Aleah Woodmansee Mr.

Neuburger ENG Comp 101-102 6 March 2012 A Film Unfinished Response Essay This was a truly incredible video. I was so shocked to see all of these events that I have learned about in so many years past, for the first time on real footage from that time. I knew that things were terrible in the Ghettos and I had seen photos of the Jews that had starved to death or nearly there, but I never thought I would actually see peoples reactions to the deaths whether staged or not. I felt that the reactions to Jews that were present at the time was really moving as well, I had never gotten to hear or read the thoughts of the people that were around during Hitlers reign let alone actually see their reactions as they watched the film for the first time also. I believe that most if not every person should be required to view this video. It makes it all the more real and permanent in the minds of the viewers to see it this way, then no person would be able to deny that this actually happened and also to help prevent history from repeating itself. I had heard of many of the things that the Nazis had done to the Jews, but there were many things that were included in this video that I had never heard of before. I never even knew that the Nazis had filmed any of the things in which they did and for propaganda, to me, it was completely mind blowing. And then they found this concrete vault in the middle of the woods, I never even knew of these things. It was really sad to see all of these people fighting to make it through each day, just to be killed only a few months later. On top of all of this, the mass grave scenes were devastating. After all of these years going by hearing about the mass graves, and

picturing them in my mind, never would I have guessed that it would catch me so off guard. I was dumb-struck whenever those scenes appeared on the screen, and when they showed the men with the cart going by the sidewalks to pick up the corpses in which people left on the side of the road and the massive mounds of waste and garbage piled high. No amount of details or descriptions in any type of literature could have ever prepared me for such images. 404