Auschwitz The Nazis & The Final Solution Reviews

Eye opening account of man's inhumanity to man.

This is an excellent and thorough account of the atrocities that the Nazis subjected on its enemies. It concentrates on the Jews who suffered at Auschwitz as the title suggests but there is an overarching account of persecutions there and elsewhere. The suffering of the members of the Polish resistance, gypsies, members of the Red Army is cited and there are moving accounts by survivors of the Nazi killing machine. It also covers the culpability of national governments throughout Europe and beyond who assisted in the deportations to the death camps and less well known acts of heroism and defiance such as those in Denmark. This really should be shown in every school as part of the curriculum.

An insightful documentary on the WWII 'final solution'

A very thorough 6 episode documentary covering the extermination of the european jewish population by the nazis. It does not leave any detail uncovered and tries to explain the murderous thinking of the SS.

Even if you know something of the extermination camps in WWII, it is well worth spending the time to watch all the episodes. This should be required watching in all school history lessons.

thought provoking

Having just returned from a trip to the death camp in Auschwitz,Poland, it was interesting to see this documentary. I went as I am interested in the second world war and also I wanted to show my children the horrors that occured there.

This is a fascinating documentary and should be seen by everyone.

I read somewhere recently that 80% of young people didn't even know what Auschwitz was..!!!?

There is a famous quote that goes along the lines of..'if we do not learn from history, then history repeats itself'...

Enough said............

The Definitive Guide to Auschwitz!

Its a story thats not easy to watch, let alone understand how it ever happend in the first place. This is an excellent docu-movie and is well worth watching. I read the book prior to recieving this movie and as with most movies that follow books I expected it to be less in depth than the book. This however happily was not the case. Every detail of the book is outlined in this documentary. If your interested in the history of WWII and more particular the Nazi Prison Camp Auschwitz, then you will want to watch this.

Insightful series...

I read the book that accompanies this series before I watched the DVDs. Both disks are packed with easy to understand information (well as easy as the death of 1,100,000 people can be). At first I tried watching all of disk 1 at once but I wouldn't recommend it. There's just too much to take in. It's best to watch it episode by episode.

I gave the series 4/5 stars because the book is so much better. But that's often the case! Definitely recommended, however!

In The Beginging....

This gives a excellent history into how the Nazis started the whole process of solving 'The Jewish Question',very educational,totally unimaginable but completely true....It does last for almost 5 hours but its worth viewing especially for todays youth who seem oblivious to the past.

The Auschwitz story

Having gone to Auschwitz to see the camp I was over whelmed by the sheer size of the camp. I rented this series to hear what the guards, survivors had to say about the camp and get some more backgroud information, and I have to say that the series is a very moving account of what happended there, and well worth watching to fully understand what happended, and the background behind the camp, germans etc.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Educating and Enlightening.

For a drama documentary, t

his excels, predominantly because it is not full of recognisable faces. It is true to itself, frightening in its cold and calculating background and quite painful to watch. It pulls no punches yet does not garner anger or hatred towards the Nazi party, it allows you to draw your own conclusions. It certainly tells a story everyone needs to know about. The interviews with detainees and SS guards alike give a remarkable insight in to both sides of the story, particularly from the SS perspective - not so much what drove them to commit such atrocities, but what motivated them in to believing they were doing the right thing and enabled them to continue without a conscience. A bit of an eye opener as I imagined it would be difficult for anyone to justify such actions.

A pendantically accurate, almost scholarly effort

'Auschwitz The Nazis & The Final Solution' did not reveal new facts, but, through restrained CGI and eye-witness interviews with sometimes 'ordinary' persecutors and the persecuted, tried to bring the main part of the story of actual perpetration of the Holocaust away from the grainy black and white war-time footage and closer to what those involved might have experienced visually and emotionally at that time in Auschwitz.

A lot was said about how blissful and simple everyday life may have seemed to SS-Guards and the camp commandant Rudolf Hoess in particular. The sickly longing of much of Nazi ideology for a simple, almost village-like world, their despising of the evolved, modern society which they associated with Jewry, the self-perceived 'ordinariness' of their behaviour, were transmitted through excerpts from Hoess's accounts written in captivity and through interviews with one 'ordinary' SS-guard in particular. The fact that this guard felt perfectly happy with his behaviour at Auschwitz, where he mainly worked in an administrative position, counting and transferring monies stolen from inmates, and where he was deeply involved (as all other SS-guards appeared to be) in corruption, mainly by 'pilfering' from the confiscated funds, casts some light on the mixture of greed, corruption and the longing for the simple life that kept the Nazi regime in business.

The film made it abundantly clear that those involved in the running of these camps did not have to be coerced or bullied into partaking in the general atrocity of Auschwitz.

There was less of a focus on the fiendish atrocities and details of cruelties. This is an area that has been covered by many other documentaries.

The use of CGI to recreate what the various camps and sub-camps would have looked like around 1944, allowed the viewer to realise the horror of these institutions by presenting their functional parts. There were no CGI marionettes depicted in place of victims or perpetrators. Light and walls, endless corridors and ceiling shafts brought home the cold and clinical cynical cruelty of these places.

As this DVD represented the entire serialisation shown on television, there are quite a few reiterations and flashbacks to earlier episodes. This is not a big problem and perhaps serves to more deeply ingrain some of the key facts and messages of the programme.

fascinating

I watched this series as part of my history GCSE. Out of choice not because of the curriculum told us to.

i have always been fascinated with the WW as is my dad who took us round cemeteries when we were little to find soldiers he was researching for a paper.

it shocks me that most school children do not know what or where Auschwitz is. I have stood at the point where the last ever train to Auschwitz left from and it sends chills through you to know just how evil this man and his final solution ideas really were.