Hiding and Surviving - Growing Up under National Socialism | DW Documentary

Nov 6, 2024 | "Everyone who survived has a story that you simply can't believe.” Charlotte Knobloch survived the Holocaust - because farmer's wife Kreszentia Hummel passed her off as her own, illegitimate child and kept her hidden on her farm.

Charlotte Neuland was born on 29 October 1932. She was born into a dark time: Just three months after her birth, Adolf Hitler came to power. Once the National Socialists were in charge, years of terror ensued. Boycotts against Jewish businesses and professional bans on Jews, including Charlotte's father, the established Munich lawyer Siegfried "Fritz” Neuland, were just the beginning. As time went on, life for Jewish people became increasingly threatened. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 denounced and banned relationships between Jews and non-Jews. Charlotte's mother, Margarethe Neuland, left the family. She had converted to Judaism but could not withstand the pressure from the Gestapo. Charlotte's grandmother, Albertine Neuland, now became the girl's most important caregiver. On the night of 9-10 November 1938, six-year-old Charlotte witnessed the November pogroms: Jewish stores were destroyed and looted in front of her eyes, people were beaten, abused and taken away.

When the first deportations from Munich to the concentration camps began in 1941, Siegfried "Fritz” Neuland took his daughter to the deeply religious Catholic farmer's wife Kreszentia Hummel in Middle Franconia. With her help, Charlotte Neuland survived the National Socialist dictatorship.

Now Charlotte Knobloch, she’s President of the Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria and former President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany. In this film, she tells viewers about her own life - and a past that is full of fear and loss. Despite all her devastating experiences, she would go on to become one of the most important figures representing Jewish life in the German-speaking world. She has dedicated her life to the fight for peace, equality and democracy.

Papst Pius XII. und der Holocaust | Doku HD | ARTE

Oct 10, 2024 | Hat Papst Pius XII., der sich als moralische Instanz sah, zum Holocaust gesagt, was er sagen konnte? Dagegen getan, was er tun konnte? Konnte er so größere Übel für Katholiken und Juden verhindern? Der Historiker David I. Kertzer hat die Geheimverhandlungen zwischen dem Papst und Hitlers Abgesandten entdeckt. Eine Weltsensation.

Es war ein Schock. So empfand es der Historiker David I. Kertzer, als er Geheimdokumente von Pius XII. entdeckte. Hitler brauchte die katholische Kirche an seiner Seite – für den Krieg und für die sogenannte „Endlösung“ der Judenfrage. Seine Forderung für einen Burgfrieden mit der Kirche im NS-Staat lautete: keine Einmischung der Kirche in die Politik. Und: Ausklammerung der „Rassenfrage“.

Als Vertrauensbeweis ließ der Diktator alle Verfahren wegen Kindesmissbrauchs durch Kirchenvertreter einstellen. Und er sicherte der katholischen Kirche finanzielle Unterstützung zu. Die Judenverfolgung war in diesen Jahren bereits in vollem Gange. Die Nazis überfielen das katholische Polen und ermordeten unter anderem polnische Geistliche.

Doch Pius XII. sicherte Hitler zu: „Wenn die Katholiken in Übereinstimmung mit ihrer Religion leben können, werden sie treu sein, mehr als alle anderen“. Und er hielt sich daran.

Was aber hat der als moralische Instanz geltende Pius XII. konkret zur Judenverfolgung und zum Holocaust gesagt? Was hat er konkret dagegen getan? Sagte er, was er sagen konnte? Hat er getan, was er tun konnte? Hat er größeres Unheil abgewendet, wie oft behauptet wird? Und wie tief war der Antisemitismus in der Kirche und selbst im Vatikan verankert?

Im Jahr 2020 öffnet der Vatikan seine Geheimarchive für die Forschung. Wie nie zuvor geben Dokumente Antworten auf diese Fragen. Was der Historiker Kertzer im Vatikanischen Geheimarchiv entdeckt, ist eine Weltsensation.

Dokumentation von Christel Fomm (D 2021, 53 Min)
Video verfügbar bis zum 06/01/2025


La version française de ce documentaire peut être trouvée ici.

