A guide to films that express social realism or escapism; and a guide to culturally important films that may reveal a character's thoughts, dreams, or motivations.
Image from Lore from itunes.apple.com at https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/lore/id633740154
The Shoah
Au revoir les enfantsBased on the director's life, this film chronicles Malle's experiences during the German occupation of France in World War II.
Call Number: MOVIE AU REVOIR
ISBN: B004GFGUAE
Publication Date: 1987
Die FälscherGermany, 1936. Salomon "Sally" Sorowitsch is the king of counterfeiters. He lives a life of cards, booze, and women. Suddenly his luck runs dry when he is arrested by Superintendent Friedrich Herzog. He is immediately thrown into the Mauthausen concentration camp. There, Salomon exhibits exceptional skills and is soon transferred to the upgraded camp of Sachsenhausen. Upon his arrival, he once again comes face to face with Herzog, who is there on a secret mission. Hand-picked for his unique skill, Salomon and a group of professionals are forced to produce fake foreign currency under the program Operation Berhard. The team, which also includes detainee Adolf Burger, is given luxury barracks for their assistance. Salomon attempts to weaken the economy of Germany's opponents. But, Adolf refuses to use his skills for Nazi profit and would like to do something to stop the operation. Now faced with a moral dilemma, Salomon must decide whether his actions are ultimately the right ones.
Call Number: MOVIE COUNTERFEITERS
ISBN: 9781424898923
Publication Date: 2008
Fateless
ISBN: B000EQ5Q2W
Publication Date: 2005
The PianistBased on the memoirs of Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish Jew, who was a brilliant pianist. He watched as his family was shipped off to Nazi labor camps. He managed to escape and lived for years in the ruins of Warsaw, hiding from the Nazis.
Call Number: MOVIE PIANIST
ISBN: 9781417020058
Publication Date: 2002
Schindler's ListThe incredible true story follows the enigmatic Oskar Schindler, who saved the lives of more than 1,100 Jews during the Holocaust. It is the triumph of one man who made a difference and the drama of those who survived one of the darkest chapters in human history because of what he did.
Call Number: MOVIE SCHINDLER'S
ISBN: B00B0U2SFE
Publication Date: 1993
Shop on Main Street/ Obchod na korzeIn 1942, Tono and his wife are struggling because of his antipathy towards the fascist regime. His brother-in-law, the local fuehrer, chooses Tono to oversee a button shop owned by a sweet, harmless Jewish widow, Mrs. Lautman. Unable to explain his position to Mrs. Lautman, Tono gradually accepts her belief that he is her assistant. When the Jews are ordered deported, the well-meaning Tono decides to shield her from the Nazis.
Call Number: MOVIE SHOP
ISBN: 9780780024014
Publication Date: 1965
Son of SaulOctober 1944, Auschwitz-Birkenau. Saul Auslñder is a Hungarian member of the Sonderkommando, the group of Jewish prisoners isolated from the camp and forced to assist the Nazis in the machinery of large-scale extermination. While working in one of the crematoriums, Saul discovers the body of a boy he takes for his son. As the Sonderkommando plans a rebellion, Saul decides to carry out an impossible task: save the child's body from the flames, find a rabbi to recite the mourner's Kaddish.
Call Number: MOVIE SON
ISBN: B01BZBOBCA
Publication Date: 2015
Image from Schindler's List from giphy.com at http://gph.is/298JTK8
The Shoah
1945"On a summer day in 1945, an Orthodox man and his grown son return to a village in Hungary while the villagers prepare for the wedding of the town clerk's son. The townspeople - suspicious, remorseful, fearful, and cunning - expect the worst and behave accordingly. The town clerk fears the men may be heirs of the village's deported Jews and expects them to demand their illegally acquired property back."--From publisher's website. https://www.menemshafilms.com/1945
Call Number: MOVIE 1945
ISBN: B07J35GD45
Publication Date: 2017
DenialWhen Deborah Lipstadt speaks out against Holocaust denier David Irving over his falsification of history, she discovers that the stakes are higher than ever in the battle for historical truth. Now faced with a libel lawsuit in British court, Lipstadt and her attorney have the heavy burden of proving that the Holocaust actually happened, in a riveting legal fight with stunning consequences.
