Genocide

Genocide

14/3/1982 1h 24m 7.4/10

Overview

The mass murder of Jewish people by the Nazi regime is chronicled, with a warning that anti-Semitism is on the rise and the events of the Holocaust could happen again. The history of European Jewish culture and events before and during the Holocaust are seen in newsreels, photographs, and animated segments. The words of the victims of the era are read, and footage from the liberation os a concentration camp is shown.

Director

Arnold Schwartzman

Top Billed Cast

Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor

Narrator (voice)

Orson Welles

Orson Welles

Narrator (voice)

Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill

Self (archive footage)

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Self (archive footage)

Neville Chamberlain

Neville Chamberlain

Self (archive footage)

Simon Wiesenthal

Simon Wiesenthal

Self

Reviews

CinemaSerf

CinemaSerf

10/17/2025

7/10

Orson Welles anchors the narration here describing some of the most heinous imagery from human history. He commences with a potted history of the often enforced transient existence of the Jewish communities in Europe before bringing us to twentieth century Germany where millions are unemployed, the economy is still on it’s knees after the defeat in the Great War and homelessness is rife. Skilfully navigating this national maelstrom, Adolf Hitler arrives with a clear and concise message: it’s all the Jews’ fault. Following on from Nero’s proven philosophy that giving people someone to loathe is always an effective way of cementing political power and diverting attention from the real issues, a period of persecution begins. Initially it’s registration, then their property is seized and then as the Nazi regime becomes more firmly entrenched and embarked on pan-European expansion, the rest of the holocaust unfolds before us. The production uses an effective combination of archive and animations to illustrate the story and for some especially poignant readings from many of their diaries, Elizabeth Taylor infuses a poignant degree of emotion as she delivers some perspectives from those tortured souls facing certain death at the hands of brutes in uniform or white coats. Viewers of this type of documentary will have seen much of the library footage before, but it never ceases to disgust as the inhumanity beggars belief, the corpses pile up and those aerial shots of the concentration camps never fail to affect.

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