Auschwitz: The Nazis and the 'Final Solution' (2005)

The strength of this documentary is that it presents the facts without flinching, and without being judgmental or emotional. The result is a picture of Auschwitz of great clarity, from its historical beginnings. The question is whether the viewer can watch it without turning away.I have been watching lots of documentaries about World War II lately, trying to put the many pieces together into a coherent picture. I am a baby boomer who is getting older, and I feel I must confront this now.My grandfather died in Auschwitz, along with an unknown number of other family members. I have always known this. I, like most others, have seen the emaciated bodies, the dead bodies stacked like cord wood of dead and dying Jews. Now I know the day my grandfather arrived in Auschwitz and the day he died, from a database on the internet. And with this documentary, I am closer to grasping the reality of what he experienced, up to a point. This, of course, is not the complete story; no one documentary or movie can do that for World War II, or any one aspect of it.I wish everyone would watch this documentary because Auschwitz was the very epicenter of Nazi evil. To remember, to understand, is to instill meaning into the millions of murders of Jews, Poles and countless others. That is the peculiar quirk of the Nazi regime: without these deaths, some might forget how evil it was, even apart from the Holocaust.Any sensible person would have thought that, surely, this would have marked the end of genocide, forever. But it has not, and genocide, in the millions, has occurred again and again around the world. And it can, again.I think the documentary's one weakness is that it focuses too much on Nazi's demonization of the Jews, which, sadly, continues in some corners of the globe. The real issues are more general, particularly that of one nation believing itself to be a race that is racially superior to other nations and peoples, as did Nazi Germany. Once you believe your group to be superior, it is almost rational to think it is your duty to kill those who are not in your group.While Western Europe has grown beyond that phase, there are still countries that believe themselves to be racially superior to everyone else; I lived in one such country in Asia, and this message of racial superiority and hatred is taught in the schools from an early age.Economic and political turmoil in Germany set the stage for the Final Solution. We could see such economic and political turmoil in the future in many countries. We must learn from history.

This documentary done by Laurence Rees is without a doubt the best documentary I have ever seen on the Holocuast. It shows the history of the camp of Auschwitz and its role in the extermination of the Jews of Europe.The documentary does a great job mixing interviews with survivors as well as members of the SS, Hlinka Guard and a Eitzgruppen soldier. For me the most interesting interviews where with the people who committed the crimes. A lot of them said they did not feel guilty about what they did. Otto Georning the SS handler of money of Auschwitz talked about how after the war he came forward to silence the people who said Auschwitz never happened.To me as a person who teaches students about the Holocuast it is important for people to realize that human beings are capable of great evil and this documentary does a good job is showing that. It also shows the goodness of people including LT. Albert Battel who saved 100 Jews. I feel that people who are interested in the Holocaust or just want to learn about Auschwitz rent this.

To all of those holocaust deniers, this is something that needs to be seen to be believed, because this is too horrific to be made up. This excellently done & narrated by Oscar winning actress Linda Hunt is probably the most definitive documentary ever done on Auschwitz-Birkenau. This 6 part series gives some information on what we do know & personal stories that most of us don't as well from both the so-called "inmates" as well as those that worked there. One begs the question of what happened to those that worked there & how they justified what they did. Even if you know a lot about the concentration camps such as Treblinka & Sobibor, there is still a lot of new things shown in this program. If you don't have any knowledge at all then this program is also for you. It seems hard to believe that people would just massacre another because of their differences, but even more surprising is how systematic and matter of factly they did the wiping out of those determined "undesirables." This is a must watch for those interested in History & to those who want to understand just what had happened & make sure it never happens again. No I'm not Jewish, Muslim or religious. I study World War II history & cannot fathom for the life of me the extremes of religion, hatred or the absolute belief in anything w/out REAL proof. The deniers are unfortunately usually uneducated and do not really understand anything about history & if asked deep thinking questions about all of the so-called "FAKE" evidence cannot possibly answer all of the questions or explain away all of evidence from films, documents, pictures, books, personal stories, the camps, the graves, and the list goes on and on. The so-called conspiracy of all of this being faked is completely absurd & extremely ignorant. I challenge any to explain away all of this excellent series. Supremely done & the fact that their is so much proof about what happened is truly what astonishes me that it all is a lie. If it is a lie, it's the best most complicated lie ever told & completely utterly impossible. Too bad the holocaust deniers won't even watch this.