Call Number: MOVIE DENIAL
ISBN: B01LTHNHK2
Publication Date: 2016
Diamonds of the NightWith this simultaneously harrowing and lyrical debut feature, Jan Nemec established himself as the most uncompromising visionary among the radical filmmakers who made up the Czechoslovak New Wave. Adapted from a novel by Arno(t Lustig, closely tracks two boys who escape from a concentration-camp transport and flee into the surrounding woods, a hostile terrain where the brute realities of survival coexist with dreams, memories, and fragments of visual poetry.
Call Number: MOVIE DIAMONDS
Publication Date: 1964
EuropaLeo Kessler, an American of German descent, visits Germany in 1945. He works as a night conductor on the Zentropa Railway Line, owned by a Nazi sympathizer. Leo attempts to remain neutral to the ongoing purging of loyalists by the Allied forces, but he falls in love with the railway magnate's daughter.
Call Number: MOVIE EUROPA
ISBN: 9781604651027
Publication Date: 1991
Europa EuropaA Jewish boy separated from his family during WWII poses as a German orphan and is taken into the heart of the Nazi world as a 'war hero' and eventually becomes a Hitler youth.
Call Number: MOVIE EUROPA
ISBN: B00007KQ9X
Publication Date: 1990
LoreAbandoned by their Nazi parents at the end of World War II, five German siblings, led by fourteen-year-old Lore embark on a harrowing journey across their war-torn country.
Call Number: MOVIE LORE
ISBN: B00BSTVGHS
Publication Date: 2012
ParadiseParadise tells the compelling story of three individuals, Olga, Jules and Helmut, whose paths cross amidst the devastation of war. Olga, a Russian aristocratic immigrant and member of the French Resistance, is arrested by Nazi police for hiding Jewish children during a surprise raid. As her punishment, she is sent to jail where she meets Jules, a French-Nazi collaborator who is assigned to investigate her case. Jules grows fond of Olga and offers to go light on her punishment in exchange for sexual favors. Although Olga agrees, and will do whatever it takes to avoid harsh persecution, her hope for freedom quickly fades when events take an unexpected turn. Shipped to a concentration camp, Olga is forced into a life of hell. To her surprise, she crosses paths with high-ranking German SS officer Helmut, who once fell madly in love with her and still harbors feelings. They re-kindle their old flame and embark on a twisted and destructive relationship. Helmut resolves to rescue Olga and offers her an escape that she no longer thought possible. Yet as time passes, and the fate of Nazi defeat looms, Olga's notion of paradise is irrevocably changed.
Call Number: MOVIE PARADISE
ISBN: B078FFX7GJ
Publication Date: 2016
The PawnbrokerA long time ago, Sol Nazerman was a professor. He had a wife, children. Then the Germans came. Sol survived the concentration camp, his family did not. Now, as the pawnbroker in a shop owned by a racketeer, he grows increasingly bitter and callous, withdrawing still further from the world around him. His eager assistant Jesus looks to him as both a teacher and a father figure, but Sol eschews involvement or compassion. This detachment leads to a tragedy, which awakens Sol's humanity, wherein he can finally acknowledge his burden of grief and guilt.
Call Number: DVD MOVIE PAWNBROKER
Publication Date: 1964
Sophie Scholl The Final Days/ Die Letzten Tage"The film depicts the last six days (February 17-22, 1943) in the life of Sophie Scholl from her own perspective: that of a courageous and vibrant young woman who is willing to face death for her belief in her ideals and those of the White Rose, an underground resistance movement to which she belongs. Through their resistance and protest against the Nazi regime, Sophie and her fellow members of the White Rose become synonymous with civil courage and a peaceful struggle against the rule of violence and oppression."--Container.
Call Number: MOVIE SOPHIE
ISBN: B000H5V8H2
Publication Date: 2005
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