Broken Silence 1. Eyes of the Holocaust (1 of 16)

Broken Silence

From Steven Spielberg and Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation comes Broken Silence, a series of five films about human courage, heroism, and triumph over intense adversities during World War II. This critically acclaimed series was produced by Academy Award-winning filmmaker James Moll.

Warning: All of these films contain graphic and disturbing material.

1. A Holocaust Szemei / Eyes of the Holocaust (56:56)

The parents of Hungarian director Janos Szasz were Holocaust survivors themselves. Hungary was an ally of Germany during World War II, and while Jews were discriminated against by the Hungarian regime, the mass killings did not begin until the Germans entered Hungary in 1943 while retreating from defeat in the Soviet Union. The survivors here describe the slow erosion of their lives followed by panic when the Nazis took over and attempted to liquidate the Hungarian population.

"Eyes of the Holocaust."
"Holocaust: "From the Greek, holokauston: "Burning or totally burnt sacrifice.
"Literally: What is destroyed by fire.
"What is destroyed by fire."
We saw so many things.
We lived through so many things.
This German precision...
ensured that no living witnesses would survive.
We knew everything about the nearby crematoria.
The things that happened when we arrived...
the process of selection and so on...
We thought that the Germans couldn't allow people to escape.
People who saw all of this, who knew all about this...
would later tell others.
We even considered...
never telling anyone about it...
if we ever got out.
For no one could believe...
that such a thing could have existed, that such a thing could have happened.
"Challah: "Woven bread used on Saturdays and feast days.
"On ordinary Saturdays, it is long-shaped.
"On autumn feast days...
"it is woven in a circle."
I liked Passover...
because we would get the Passover plate from the attic...
which was much prettier than the other bowls...
as it was only used for one week a year.