Making its New York premiere Saturday at the Public Theater, ''Terezin Diary'' splices together interviews with nine survivors of the Terezin ghetto, haunting pictures drawn by some of these survivors and a Nazi propaganda film touting Terezin as a normal, uncrowded town. In actuality, Terezin was a way station to the extermination camps through which more than 140,000 Jewish prisoners passed. Of these, 15,000 were children. Fewer than one in 10 survived.
As always, in dealing with the Nazi persecution and mass murder of Jews, the material is hard to take and still boggles the mind that this type of inhumanity happened less than 50 years ago. Yet, in spite of the inherent emotion woven within these recollections, this documentary never fully brings to life the pain, fear and anguish these survivors, and those less fortunate, suffered.
Part of the problem, at least in terms of this documentary's weakness as a film, is that there are far too many long, stationary shots of these survivors telling their individual stories. The Holocaust could never be termed boring, but its telling here occasionally borders on being tedious.
Obviously, the subject matter is still harrowing and compelling. Much of what is revealed comes from a diary kept by Helga Kinsky, who at the age of 12 was interned at Terezin with her father. Terezin itself was ''the most bizarre of camps.'' Well-known musicians and artists from all over Central Europe would perform there, which only served to aid Hitler in his attempt to disguise the true nature of this waiting room for death.
In a Nazi propaganda film called ''Hitler Gives the Jews a Town, '' Terezin is portrayed as a civilized cultural center. Thousands of the prisoners were forced to partake in this hideous hoax. The truth behind the facade is a frightening one. One survivor describes being lashed 25 times with a bullwhip and then, after a Nazi mistook a grimace for a smile, being sentenced to 25 more lashes.
The separations from family, the thousands upon thousands of deaths, the transports to the gas camps, the unforgivable cruelty -- are all stories we've heard before but are no less angering in their repetition. Zuzana Justman, the writer and executive producer of ''Terezin Diary, '' is a Terezin survivor herself.
Together with director-producer Dan Weissman, she has passionately brought forth, and hopefully exorcised some internal demons in doing so, a horrific period in her, and our, world's history. The end product may be somewhat stilted and stagnant, but the film still serves as a powerful reminder of these unforgettable and incomprehensible events.
TEREZIN DIARY
First Run Features
Director-producer Dan Weissman
Writer-executive producer Zuzana Justman
Director of photography Ervin Sanders
Editor Mark Simon
Narrator: Eli Wallach
Color/black and white
In English and German with subtitles
Running time -- 88 minutes
No MPAA Rating
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
As always, in dealing with the Nazi persecution and mass murder of Jews, the material is hard to take and still boggles the mind that this type of inhumanity happened less than 50 years ago. Yet, in spite of the inherent emotion woven within these recollections, this documentary never fully brings to life the pain, fear and anguish these survivors, and those less fortunate, suffered.
Part of the problem, at least in terms of this documentary's weakness as a film, is that there are far too many long, stationary shots of these survivors telling their individual stories. The Holocaust could never be termed boring, but its telling here occasionally borders on being tedious.
Obviously, the subject matter is still harrowing and compelling. Much of what is revealed comes from a diary kept by Helga Kinsky, who at the age of 12 was interned at Terezin with her father. Terezin itself was ''the most bizarre of camps.'' Well-known musicians and artists from all over Central Europe would perform there, which only served to aid Hitler in his attempt to disguise the true nature of this waiting room for death.
In a Nazi propaganda film called ''Hitler Gives the Jews a Town, '' Terezin is portrayed as a civilized cultural center. Thousands of the prisoners were forced to partake in this hideous hoax. The truth behind the facade is a frightening one. One survivor describes being lashed 25 times with a bullwhip and then, after a Nazi mistook a grimace for a smile, being sentenced to 25 more lashes.
The separations from family, the thousands upon thousands of deaths, the transports to the gas camps, the unforgivable cruelty -- are all stories we've heard before but are no less angering in their repetition. Zuzana Justman, the writer and executive producer of ''Terezin Diary, '' is a Terezin survivor herself.
Together with director-producer Dan Weissman, she has passionately brought forth, and hopefully exorcised some internal demons in doing so, a horrific period in her, and our, world's history. The end product may be somewhat stilted and stagnant, but the film still serves as a powerful reminder of these unforgettable and incomprehensible events.
TEREZIN DIARY
First Run Features
Director-producer Dan Weissman
Writer-executive producer Zuzana Justman
Director of photography Ervin Sanders
Editor Mark Simon
Narrator: Eli Wallach
Color/black and white
In English and German with subtitles
Running time -- 88 minutes
No MPAA Rating
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
- 6/21/1991
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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