Verdict on Auschwitz: The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial 1963-1965 (2007)

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• Project Phase: 
• Release Date: 2007-01-12 - NY and/or LA
• Distributor(s): First Run Features
• Film Genre(s): Documentary
• Country: Germany
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SYNOPSIS

On August 20, 1965, after 20 months of proceedings, the verdict was pronounced in one of the most significant trials in German legal history. The court heard 360 Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp survivors and other witnesses from 19 countries, in a trial against 22 members of the SS, accused of taking part in the mass murder of millions. Verdict on Auschwitz: The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial 1963-1965 (produced by Hessischer Rundfunk, a German public television station) is a documentary of immense importance that illuminates not only the horrors of Auschwitz, but the chilling atmosphere of the courtroom in Frankfurt, Germany, almost twenty years after the Holocaust. Assembled from 430 hours of original audiotapes that languished in obscurity for decades, this film brings to life the voices of Auschwitz survivors, who confronted perpetrators they had not seen for twenty years – many of whom had made comfortable lives for themselves in postwar West Germany. Filmmakers Rolf Bickel and Dietrich Wagner located the audiotapes in the basement of the State Archive of Hesse in Frankfurt while planning a documentary for the 30th anniversary of the Auschwitz trial. Rarely does one get such a glimpse into history, where the voices of the witnesses come alive to describe unspeakable suffering at the hands of the defendants. This painful testimony helps to reconstruct the history of Auschwitz as never before. A basic assumption behind all the work of the DEFA Film Library is that film can be a means to stimulate an understanding of history. Verdict on Auschwitz addresses one of the most profound questions of justice in modern history. The trial raised myriad questions that have yet to be fully answered, as it is still comparatively under-researched.This documentary is thus not only of historical importance – a chapter in the history of the Holocaust and in Germans’ coming to terms with this legacy – but it can also lead new audiences to consider the process of reckoning since 1945 in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere.

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