The first time, at least, these Camps had been used, by the Spanish, was during the Third Cuban War of Independence, leading to the Spanish - American War (around late 1898). The Americans also used them for the Philippine - American War. It was only the mass scale by the British, in South Africa, that it was thought that they had started them. Ironically set up during the Second Boer War, (October 1899 to May 1902), in South Africa, to house refugees, whose homes and lands had been destroyed by the British. This was done under the name of the "Scorched Earth Policy", done as a military tactic, to destroy anything that might be of use to "the enemy", once rounded up, they would be easier to control, no doubt. It is also rumoured, that the British would shoot prisoners in the kneecap, to prevent any escape. We have to remember that the people in these Camps were mostly civilians, so, they could not be classed as P.O.W.s, (Prisoners of War, i.e., Soldiers). These unfortunate casualties of War were placed in a camp to concentrate their numbers, and as said before, to control. Conditions in these Camps were terrible; disease and hunger were the order of the day. A Concentration Camp is not the same as Extermination Camp, or Death Camp. This was to come later, as Nazi Concentration Camps.Known as Konzentrationslager, or simply KZ, pronounced as Kah-Tzet, this initial, with a number following, tattooed on the forearm of the Prisoners. KZ is the abbreviation of Konzentrationslager. Hence, the prisoner would have tattooed KZ711966, for example, to show they were a prisoner of the Concentration Camp. Their own Identity number. The Nazi Party, also known as NSDAP, or to give it's full title, The National Socialist German Workers' Party, first came into existence on March 7th 1918, by Anton Drexlar. This party, from Munich, was to be called The Free Committee for a German Workers' Peace. The name was changed shortly after to the German Workers' Party, this flourished to what is now known as the NSDAP. The bittersweet irony is that German army intelligence sent in a spy to look into the NSDAP, Adolf Hitler; he was so impressed, that he joined proper. It was to be February 24th, 1920, that the Nazi Party was born, after the name NSDAP was given as its new and proper title.Since 1920 and up to the end of the second World War, Hitler had gained popularity and power, power on the promise of a free Germany, free of Non Nationals, for example, and free of the Jewish wealth and power, which they had used to their (the Jews) own advantage for gaining this wealth. It would seem that the Jews would bare the brunt of the xenophobia, paranoia, jealousy and blame. Blame for a Germany still counting the cost for losing the First World War (1914 - 1918). There is a name for State Sponsored Genocide: Holocaust. The systematic extinction and precaution of one or more Race, such as Jews, Homosexuals, Jehovah Witnesses, Gypsies to name a few, but in greater numbers, a few totalled around six to seven million in just six years or so. Ethnic Cleansing at its most destructive. The most destructive of these Death Camps was a place some 60km Southwest of Krakow, Poland. This was camp number two, Auschwitz. Having three camps here, the number two camp was to be the Camp of mass murder. In the end, around one million Jews were murdered here, along with an estimated 75,000 Poles and 20,000 Roma People. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has done an excellent job of bringing us a truly magnificent portrait of the Pre History and magnitude of Auschwitz. With amazing CGI that allows us to see how Auschwitz looked like, when in complete working order. This Documented History shows the viewer why the camp was needed. We hear from the survivors off this Death Camp, also from the ex Nazis, who, some, still have no qualms of their actions; they say they were only following orders. Yes, this does really bring home the truths of this dreadful atrocity, the suffering of the many and the blind hatred of the evil that was Auschwitz, the Nazis and their Final Solution.This is History Documentation at it's best, to see and finally to get to understand how this evil place came about, and the evil that drove it.