Der Bundestag gedenkt der Opfer des Nationalsozialismus

Jan 21, 2024 | Im Bundestag findet eine Holocaustgedenkstunde statt. Als Gastredner sind die Holocaustüberlebende Eva Szepesi und der Publizist Marcel Reif geladen. | Bildrechte Thumbnail: Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters

Steve Schmidt on Why We Can Never Forget the Holocaust | The Warning

Jan 27, 2024 | Steve Schmidt reflects on the 79th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. January 27th marks National Holocaust Remembrance Day, and Steve warns why it's vital -- more than ever -- to continue to remember.

Blood Money: Switzerland's Nazi Gold

Nov 26, 2020 | The only documentary to tell the full story of the Swiss Banks, Jewish money, and Nazi gold. It has been called the most cynical bank robbery in history, the ultimate inside job. Swiss banks accepted Jewish life-savings -- smuggled to neutral Switzerland for hiding from Nazi terror, only to use the very same secrecy laws to prevent Jewish survivors of the Holocaust and their heirs from recovering their rightful money.

"Blood Money" reveals Switzerland's Faustian bargain to become Hitler's bankers, financing the Nazi war machine, and ultimately prolonging World War II.

In a moving, true-life tale every bit as breathtaking as a best-selling international thriller, "Blood Money" reveals previously unknown details of history's biggest swindle, including an examination of the role of the secretive Bank of International Settlements, run by American, Thomas McKittrick, and the part that the bank played in laundering gold for the Nazis in Switzerland.

The film leads the viewers through the extraordinary events, up through the shredding of documents by the Swiss banks, to the resignation of the Swiss Ambassador to the United States, and the exclusively recorded summit of Jewish, Swiss and U.S. officials as they meet for the historic resolution.

Official Selection Berlin Film Festival
Official Selection Haifa International Film Festival, Israel
Boston Jewish Film Festival
Encontros Internacionais Documentary Film Festival, Portugal
Silver Plaque, Chicago International Television Competition
Winner, Emmy Award for Outstanding Research>br />
Directed by Stephen Crisman
Co-produced and written by Gaylen Ross
A&E Investigative Reports

This important documentary cannot be embedded on external websites; it must be viewed on YouTube itself. This is a link to this very informative, but disturbing, documentary. – Mark

Could the Holocaust Happen Again? This Survivor Says It Could “If We Let It” | Amanpour & Co.

Nov 21, 2023 | The Israel-Hamas war has caused a global spike in hate crime. Filmmaker Daniel Lombroso knows all about it. His first film, “White Noise”, was a deep dive into the alt-right movement in the U.S. Lombroso's latest film, “Nina & Irena," follows his interviews with his Holocaust-surviving grandmother, who reveals that her older sister perished during the war. Hari Sreenivasan spoke to them both about the importance of this film and its release in the world of today. | Originally aired on November 21, 2023
My! My! People are sensitive these days, aren’t they? There is absolutely nothing offensive in what I have written in gold below. I am merely speaking the truth. Human nature has not changed. Period! If Amanpour & Co. cannot stand the truth, that’s their problem. I shall keep my comment up, even though I have taken down the video. – © Mark Alexander
What a delightful lady! This story is so moving! We are now living through the worst times in my life. I was born after the war, in the early 50s. I believe that I have already lived through the best years that I ever will experience again. Why do I say this? I say it because I see people are so different now from what they were like in my youth and young adulthood. People back then were more sensible somehow, and more sensitive to the needs of others. They cared for each other and they had a sense of community. All we see around us today is greed, selfish people, a lack of mercy and compassion, and crazy politicians. Trump is a prime example of a crazy politician. But his craziness has metastasised around the world. The latest example being the new president of Argentina. Common sense no longer prevails. So if you were asking me, I'm afraid I would have to say that something like the Holocaust could indeed happen again. Not with the Jews, but with some other group of people. Human nature is human nature; and it hasn't changed. Sadly, life has already taken a sad turn. At this point, who knows what the future holds? – © Mark Alexander

How This Gay, Jewish Man Was Saved from the Nazis by a Muslim Woman | NowThis

Jul 1, 2019 | ‘She kept a knife under her pillow vowing to kill any Nazi who might try to come and get me.’ — Gay, Jewish man Dr. Alfred Münzer survived the Holocaust as a child thanks to a kind Indonesian Muslim woman. …

Holocaust-Überlebende zum Juden-Hass: "Schon mit der Muttermilch Antisemitismus gelernt"

Sie ist wohl die berühmteste Zeitzeugin des Holocaust: Margot Friedländer. Mit ihren mittlerweile 102 Jahren erzählt sie seit vielen Jahren vor allem jungen Menschen ihre Geschichte und will sie zu gegenseitigem Respekt ermutigen. Am 85. Jahrestag der Pogromnacht mahnt sie: Das, was damals geschah, darf sich nie wiederholen.

