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Dr. Paul Parks, an African American
liberator, relates how a German officer
spit in his face at Dachau. Dr. Parks
shot the German officer. Katsiyo
Miho, a Japanese American liberator
describes the "walking dead ... skele-
tons, and resolutely avows that "the
Holocaust was the worst thing" he had
seen. And yet another liberator,
Warren Dunn, depicts the scene he
witnessed as simply "totally unreal."
The eloquence of survivors, of their
hesitations and silences, imbues the film
with dignity and honesty. The contrast
between the brief segments of their lec-
turing to students and the intimacy of
their private comments places in relief
what may be a quandary that surrounds
the interview/speaking process so vital
to such films as this one.
To capture the spontaneity means
non-staged, unrehearsed, unplanned
testimonies. It means, too, that the
viewer/listener must experience the
ambivalence many survivors endure.
Can Dario Gabbai ever be completely
happy? Can Renee Firestone ever look
at bathing suits with complete frivoli-
ty? As Bill Basch exclaims that "we
have regenerated" and Tom Lantos
sees a sort of victory in his 17 grand-
children, are they free of these memo-
ries, these unbearable losses?
Because of the protests prompted by
the smell, the bodies were transported
six kilometers by postal cars to
Paterdamm, where a crematorium was
constructed, "and the ashes were driven
back" to Brandenburg and eventually
sent to the families of the deceased.
Dr. Lifton provides thoughtfully
provocative theoretical commentary,
as do several German scientists and
sociologists.
As with more traditional
Holocaust documentaries, however,
it is the survivor testimonies that are
most riveting.
This film uses now standard cam-
era techniques of moving through
the sites of the camps as they are
today — through Block 10, the
medical experimentation building at
Auschwitz with its terrifying metal
tables and troughs, for example —
in incongruously bright colors.
Those scenes are juxtaposed to black
and white photographs of the same
terrible places in their evil heydays.
It contrasts to the more daring
techniques of James Moll's
Spielberg-produced The Last Days
but surprisingly connects to it.
Suddenly we see Dr. Mueller, styl-
ishly dressed and convivially forth-
As if recognizing that phenomenon,
the film opens with the sounds of a
train and closes with Renee Firestone
tearfully leaving three candles lit on the
ruins of Crematorium #5 at Birkenau.
Randolph Braham's voice speaks over
the image attributing that awful past to
the time when man loses his . . . belief
in the sanctity of human life."
As some of us debate the propriety
of comedy and the Holocaust (Life Is
Beautiful) or the relative virtues of
Holocaust testimonies, this ending
should make us pause, should silence
us, perhaps to contemplate more con-
scientiously the silences between the
words of survivor testimonies like
those in The Last Days. I I *x:xx:xx:x
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Forget it
coming as he was in The Last Days.
Yet here he seems more confident,
talking of his wife going to
Auschwitz with him and, finally, of
his responsibility for signing an
authorization to serve meat from the
crematorium during a meat shortage.
"I did what was normal and
expected of me: I signed ... I didn't
think it was unethical to take that
human meat. "
And so we are left with a question,
a problem: how will we ever decipher
or understand such logic, such ethics
coming from a man of considerable
formal education, clearly civilized
and remorseless? x:xx:xx:x 1/2
77
John Tarasychuk Detroit Free Press
January 8th, 1999
The Last Days will be shown at 7
and 9:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 19; 7
and 9:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 20;
and 4 and 7 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 21,
at the Detroit Film Theatre
(DFT). Healing By Killing will be
screened 7:30 p.m. Monday, Feb.
22, at the DFT. The DFT is locat-
ed in the Detroit Institute of Arts,
5200 Woodward Ave., in Detroit.
$5.50. To reserve tickets with a
credit card or for more informa-
tion, call (313) 833-2323. Tickets
also are available at the door.
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2/19
1999
Detroit Jewish News
85