene below.

Life Is Beautiful.

Life is Beautiful is a Holocaust film told like no other. Instead of focusing on the tragedy, brutality and death of the Holocaust, it is told from the view of a man who uses the gift of humor to protect his only son from the inhumanity while in a concentration camp. The film is incredible in that it allows you to smile and laugh with Guido right up until the tragic end and not feel sad. It sends the strong message that our ability to laugh and make others laugh is ours alone, no matter what forces pull at us. This movie won three Academy Awards. While classified as a Holocaust film, this film is also a joyous celebration of the human spirit. I almost did not see this film, but I have now seen it a total of four times.

The Pianist .

This movie is told from the viewpoint of a very talented piano player hiding out in the Warsaw Ghetto throughout the Warsaw Ghetto Liquidation and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Adrian Brody does a brooding, self-absorbed pianist. When the German occupation begins, he simply wonders when he will be able to return to his music. When the killing begins, he is forced to hide and change his priorities to simply trying to survive. Even though he can no longer play, music is the hope and salvation that keeps him alive.

The Grey Zone.

The Grey Zone is gritty, dark and sometimes hard to follow. It is, however, a must-see for all those who want an understanding of the Holocaust beyond the basics. The Grey Zone deals with an issue that is very sensitive to Holocaust survivors–Jews sending other Jews to the gas chamber. These Jews were called “Sonderkommandos“

Sonderkommando members did not participate directly in the killing, which was reserved for the guards. While their primary responsibility was disposing of the corpses, they often took a much more active role in getting the inmates ready to enter the gas chambers. These inmates were kept in close groups and had much better living conditions than the average inmate, but they were also killed off at regular intervals to prevent any word of the inner workings of the Nazi death apparatus from leaking to the outside world. This movie is about one of several Sonderkommado revolts that took place. The movie features an outstanding peformance by Harvey Keitel.

Playing For Time

Playing for Time is a made-for-T.V piece that is worth seeing. Another movie that gives a perspective on the inner workings of Nazi Concentration Camps in which some inmates were forced to play music for the others as they marched to the gas chambers or life-death selection process. The purpose was to keep them calm and reduce the chances of revolt. You can read an excellent article on the subject here.

Europa Europa A young Jewish boy poses as a German “aryan” orphan and joins the Hilter Youth in the early days of World War II. An interesting look at the racial, moral and religious identity struggles faced by Jews as they did what they could to prevent their extermination in Nazi Germany. Based on a true story.

That is my list of Holocaust films that I feel are must sees for anyone wanting to get a good understanding of the subject through Hollywood. Is this a definitive list? Absolutely not. There are numerous foreign films and documentaries dealing with general and specific issues surrounding the Holocaust. There are also some Hollywood selections I left out such as Uprising. Uprising specifically addresses the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. While it is an entertaining mini-series, I felt it the portrayal was a step backwards in that it was too much in the line of the 1978 mini-series Holocaust. It could have been done much more effectively. I feel the above selections are a good starting point for all.

Please feel free to comment and add you own movies to the list with an explanation of why you feel it is an important film or simply why you enjoyed it.

The Real Holocaust

Warning! Both Videos Contain Very Graphic Images!

WARNING! EXTREMELY GRAPHIC!