Frontline (TV Series) Memory of the Camps (1984) User Reviews

Wonderful

[gigihathorn · 10/10 · 4 May 2005]

As a person fascinated with WWII and the horrors of German expansion, I found this film to be one of the most moving things I have ever seen in my entire life. The images are graphic and telling, just how they should be. For a person, who like me, wants to learn about history from those who experienced it, this is one way, as the images draw you into the horror. This film brings ferocious truth to the concentration camps. This film exhibits the non-human nature of the SS guards, the cruelty, and at the end the desperation of those who committed such atrocity. This period of history is something that should never be forgotten. As a famous writer once said, "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Holocaust deniers, look at this

[rsyung · 9/10 · 4 May 2005]

This was recently aired on "Frontline", presumably reconstructed, although I don't know how it differs from the version already available in region 2. Trevor Howard's narration lends a straightforward narration minus any attempt to color it with gravity. There is no music score to let us know that what we are seeing is monumental tragedy. Neither embellishment is needed and would probably be disrespectful to the victims of what we are witnessing through the lenses of Allied cameramen as they documented the horrors of the death camps in Germany. The endless shots of the faces of dead men, women and children, the piles of naked corpses thrown haphazardly upon one another in mass graves of 5000 each, and all in one of many camps...it was overwhelming to realize how many hopes and dreams--how many lives--were snuffed out in such a short time, to end up nameless under a mound of earth. The passage of 60 years, and the litany of mass murders that have occurred since fail to diminish the shock and horror of these images, rarely visible on such a massive scale to those of us who weren't there. How can any holocaust-denier look at this film and still maintain their delusion?

Harsh, grotesque, horrifying.

[memarthamcc · 10/10 · 4 May 2005]

What makes "Memory of the Camps" so compelling is its nakedness. It is raw documentary footage. What it is not is a re-creation, such as we see with the most excellent and well-meaning films from Hollywood. Instead, it shows what is impossible to re-create: The concentration camp world as it actually was. The details are horrifying. How thin the cadavers are... when they are dumped into the mass graves, their limbs flail about lifelessly, their stomachs sink to their backbones. And how endless the burials. The corpses are carried like sacks of potatoes, with that much dignity. And the survivors sit stunned and without expression, watching the camera. This film, more than any of the Holocaust genre, bears real witness: Over three hundred concentration and extermination camps existed in the Nazi state. What horrors we see are multiplied 300 times. 11-million deaths from gassing, starvation, typhus. And oh, the children... Unspeakable depravity.

Scenes of the horrors of the Holocaust

[LINEKING · 10/10 · 24 January 2006]

From the time my family emigrated to the US, in 1956, my life has been affected (being called a Nazi) by what is shown in the footage you will see. Many years ago, I began to look into the Holocaust, and this piece gives dramatic testimony to what was discovered by those who liberated the death camps. Detractors and deniers of these atrocities: YOU NEED TO WATCH THIS VIDEO! Many of the camps throughout Germany and Poland are shown and especially Dachau where thousands upon thousands are buried in mass graves. It is very gripping stuff and quite graphic. There are many scenes which show the dead and dying lying scattered throughout the camp. Local volunteers and SS soldiers are shown throwing decaying bodies into pits. Despite its' gruesomeness it is worthy of the time spent and if we have to have a reason to discourage what leads to war, this is one.

A masterpiece of visual imagery and narration

[romarub · 10/10 · 23 May 2005]

Although there have been many films documenting the Nazi atrocities and the horrors of the extermination camps, Memory of the Camps must rank at the top of this genre in effectively conveying the sense of unreality experienced by the Nazi's victims. While the visual record is preserved for posterity and has been incorporated in many tellings of these events, Trevor Howard's narration must be singled out as, perhaps, the major contributor in making this particular telling of the story the true masterpiece that it is. As has been noted, Howard's straightforward narration, devoid of emotional embellishment, conveys, almost matter-of-factly, the events that unfold, and it is through this underplay in tone in the telling of the story, that the true depths of the surreal horror seen on the screen, impinges upon the viewer. Although I saw this documentary several years ago, it is Howard's narration that sets this telling apart, and recalling it continues to send chills up my spine.

Power, haunting depiction of the Nazi death camps will leave a lasting impression

[lukodairish · 10/10 · 20 April 2015]

I think "Memory of the Camps" is one of the best documentaries of the Holocaust I've seen. It is not as good as "Shoah" because of the lack of interviews with camp survivors but it is nevertheless powerful and haunting. It is the type of film that you watch once and remember it forever. I don't agree with the harsh comments of hanabluma-546-540480 except for the almost glib narration by Trevor Howard. Someone more forceful and "neutral" without a penchant for the dramatic was needed for this part. Considering that the documentary is only an hour, it is still the best of its type for that reason alone. I'm glad that the film has been re-released because it should be seen by everyone especially those with an interest in the Holocaust.

Inexcusably inadequate

[hanabluma-546-540480 · 2/10 · 14 April 2015]

Who were the victims rounded up and loaded into trains to concentration and extermination camps? If viewers on this "documentary," they would assume they were a virtual United Nations of religions and ethnicities, rather than almost all of Europe's Jews. There is only one religious symbol on any victim. And that's a cross. And only one victim is identified. He's called a "Polish engineer."

Then there's the gratuitous humiliation of the victims by the filmmakers. The Nazis had already deprived them of every semblance of privacy and modesty. So the makers of this documentary piled,on by lingering on the breasts of the women bathing after their liberators provided them with hot water . And each skeletal male had to be shown in full frontal nudity as their liberators dragged them who-knows-where. The filmmakers couldn't be bothered with focusing above their genitals, just as their "saviors" couldn't be bothered with carrying these half-dead creatures on a litter

And then there's Trevor Howard 's eccentric narration delivered in a tone that can best be described as ironic. The wrongheadedness of this entire project perhaps can be summarized when Howard asks about the child captives, "what crime did they commit?" to bring them to this terrible state? The mindless implication is that the millions of adults murdered by the Nazis and their accomplices might somehow not be innocent.

There is now a vast repertory of thoughtful and informative documentaries about the Holocaust. This tasteless and ill-informed project isn't among them.