Welch eine anmutige, liebevolle, weise, alte Dame! – Mark

KZ Mauthausen. Von Fotografen, Häftlingen, Henkern | Doku HD Reupload | ARTE

200.000 Deportierte, 120.000 Tote: Das KZ Mauthausen war ein Lager, in dem das Prinzip "Vernichtung durch Arbeit" praktiziert wurde. In dieser Hölle gelang einer kleinen Gruppe von Widerstandskämpfern etwas schier Unmögliches: Um eines Tages Beweise gegen ihre Henker zu haben, entwendeten sie 1.000 Fotografien und schleusten sie aus dem Lager heraus.

Das Konzentrationslager Mauthausen in Österreich war eines der schlimmsten des Dritten Reiches. Österreicher, Deutsche, Polen, Russen, Franzosen und Spanier arbeiteten sich hier in den Steinbrüchen zu Tode, wurden hingerichtet oder in der Gaskammer des Lagers ermordet.

In dieser Hölle hatte eine Sonderabteilung namens "Erkennungsdienst" die Aufgabe, durch Fotoaufnahmen vom Lageralltag die "glorreiche Geschichte" des Dritten Reichs zu illustrieren. Solche Fotos entstanden in allen Konzentrationslagern. Doch ab 1944, als sich die Niederlage des NS-Staates ankündigte, wurden die meisten vernichtet, da sie Beweise für die begangenen Verbrechen darstellten. In Mauthausen konnten einige gerettet werden. Nach dem Krieg präsentierten Deportierte der Weltöffentlichkeit Fotografien, die das Unsagbare abbildeten und die Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit dokumentierten. Dass diese Beweise den Krieg überlebten, ist allein dem Mut einer kleinen Gruppe von Menschen zu verdanken – allesamt überzeugte spanische Republikaner. In der Hoffnung, dass die Fotos eines Tages weltweit als Beweismittel dienen würden, riskierten die Spanier zwei Jahre lang ihr eigenes Leben: Sie entwendeten die Bilder, versteckten sie und schleusten sie aus dem Lager heraus. Durch diese in der Geschichte einzigartige Widerstandstat konnten der Nachwelt rund tausend Fotoaufnahmen vom KZ Mauthausen überliefert werden. Diese Dokumentation des Unbeschreiblichen wirft ein neues Licht auf die Überlebenden der Lager: Bevor sie Opfer wurden, waren sie vor allem Widerstandskämpfer.

Dokumentation von Barbara Necek (F 2021, 53 Min)
Video auf YouTube verfügbar bis zum 18/01/2024

Holocaustleugnung: Welche Lügen kursieren und wie ihr sie erkennt

Nov 2, 2023 | Die Nationalsozialisten begehen unsagbare Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit, unter anderem im Vernichtungslager Auschwitz-Birkenau. Die Grausamkeit des Holocaust, des Völkermords an den europäischen Juden, und das daraus resultierende Leid verpflichten nachfolgende Generationen, sich für eine aktive Erinnerungskultur einzusetzen.

Die Faktenlage zum Holocaust ist eindeutig. Ihn zu leugnen, ist in Deutschland strafbar. Dennoch verbreiten Holocaustleugner im Netz millionenfach Falschmeldungen über den Völkermord. Das Ziel: Den Holocaust und andere Verbrechen des Nationalsozialismus wie den Völkermord an den Sinti und Roma zu verharmlosen und zu relativieren. Und nicht immer ist leicht zu erkennen, wann es sich um eine Lüge handelt.

In diesem Video zeigt euch Mirko, welche Verschwörungsmythen um den Holocaust kursieren und woran ihr Holocaustleugnung erkennt.

