Arts Life
NEW INSIGHTS
from page 31
Setting The Stage
But times pass and things change. "My daughter
thinks of World War II as the battle of Hastings, as
history in a way it wasn't for me," said Rees.
There was very little opinion expressed against the
project, and, ironically, Rees noted, what there was
came from Jews who essentially. said, "Enough
already. ))
But Rees disagreed. There was much new material
uncovered in the archives of the former Soviet
Union. And, apparently, even old material was not
as widespread as one may have thought.
Before he began work on the documentary, the
BBC commissioned a study on the British people's
knowledge of Auschwitz. Four thousand Brits were
surveyed, and the results were eye opening.
"It came out that nearly 50 percent of the British
population didn't know what the word 'Auschwitz'
meant. And that rises to 60 percent of women
under 35 who didn't know what the word means.
"So the notion [that] we have enough already on
the subject, well actually, no," said Rees. "And even
within that percentage of people who think they
know the origins of Auschwitz, [they] don't. They
think it was built from the very start as part of the
extermination of the Jews."
The Solutzon
But as Rees' research revealed, the camp originally
housed Russian POWs; it was only later, as Hitler's
"Final Solution" moved into high gear, that
Auschwitz was expanded.
Rees is creative director of history programs for
the BBC. But he is also a writer and independent
producer, whose award-winning documentaries have
been shown around the world. They include The
Nazis: A Warning From History (1997), Wear of the
Century (1999) and Horror in the East (2000), about
the war in the Pacific.
1.1 OW
COM N1 I'l"FE D
1TH E
N FA \-I\ AT
Laurence Rees wrote a companion
volume to the six-hour documentary.
Auschwitz is not just about the
camp but the decision-making
process surrounding the Final
Solution. Rees said the process,
which took three years, was "very
depressing.
"But most depressing was that
roughly 6,500 people in the SS
worked at Auschwitz and survived
the war," he said. "Only about 10
percent were tried. Ninety percent
weren't even prosecuted."
Moreover, he added, "I don't
believe that the mentality behind this, the mentality
that wants to create scapegoats, has changed. It may
not be directed necessarily at Jews, but it's still
there."
A NEW.HISTORY
Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State airs 9-11 p.m.
Wednesdays, Jan. 19, Jan. 26 and Feb. 2, on
PBS stations. Check your local cable listings.
❑
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