Nuremberg

I'm writing this with a bad taste in my mouth and a knot in my stomach. The documentary Nuremberg: The Nazi's Facing their Crimes is for those truly interested in international justice, Word War II or human rights, it is just what the title says, an overview, using actual footage, of the Nuremberg trials in which twenty-one Nazi ringleaders stood trial for "crimes against peace" and "crimes against humanity". The first time in history such charges had ever been tried in a criminal hearing. The word "genocide" was also coined for the first time during this ten month long proceeding. There are no plot twists and turns, the outcome is already known, or quite obvious but it is still a fascinating film. While I was aware of the Nuremberg trial I was not aware of the use of documentary films submitted as evidence, in fact the judges' bench was relocated to make room for the film screen!

And it is this film evidence that really provides the gut-wrenching reality of the situation. This is a two disc set, the first being the film itself the second has three films of which I have so far only seen two. One of these is an American documentary film submitted for evidence a few days into the trial and entitled Nazi Concentration Camps is a compilation of filmed evidence taken shortly after the seizure of a number of prison/elimination/concentration camps throughout the Nazi territories. What they portray is so stark, so real, that I could not watch any further (for now). I have seen many films, fiction and non-fiction, about WWII and the human rights atrocities committed in the name of National Socialism, but these evidentiary images are not neatly edited for time or content but offer fifty-eight straight minutes of cruelty, inhumanity and delusion on the part of the German people. After the liberation of many camps local German citizens were brought in to tour the horrors that had been committed in their name and from which they benefited. The change of attitude from the start to the finish of these tours was marked. I have German blood in me, luckily my people were in Canada before the rise of Hitler but there is still part of me that feels guilt for what was done. My mother was born here in 1945, the year the war ended, so obviously I can hold no direct responsibility but watching this film, seeing what happened to these people and what the majority of German "Aryan" citizens allowed to happen to their neighbours, and knowing that right now in the world banishment, genocide, torture and mass murder is happening, well that is a realization that can leave a bad taste in anyone's mouth.

Though not for the weak of stomach or overly sensitive, these images are vital. They can change one's attitude about they're own life and the world around them. It is that "slap in the face" awareness that while watching Nurmenberg, borrowed from a publicly funded library, sitting in my comfy chair, in my nice little apartment, with food in the cupboard, and all of my loved ones a phone call away, that my life is abundant and blessed. Petty insecurities and desires vanish when faced with the truth of what fear can do to the human race. How desperate life can be, and how fragile. Not just for the persecuted, which is obvious and horrifying, but also those doing the persecuting. How full of fear, the terror the people of Nazi Germany must have felt in order to carry out such orders, to feel nothing as they tortured and killed men, women, children, the elderly and sick. To believe that a five year old child, or an old man with a cane could ruin their lives. One defendant at the Nuremberg trial tried to plead self defence, believing that those herded into the camps were a real and present threat to all of Europe and the world. A threat so real that a pre-emptive strike was justified (where have I heard that before?). Of course we can never fully understand just what happened in Germany in those years, we can talk about economic, psychological, socio-political, aesthetic and geographic reasons but to really understand the mindset of every individual ;Hitler, Himmler, and their ilk within the Third Reich, the SS, the active Nazi party members and the citizenry, well that will be forever beyond us. Films such as Nuremberg: The Nazis Facing their Crimes can only scratch the surface and create more questions, but I think they are good questions and I will keep asking them for as long as my stomach and my heart will allow.

J.