Un vivant qui passe

Former inmates and American soldiers remember the cruel conditions in Buchenwald concentration camp.

In a forest in eastern Poland, an archaeologist digs to bring to light the traces of the Sobibor extermination center. Thousands of objects that belonged to the victims are emerging from the ground as fragile witnesses. This research must be completed, because the construction of a new museum-memorial is beginning. How can the Shoah be commemorated on its own site, today and tomorrow, when an era without witnesses is emerging? How does the Shoah continue to work on the history and memory of Poland, of its citizens, within Europe, in a conflicting political context? The film looks at these questions by showing and hearing the voices of archaeologists, historians, architects, journalists, curators, and visitors linked to Sobibor.

They endured the death camps. They hid in remote farms. They fought as partisans in Polish forests. But when the war ended, the struggles of the Holocaust survivors were only just beginning. Destination Unknown paints a uniquely intimate portrait of survival, revealing pain that has never faded but hasn't crushed the human spirit.

On the 29th September 1945, the incomplete rough cut of a brilliant documentary about concentration camps was viewed at the MOI in London. For five months, Sidney Bernstein had led a small team – which included Stewart McAllister, Richard Crossman and Alfred Hitchcock – to complete the film from hours of shocking footage. Unfortunately, this ambitious Allied project to create a feature-length visual report that would damn the Nazi regime and shame the German people into acceptance of Allied occupation had missed its moment. Even in its incomplete form (available since 1984) the film was immensely powerful, generating an awed hush among audiences. But now, complete to six reels, this faithfully restored and definitive version produced by IWM, is being compared with Alain Resnais’ Night and Fog (1955).

Survivors tell the story of the Babyn Yar massacre from WWII, where some 100,000 people were massacred by German forces.

Filmmaker Peter Hegedus embarks on the challenging journey to make Sorella's Story, an immersive 360° film set on the beaches of Latvia in December 1941, when thousands of Jewish Women and children perished at the hands of Nazi collaborators. Along the way Peter teams up with Jewish-Australian 90-year-old Ethel Davies whose family was also killed in the same massacre.

Forgotten Transports to Poland is a documentary by Lukáš Přibyl, part of a series that explores lesser-known Holocaust deportations. This film focuses on Jewish deportees sent to little-known camps in eastern Poland during World War II. It highlights their survival strategies and personal stories, offering a human perspective on these largely forgotten events.

In March 1943, twenty-year-old Ovadia Baruch was deported together with his family from Greece to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Upon arrival, his extended family was sent to the gas chambers. Ovadia struggled to survive until his liberation from the Mauthausen concentration camp in May 1945. While in Auschwitz, Ovadia met Aliza Tzarfati, a young Jewish woman from his hometown, and the two developed a loving relationship despite inhuman conditions. This film depicts their remarkable, touching story of love and survival in Auschwitz, a miraculous meeting after the Holocaust and the home they built together in Israel. This film is part of the "Witnesses and Education" project, a joint production of the International School for Holocaust Studies and the Multimedia Center of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In this series, survivors recount their life stores - before, during and after the Holocaust. Each title is filmed on location, where the events originally transpired.

From Steven Spielberg and Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation comes Broken Silence, a series of five films about human courage, heroism, and triumph over intense adversities during World War II. Hell on Earth: Renowned Czech filmmaker Vojtech Jasny directed this Czech-language documentary, a look at Theresienstadt, the "model" Czech ghetto set up by the Nazis to deceive the world about how well the Jews were treated.