Holocaust

The world in August 1939 was a world that held its breath. Fighting had ended in Spain, and the war in China had stagnated. But few people believed war would be avoided.

The Germans attacked The Netherlands on May 10, 1940 to provide access to France to bypass the Maginot Line and entice the Allies to cross the Dutch border to attack their spearhead in Belgium. Within five days they had surrendered. After the surrender, the same day, a bombing mission could not be recalled and killed 40,000 in Rotterdam.

In 1932, German President Paul von Hindenburg was asleep in his home. His son woke him with the news that he had defeated Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler and reelection to the Presidency. “It will still be true in an hour,” he said as he went back to sleep. Dismissive of the “Bohemian Corporal” as he called Hitler, Hindenburg hoped making Hitler Chancellor in January 1933 would appease and quiet him. A year later he was dead, and Hitler folded the powers of the Presidency into his own.

In 1941, Hitler's strategic dilemma of invading and destroying the Soviet Union, a much larger country, led him to seek warriors from fascistic dictators across Europe. Spain, Italy, Romania and Hungary answered his call and sent forces.

The battle raging in Berlin signaled the end of the Third Reich. Soviet Red Army Forces and the western Allies pressed the Wehrmacht so far into Germany that neither Western commands nor Eastern commands had room to maneuver.

This Hungarian production is being hailed for its emotional impact on audiences. Based on Nobel laureate Imre Kertesz’s novel about Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust, it follows the story of a young boy left behind after the liquidation of the Budapest Ghetto and his incarceration in Auschwitz.