Holocaust: Was in Auschwitz geschah | DER SPIEGEL

Jan 27, 2022 | Am 27. Januar 1945 erreichten Soldaten der Roten Armee das Vernichtungslager. Nach und nach erschloss sich ihnen die Dimension des Grauens.
I'm posting this disturbing documentary about concentration- and extermination-camps today because anti-Semitism is increasing terribly around the world. People need to be reminded of the horrors inflicted on the Jews in Hitler's Third Reich in the 1930s and 1940s. We should never forget how the Jews suffered back then. Furthermore, we must do everything in our power to ensure that they never again have to suffer such humiliation, abuse and cruelty.

Ich veröffentliche heute diese verstörende Dokumentation über Konzentrations- und Vernichtungslager, weil der Antisemitismus weltweit furchtbar zunimmt. Die Menschen müssen an die Schrecken erinnert werden, die den Juden in Hitlers Drittem Reich in den 1930er und 1940er Jahren zugefügt wurden. Wir sollten nie vergessen, wie die Juden damals gelitten haben. Darüber hinaus müssen wir alles in unserer Macht tun, um sicherzustellen, daß sie nie wieder solche Demütigungen, Misshandlungen und Grausamkeiten erleiden müssen.

Je publie aujourd'hui ce documentaire inquiétant sur les camps de concentration et d'extermination parce que l'antisémitisme augmente terriblement dans le monde. Il faut rappeler aux gens les horreurs infligées aux Juifs sous le Troisième Reich hitlérien dans les années 1930 et 1940. Nous ne devrions jamais oublier combien les Juifs ont souffert à cette époque. En outre, nous devons faire tout ce qui est en notre pouvoir pour garantir qu’ils n’aient plus jamais à subir de telles humiliations, abus et cruautés.

© Mark Alexander

Diese Dokumentation ist für Kinder auf keinen Fall geeignet. Empfindsame Leute sollten auch vorsichtig sein.

This documentary is definitely not suitable for children. Sensitive people should also be careful.

Cette documentation n'est certainement pas adaptée aux enfants. Les personnes sensibles doivent également être prudentes.

Diese Dokumentation ist altersbeschränkt und kann daher nicht auf externen Websites eingebettet werden. Es muss auf YouTube selbst angesehen werden. Klicken Sie bitte hier, um den Dokumentarfilm anzusehen. (It has English subtitles.)

LGBT Stories from the Holocaust | Aid Provider Henri De Kryger | Pride Month | USC Shoah Foundation

Jun 9, 2023 | Henri De Kryger was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands (Holland) in 1919 to a Christian family. …

Saved by Schindler’s List | Celina Biniaz | Jewish-American Heritage Month | USC Shoah Foundation

May 22, 2023 | Holocaust survivor Celina Biniaz was the youngest female on Oskar Schindler’s famed list. Celina survived the Kraków Ghetto, Nazi labor camps, and Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp before being rescued by Oskar Schindler, the German businessman who saved more than 1,000 Jews from the Holocaust.

Celina, 91, is a longtime friend of USC Shoah Foundation. Both Celina and her mother recorded testimony for USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive in 1996. For many years after the war, Celina was reluctant to share her story because she feared no one could comprehend what she had been through. That changed in 1994, when Steven Spielberg brought Oskar Schindler’s story to the screen with Schindler’s List and established Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, which later became USC Shoah Foundation.

Celina often says that “Oskar Schindler gave me life, but Steven Spielberg gave me a voice.” Some of Celina’s testimony was included as an extra feature on a DVD release of Schindler’s List, to help fight Holocaust denial. …

«Ich wollte leben!» - mit 13 im KZ Auschwitz

Oct 20, 2015 | Von Schweizer Grenzern abgewiesen wird die Jüdin Liliana Segre 1943 mit ihrem Vater von Mailand nach Auschwitz verschleppt. Sie überlebt.

The Rise of Hitler | Holocaust Education | USHMM*

Nov 29, 2022 | After Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany in 1933, the Nazi Party gradually restricted Jewish citizens’ rights and violence against Jews increased by 1938. What events led up to the mass murder of six million Jews? Can recognizing similar warning signs help prevent genocide today? One notable wave of violence across Germany, known as Kristallnacht, was organized by the Nazi regime. Additional anti-Jewish laws followed. Jews tried to emigrate to escape persecution, but many countries would not accept large numbers of refugees. Those who chose to help made a difference. For example, about 10,000 Jewish children were rescued under the Kindertransport program, which sent them abroad.

