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Auschwitz: The Nazis and 'The Final Solution'

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Genre
  
Documentary

First episode date
  
11 January 2005

8.7/10
IMDb


Country of origin
  
United Kingdom

Auschwitz: The Nazis and 'The Final Solution' wwwgstaticcomtvthumbtvbanners208069p208069

Written by
  
Doris BergenMegan CallawayDavid OrensteinLaurence Rees

Directed by
  
Laurence ReesCatherine Tatge

Starring
  
Linda EllerbeeHorst-Günter MarxKlaus Mikoleit

Narrated by
  
Directors
  
Laurence Rees, Catherine Tatge

Narrators
  
Samuel West, Linda Hunt, Linda Ellerbee, Gert Heidenreich

Cast
  
Samuel West, Linda Ellerbee, Linda Hunt, Horst‑Günter Marx, Grażyna Błęcka‑Kolska

Auschwitz: The Nazis and 'The Final Solution' is a BBC six-episode documentary film series presenting the story of Auschwitz through interviews with former inmates and guards to include authentic re-enactments of relevant events. It was first televised on BBC One on 11 January 2005. In the United States, this series first aired on PBS television stations as Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State in early 2005 and was released, under that title, in a 2-DVD box set (Region 1), by BBC Warner, on 29 March 2005.

Contents

Bbc auschwitz the nazis and the final solution episode 5 1 5 mp4


Production

The series uses four principal elements: rarely seen contemporary colour and monochrome film from archives, interviews with survivors such as Dario Gabbai and former Nazis such as Oskar Gröning, computer-generated reconstructions of long-demolished buildings as well as meticulously detailed and historically accurate re-enactments of meetings and other events. These are linked by modern footage of locations in and around the site of the Auschwitz camp.

Laurence Rees stressed that the re-enactments were not dramatisations but exclusively based on documented sources:

There is no screenwriter… Every single word that is spoken is double — and in some cases triple — sourced from historical records.

This reflects the conception of the earlier BBC/HBO film Conspiracy, which similarly recreates the Wannsee Conference (an event briefly portrayed in programme 2 of this series) based on a copy of the minutes kept by one of the attendees, although that film also includes speculative dramatised sections.

The computer-generated reconstructions used architectural plans that only became available in the 1990s when the archives of the former Soviet Union became accessible to Western historians. The discovery of these plans is described in the 1994 BBC Horizon documentary Auschwitz: The Blueprints of Genocide.

  • The Symphony No. 3, composed by Polish composer Henryk Górecki
  • The Fratres and the Spiegel im Spiegel, both composed by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt
  • The Harpsichord Suite No. 4 in D minor, HWV 437, composed by Handel, for the ending credits.
  • The Piano Trio No. 2 (Schubert), composed by Schubert.
  • The last episode of the series also features Introitus from Mozart's Requiem in D minor, which is played just before the ending credits start to roll.

    DVD releases

  • Released on Region 2 DVD by BBC Video on 2005-02-14.
  • Also included in the BBC World War II DVD Collection.
  • Released on Region 1 DVD (2 DVD box set) by BBC Warner on 29 March 2005. (Dist. PBS Video.)
  • Companion books

  • Rees, Laurence (6 January 2005). Auschwitz: The Nazis and the 'Final Solution'. BBC Books. ISBN 978-0-563-52296-6. 
  • Rees, Laurence (4 January 2005). Auschwitz: A New History. Public Affairs Books. ISBN 978-1-58648-303-6. 
  • References

    Auschwitz: The Nazis and 'The Final Solution' Wikipedia