Review: Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State

I will admit that I have a lifelong fascination with the events of WWII and the Holocaust, beginning from when I read Number the Stars and The Diary of Anne Frank in school. Part of this, I think, comes from the fact that I have no connection to it. My family supported the American war efforts, but were not members of the military (my maternal grandfather tried, but he was told he was too short). I am not Jewish nor have a Jewish ancestry. I didn't even know a Jewish person until adulthood, at least to my knowledge. The war and the events that led to it, therefore, have always been removed from me slightly. I feel horrified at what happened, but it's not a personal horror, it's a horror at things that happened to other people and were committed by other people.

In the continued efforts to expand my academic understanding of the era, I watch a lot of documentaries and read a lot of books. I recently began tackling the 6 part documentary Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State (later released as a box set titled Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution), which is available on Netflix. It's a monster of a piece, with each 50 minute segment moving chronologically through the events that led to the building, functioning, and liberation of Auschwitz. The last episode, entitled Liberation and Revenge, speaks of what happened to many of the people involved, including the difficulties faced by survivors, as well as the disposition of several SS officers.

The series, produced by BBC, is incredibly detailed, and I have found it hard to watch more than two at a time, not because of the graphic nature of it (there are other documentaries that have been more graphic), but because of the sheer weight of it. The BBC was not interested, it seems, in letting the watcher off easy. They take great pains to make sure that the watcher is aware, deeply, of the meticulous nature in which the mission at Auschwitz was undertaken, that this was a carefully managed and planned affair. It's something I really like about the series, though it does make it hard to digest....but isn't that good?

Some of the survivors interviewed were familiar to me from other documentaries, especially Eva Mozes Kor, who was the subject of Forgiving Dr. Mengele. But the interviewee whose presence struck me the hardest was Oscar Groning, a member of the SS who had been stationed at Auschwitz. He is forthcoming with details, and doesn't seem to be reluctant in the least to be involved, but he is detached, as though he's speaking about someone else. Perhaps that is how he has managed to survive with the knowledge of what happened there, and to make a life for himself. He was asked if he thought it was right that he has lived comfortable while many of the survivors have struggled in attempts to get back portions of their property. His response summed up to "This is the way the world works. Does it help someone else if I live in poverty?" Apparently, he became public about his involvement at Auschwitz to counter Holocaust deniers, which adds a whole other level of complication to him.

An item of surprise to me was how hard those who had survived found it to return home and that their previous property ownership was ignored. Several survivors who were interviewed talked about how the communities that had once been full of their family and friends were not only filled with strangers, but were hostile towards them. It sounded like very few ever truly were able to go home, which adds to the sense of their incredible loss - their own freedoms, their family, their friends...and now their own homes.

Overall, the series left me, who has done a great deal of research and reading on this topic, once again with the impression of the size and scope of the atrocities committed at Auschwitz.  It also reminded me that the pain is ongoing, even 70 years after the camp was liberated and despite it being mostly out of site as those who experienced it are dying. I recommend it.