The Last Days
The Last Days, 1998, USA
I signed up for Netflix solely to watch this film, which is pretty significant. I’ve long wanted to watch this documentary about the Holocaust, because Steven Spielberg produced it.
The documentary looks at the experiences of several Hungarian Holocaust survivors. Hungarian Jews weren’t taken to the concentration camps until the last year of the war when it became clear that the Nazis were going to lose the war. Instead of focusing their resources on fighting the war, the Nazis attacked the Hungarian Jews and murdered them or sent them to the concentration camps.
The interviews with the survivors were so interesting. They spoke candidly about their lives before the Holocaust, and about how they survived in the concentration camps. Many of the subjects journeyed back to Europe in order to find some sort of closure. One visited the town she grew up in and discovered her childhood home. These journeys added another layer to the film. The horrific atrocities of the Holocaust are fairly well known, but we often forget about what the survivors experienced after they were liberated. Many never returned home, and many lost their entire families.
It was not an easy documentary to watch. There are photos and video from the concentration camps, and it was just awful to watch. But this footage was necessary, because it shows what the Holocaust was. Humanity needs to see this footage. As I was watching it, I thought about the fact that these people were someone’s son or daughter. These people were loved, and they were treated as if they were vermin. It was very difficult to think about. We must never forget that this happened, and we can never let this happen again.
I did have one minor beef: the film was in a letterbox format. I’m assuming it was in letterbox format because it’s an older film and it isn’t one that necessarily needs to be converted back to a widescreen format. Or, it’s possible that it was filmed in that format. It was just a bit odd to watch a letterbox film on my widescreen TV.
Watch this documentary. Hearing the stories of these survivors was such a privilege. It saddens me to think that, in a few years, there won’t be any more Holocaust survivors left. It’s important to hear these stories; to get them on film or paper, before it’s too late.