Fascinating programme

marisco_2

Is anyone else watching Perspectives - Warwick Davis - The Seven Dwarfs of Auschwitz?

What a fascinating but harrowing look at an incredibly interesting time in history. Makes a change to have something so informative to watch on a Sunday evening.

mummybearx

Yip. It's by my bed time but I'm still watchingx

MissSarah151

I saw the advert for that the other day - thought 'I really want to watch that, mustn't forget' - completely forgot! Thanks for the reminder - will catch up on it!

marisco_2

I cant believe they all survived. My god what they must have gone through just cant be comprehended. Warwick Davis presented that really well. He looked totally shell shocked. I went to Auschwitz years ago and it was an incredibly moving and disturbing experience. I am very glad to have done it though as I learnt so much.

Tuesday_Tenor

Yes, caught it by chance last night, as nothing much else on I was interested in ....

Prompted to respond for the same reason you were prompted to post : it really was a remarkaable programme. The story, the history, how the production treated it, how it was presented ... all first-class.

I had a similar reaction to one of the 'Who Do You Think You Are?' programmes a few years ago. I enjoy most of them anyway, but the one with Gerry Springer was incredibly surprising and moving. Not someone that I start off with a lot of sympathy for.

The programme explored the fate of his grandmothers. Both had died in concentration camps, one gassed, one in the hospital there. As it transpired that there were many more records of their lives and deaths, and the hell of the camps in between, than he could have anticipated, he was increasingly stunned by the awful Reality of it, in the same way that Warwick Davis was last night. In Springer's case it was his actual family; in Davis's it was people like him ...

Both programmes should be compulsory viewing for all of us: to stop us taking for granted all that we have; stop us being complacent that life will be easy; stop us being apatheric about who is in power, politically; stop us treating ANY people as different/inferior to others ...

My own father's family disappeared in WW2 on the Russian-Polish border. I can watch the documentaries and sensitive treatments such as 'Schindler's List'. I know these things happened; I honour the memory of them. 'Lest we forget'.

I CAN'T watch 'horror' films though - why does anyone want to make or watch fictional horror for entertainment/thrills? There is too much in real life ...

Let's count our blessings ...

pupsicola

I watched that programme too. It was very good. Really brought a lump to my throat when Warwick Davis was stood on the train platform and he was making it so obvious how impossible it would have been for the people to have embarked onto the trains. Leaving a distinctly ghastly realisation that those poor souls were most likely picked up and thrown in. The reference to them being luggage made me choke.

I also saw the 'Who do you think you are' programme. Again another fascinating insight into a horrific part of history.

pigpen

Tuesday_Tenor wrote: »

I CAN'T watch 'horror' films though - why does anyone want to make or watch fictional horror for entertainment/thrills? There is too much in real life ...

Let's count our blessings ...

I quite agree!!!

My friend at school, her dad was smuggled out of the Ukraine aged 3.5/4ish every single member of his family was gassed. He was brought to the UK and lived in an orphanage for rescued children for many years until he started work at 14 and had lodgings. The first thing they did with a lot of the children was change their names as they were 'too foreign' or 'unpronouncable' .. I guess a 4 y/o telling you their surname could be problematic.

It makes your heart soar for the people who put their lives at risk to save strangers.. I wonder howc many would do that now!

motherofstudents

Yes I watched it too. It's so hard to comprehend how it could have happened. Just shows the highs and lows that human beings are capable of.

GlynD

Yet there are people who swear the Holocaust never happened.

marisco_2

Tell me about it GlynD. I have visited Ann Franks museum in Amsterdam, a very moving and humbling experience and also the Bergen Belsen memorial site in Germany. At both places there are vile comments in the visitors book claiming it was all a lie and never happened.

My great uncle was one of the soldiers who liberated Belsen. He spoke to me in detail about what he witnessed. Horrifying things that haunted him all his life. I admired him greatly for seeing the big picture and wanting to educate future generations by sharing his experiences. People can only learn from history if they stop denying that events ever happened.

GlynD

marisco wrote: »

Tell me about it GlynD. I have visited Ann Franks museum in Amsterdam, a very moving and humbling experience and also the Bergen Belsen memorial site in Germany. At both places there are vile comments in the visitors book claiming it was all a lie and never happened.

My great uncle was one of the soldiers who liberated Belsen. He spoke to me in detail about what he witnessed. Horrifying things that haunted him all his life. I admired him greatly for seeing the big picture and wanting to educate future generations by sharing his experiences. People can only learn from history if they stop denying that events ever happened.

I lived in Germany for a number of years Marisco, courtesy of HM Queen. The history is there for all to see. Even on the training area at Bergen Hohne (Bergen Belsen) the evidence was there in all its glory. I mean how do the nay sayers explain the camps?