DVD Auschwitz

You would think, that someone, who made it his goal to show how Auschwitz really was, would at least try to find out, well, how it really was and do some research, but no, not Uwe Boll. I'm a becoming history teacher, so forgive me, if I expect from a movie, that wants to show how it was, to actually show how it was.

So where do I begin, I just make a list of things, that were wrong. This list is not complete, but these things just stuck in my mind after seeing these "movie":

1. There is 0 indication from the movie alone (if we ignore its title), that it plays in Auschwitz. It could have been easily played at Majdanek for example) The only indication, that this plays in Auschwitz, is the presence of these wire net columns in the gas chamber, but of course, those things worked and looked completely different than in the movie and the gas chamber looked nothing like the real ones in Krema II or III. The size was wrong, the position of the wire net columns was wrong, their appearance was wrong, the door to the gas chamber was wrong, the walls were wrong, there was no ventilation system visible and so on and on.

2. The building with the gas chambers and the ovens looked nothing like any extermination facility in Auschwitz. If you don't want to build a whole crematory for your movie, than either don't produce such a movie or just show a different extermination facility, like Bunker I or II, which were farm houses that were transferred into gas chambers.

3. You got to be kidding me about the number of people, that were actually sent to the gas chamber in this movie. Was their a shortage of actors willing to act in this crappy movie? In reality, there was no room to even breath in these chambers. And why did they shoot the kids in front of the building and not gas them with the other victims? This not only makes no sense, but it's again far from the reality of Auchwitz. Yeah, I know, Boll just wanted to "shock" his audience.

4. The ovens looked nothing like the real ones. For Christs sake, is it to hard to look at the homepage of the Auschwitz museum or of the company "Topf und Söhne"? And one body at a time? In reality they cremated up to 4 or 5 bodies in one muffle at the same time.

I could go on forever.

If you are interested in how Auschwitz really was, watch the mini series "War and Remembrance" (which only made minor mistakes, but even rebuild a crematory and actually was a good series) or read Pressac book "AUSCHWITZ: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers", which is available online on holocaust-history.org for example.

If you want to see a good movie and don't care for accuracy, than also stay away from this piece of junk, since it fails as a movie too. In the first part we have a look at students who don't know anything about the holocaust, then we have scenes in which Jews were gassed, cremated and so on, and in the end we have students again, but this time they show at least basic knowledge. And that is it.

There is one (!) good scene, where two SS members talk about the extermination as if it was just some annoying bureaucracy (this scene is the reason for the 2 star review) and that is it. The rest is just plain boring. Yeah, an Auschwitz movie, that is boring. That is something, that is hard to accomplish. Congratulations!

"Everybody wants to make a movie and my stupid brother too", goes the famous quote by Orson Wells. True enough but the real problem arises, when the proverbial stupid brother imagines himself to be Orson Wells – which brings us to the issue of Uwe Boll.

It's easy to make light of Boll's films, dilettantism and talent (pardon the sarcasm) when talking about his video-game "adaptations" or hackneyed attempts to rip-off blockbusters like "Lord of the Rings". However, when tackling a serious issue like the Third Reich and the atrocities committed in the concentration camps, it becomes difficult to keep a review light and funny.

So, to what film could we compare "Auschwitz" to? "Schindler's List"? Sure, in Bolls wildest dreams and delusions. The TV-series "Holocaust"? That would be to compare melted Belgium chocolate to something of similar colour and consistency (but not taste). No, for a comparison we have to reach back to a rather obscure, almost forgotten sub-genre, namely the "Nazi-exploitation films" of the 1970's. We're not talking the sleazy highlight, "Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS", we're talking the low points like "Beast in Heat" and "The Last Orgy of the SS". The major differences are that the exploitation films actually intended to be exploitive. Boll handles the material with utter seriousness – albeit, free of talent or passion. Plus, if you expect nudity and acts of depravity like in afore mentioned exploitation films, you'll be disappointed – there are none.

There is no law in Germany – for once, I say unfortunately – that could prevent a hack like Uwe Boll from taking on a serious issue like the holocaust or WW2. To sum it all up: it's simply a bad film with a serious topic – too serious as to speak of unwanted humour in a bad film.

And that's already too many words wasted on a bad film.