“The Fuehrer Gives the Jews a City” may rank as the oddest film fragment in cinematic history.
The 23 minutes of raw, unedited footage is all that has been found of a Nazi propaganda project to prove that the “model” Theresienstadt camp was a veritable paradise for its Jewish inmates.
Shot in early 1944, when the horrors of Hitler’s Final Solution finally trickled out to the West, the film was part of an effort to hoodwink a visiting International Red Cross delegation that all was productive work and wholesome recreation in Theresienstadt, and by extension in other concentration camps.
During the day, contented workers shoed horses, made pottery and designed handbags. Children played soccer or gorged themselves on sandwiches. In the evenings, well-dressed men and women attended concerts and lectures.
And the films director was a Jewish inmate…
VIDEO: Hitler Gives the Jews a City
The way those people just had to act happy even thoigh so many other lewish people were dying…as for the director, if you read the article i think he was an idiot. Thinking he xould cut a deal with the nazis was obviosly a terrible choice…he was childish and in the end he was killed for it… thinking he wouldnt be killed becaue he directed the movie was selfish.
no other way 2 put it….
how come the films producer was jewish?
I went to visit theresianshtadt and they have much more footage and clear vidio – very convincing and hard to imagine waht they were feeling….
nasty
my little sister and I just finished this video and it’s so sad! My sister commented “They’re pretending to be so happy when it’s really the oposite!”
i wonder what these people were feeling, running out of work with fake plastic smiles glued on their face! And those kids, how did the feel playing football and knowing that because of the pre-aranged goal they just made, the outside world would think they were happy! And the Jewish directors, i cant even think about that…
There are way too many clews that this was staged.