* USHMM - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Holocaust-Gedenktag: Erinnern an gehörlose Opfer | Sehen statt Hören | Doku | BR

Jan 27, 2019 | Am 27. Januar 1945 wurde das Konzentrations- und Vernichtungslager Auschwitz durch die sowjetischen Truppen befreit. 51 Jahre später - 1996 - wird dieses Datum vom damaligen Bundespräsidenten Roman Herzog zum bundesweiten Gedenktag für die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus auserwählt. An die 1.500 gehörlose Menschen waren unter den Opfern.

Unseen Kristallnacht Photos Published 84 Years after Nazi Pogrom

THE GUARDIAN: Images released by Israeli Holocaust memorial show Hitler’s regime clearly orchestrating 1938 atrocity

Civilians watch a Nazi officer vandalise Jewish property, most likely in Fürth, outside Nuremberg.Photograph: AP
Harrowing, previously unseen images from 1938’s Kristallnacht pogrom against German and Austrian Jews have surfaced in a photograph collection donated to Israel’s Yad Vashem memorial, the organisation said on Wednesday.

One shows a crowd of smiling, well-dressed middle-aged German men and women standing casually as a Nazi officer smashes a storefront window. In another, brownshirts carry heaps of Jewish books, presumably for burning. Another image shows a Nazi officer splashing petrol on the pews of a synagogue before it is set alight.

Yad Vashem, a Holocaust memorial centre, released the photographs on the 84th anniversary of Kristallnacht, also known as the Night of Broken Glass. Mobs of Germans and Austrians attacked, looted and burned Jewish shops and homes, destroyed 1,400 synagogues, killed 92 Jews and sent another 30,000 to concentration camps. » | Associated Press | Wednesday, November 9, 2022

Filmmaker Ken Burns Talks about His Latest Series ‘The U.S. and the Holocaust’ | DW News

Washington early summer 1939. In the Caribbean Sea, somewhere between Cuba and Florida, the MS St. Louis is waiting for the green light from Washington to enter Miami.

There are almost 1,000 war refugees on board the ship from Hamburg. Almost all are German Jews who want to get to safety in the USA.

But US President Franklin D. Roosevelt refused entry.

This is a key scene in the three-part TV documentary 'The U.S. and the Holocaust' which argues that although the United States absorbed around 220,000 Jews during World War II, far more could have been saved.

European Antisemitism from Its Origins to the Holocaust

A screenshot from the accompanying video. | US Holocaust Memorial Museum
Jan 10, 2022 • This 13-minute film introduces the history of antisemitism. The term was coined in the 19th century and refers to prejudice against or hatred of Jews. But as this film shows, anti-Jewish hostility goes back many centuries—to the era of early Christianity and the Middle Ages. As a religious minority, Jews in Christian-dominant Europe were consistently persecuted as “outsiders.” They became scapegoats and victims of targeted violence in times of severe hardship and economic and political change.

Anti-Jewish prejudices endured and took on new forms as western societies became more secular in the 19th century, and Jews gained more rights and opportunities. Some politicians used “the Jews” as scapegoats in their attempts to gain support from people left behind by economic change. Ultra-nationalists, seeking ethnically homogeneous nations, saw Jews as biologically “foreign”—a different “race.” Antisemites also hatched conspiracy theories about “Jewish power” and that, after World War I and the Russian Revolution, linked Jews to Communism.

These radical strands of racial antisemitism, tied to ethnic nationalism and conspiracy myths, became core elements of Nazi ideology as the party was forming in the aftermath of World War I. After the Nazis took power in 1933, these ideas became state policy and underpinned anti-Jewish laws and decrees. Nazi propaganda portrayed Germany’s Jews as an “alien,” biological threat to the survival of the German people. During World War II, this racial antisemitism motivated Nazi policy that evolved into mass murder and genocide. Nazi officials also exploited longstanding traditional prejudices towards Jews in the countries they conquered to gain help from non-Germans to locate, round up, deport, and kill Jews.

This video is age-restricted; therefore, it is not embeddable on external websites. It must be viewed on YouTube itself. Please click here to watch it.

Anita Lasker Wallfisch: Mich hat Auschwitz nie verlassen

Streamed live on May 28, 2018 • Zeitzeugen im Gespräch – Erfahrungen und Schicksale deutscher Juden im Nationalsozialismus