The U.N. Assembly dedicated Wednesday, January 27, as International
Holocaust Remembrance Day, a date which marks the anniversary of the
liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Several poignant, yet brilliant films
are set against the backdrop of this horrific era of our history. In
the hands of extraordinary actors and directors, these sensitive, yet
brutal movies have earned numerous awards and critical acclaim.






• Schindler’s List: Director Steven Spielberg won his first-ever Academy Award in 1994 for Schindler’s List and delivered a heartfelt speech paying homage to Holocaust survivors and “the six million who can’t be watching this.” Watch it here. 
  The story of one man’s quest to save the lives of more than 1,000
  Polish Jews who worked in his factory is beautifully shot in stark
  B&W. This was also the first movie I watched in a theater that
  called for an intermission (its run time is 195 minutes), yet Schindler’s List never felt as thought it were a long movie. The film does an incredible job of bringing you into another world.



• Life is Beautiful: Director/star Roberto Benigni, who won the Best Actor Oscar, deftly
  handles the tale of World War II Italy with a sprinkling of humor that
  doesn’t make the audience uncomfortable. Its lighthearted,
  head-over-heels love story at the beginning of the film is an effective
  contrast to the sorrowful ending. At first glance, Life is Beautiful 
  seemed like an odd name for a film on such a painfully, brutal subject,
  but trust me on this one: at the end, the title makes sense.



• The Pianist: This heartbreakingly beautiful tale features Adrien Brody in his 2003 Oscar-winning role as Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish Jew living in German-occupied Warsaw. At times, The Pianist 
  was almost too painful for me to watch, but the audience in the theater
  stood and applauded at the end of this brilliant film. Director Roman Polanski,
  whose mother died in Auschwitz, received the Best Director Award. Say
  what you will about Polanski’s legal troubles; no one could have done a
  finer job directing this film.



• Sophie’s Choice: The always-awesome Meryl Streep picked up a Best Actress Oscar in 1983 for her portrayal of a Holocaust survivor. 
  Using flashbacks, the film delves into Sophie’s terrifying past, but
  fear and brutality cloud her present life in New York City with husband
  Nathan (Kevin Kline). While Sophie’s Choice always
  lands on various “Top 10 Saddest Movies” lists, it also provides an
  eye-opening look at male-female roles in post-WWII America.



• The Diary of Anne Frank: 
  The film, based on the book by the same name, follows the wise and
  courageous titular character (played by Millie Perkins) and her family
  hiding from Nazis in Amsterdam. It has moments where it strays away
  from the book, but that doesn’t ruin the story. Diary, which scooped up several Oscars in 1960, including Shelley Winters’ win for Best Supporting Actress, finally came out on DVD several years ago and it’s worth having in your collection.







And let’s not forget these notables:




• The Reader: Best Actress winner Kate Winslet plays a former Nazi prison guard on trial for war crimes..



• Holocaust: 
  The critically acclaimed and popular 1979 television miniseries follows
  each member of the Jewish Family Weiss throughout Hitler’s reign in
  Germany.



• The Boy in the Striped Pajamas: This 2008 film tells the story through the eyes of an eight-year-old boy who befriends a Jewish boy in a concentration camp.



• Uprising: Jon Voight and David Schwimmer star in this 2001 TV miniseries about a group of Jews who rebelled against the Nazis in Warsaw.



• Nuremberg: 
  An Emmy-winning TV miniseries dramatizing the famous war-crime trials
  following the defeat of Germany in World War II, starring Alec Baldwin and Brian Cox.
  





–Francine Ruley

Leave a Reply

Name: (required)

Email Address: (required)

Website: