Lodz Ghetto [VHS] Overview
This innovative documentary about the Nazi occupation of a populous enclave of Jews in Eastern Europe weaves archival footage with material shot in the 1980s to evoke the spirit of the trapped inhabitants and their desperate struggle to survive. The Polish city of Lodz held the second largest Jewish community in Europe, and the invading Nazis ringed the Jewish neighborhood with barbed wire. All Jews in the area, nearly a quarter million people, were forced into what soon became known as the Lodz Ghetto. The inhabitants of the ghetto steadfastly endured hunger and other great hardships, and valiant efforts were made just to maintain normal lives. Factories were kept in operation under an audacious plan for the ghetto to survive economically, and to keep some semblance of cultural life, classical music concerts were held. But as survivors of the ghetto movingly relate in the narration, the community was doomed. Deportations to the concentration camps began, and this film presents the drama in heartbreaking fashion as photographs of ghetto children are shown against a voiceover of one of the ghetto's leaders painfully explaining that the Nazis are demanding that the community must hand over 20,000 people. This is a brilliantly conceived film that does a fine job of making history that should be known come to life in very human terms. --Robert J. McNamara
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