Review of Auschwitz

The main problem with this film was calling it 'Auschwitz'. When Uwe Boll decided a specific place name he was inviting an inevitable slew of comparisons between what did and didn't happen at that particular location. He should have called it 'Death Camp' in keeping with the loose collection of events illustrated in his film. The movie 'Auschwitz' is not exploitative, or Euro Trash, nor is it a drama. It's more of a docudrama or re-enactment, the sort of historic story-telling that TV has been flooded with for many years. The idea behind re-enactment is to give a visual aid, or impression to the viewer, not an explicit replication of the often bloody detail of the actual historical event. In this way the film does exactly what the director said it would by making a bold attempt to explain what should have been beyond possible. Uwe Boll has created a documentary designed to give today's teenagers the hint of an idea of what happened to the Jews, Gypsies and others under Nazi rule. It is the briefest of glimpses into what happened in the Death Camps. If you are looking for something more than that which Uwe Boll said he was offering, then the list of what is missing is a long one. However, you need to consider the challenges Uwe Boll faced in making this movie. To start with it is impossible for actors, no matter how many or few take part, to even begin to genuinely portray what took place inside a Death Camp Gas Chamber. Only CGI could scratch the surface of that reality and it would be beyond awful to try to create or watch such terror. No more than an impression should ever be committed to film, the authentic truth can be openly researched from the evidence of Death Camp survivors. Another complaint about this film is the depiction of what happens to the babies. It may not have happened in Auschwitz (although I understand that if there was an overflow at Auschwitz they were taken to an area behind the crematorium where they were shot and thrown into a fire pit), but it was common for guards to separate the disembarked survivors of the train journeys at the point of entry to the camps; the babies, the very old, the infirm, the very sick and the disabled. This was done in order to kill them away from the others, because those who couldn't move quickly would hold up the speed of the general slaughter and any inefficiency could cause a (log/human) jam. If you think it couldn't be worse than I have described, I suggest you watch the filmed testimony of Ruth Elias, a Death Camp survivor who gave birth to her baby girl in Auschwitz (The Four Sisters - Claude Lanzmann 2018). Everything by Claude Lanzmann is an amazing and devastating insight into the hell suffered by ordinary Jewish Citizens as they describe to him their personal experiences of the Holocaust or Shoah. I have been unusually grave in my review of this film, but the subject matter is too serious for it to be treated in any other way. When all is said and done 'Auschwitz' is not a great film, but it is a good one and it ought to be seen, in the form it was designed to be, as a documentary for teenagers. They should watch this film to start them on the road to understanding the barbaric horror of systematic and industrialised genocide.