I expect that you are asking about fictional movies, but of course,
there was early footage on concentration camps.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/camp/faqs.html
The site mentions that at the time this film was made, the magnitude
of genocide was not yet recognized.
This is similar:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0247568/
But these films may meet your conditions, although being foreign:
Long is the Road (Lang ist der Veg)
U.S.-occupied Germany 1948 77 minutes B&W
Yiddish, German, Polish with NEW English translation and subtitles
Directors: Herbert B. Fredersdorf and Marek Goldstein
Based on idea and script by Israel Becker
SPIRIT OF FREEDOM AWARD, 1996 JERUSALEM FILM FESTIVAL
This is the first feature film to represent the Holocaust from a
Jewish perspective. Made by and about Jewish displaced persons, the
film was shot on location at Landsberg, the largest DP camp in
U.S.-occupied Germany. Effectively mixing neorealist and expressionist
styles, the film follows a Polish Jew (played by Israel Becker, one of
the founders of the first professional Yiddish theater company in
postwar Germany) and his family from the thriving Jewish community of
prewar Warsaw through the horrors of Auschwitz to the frustrations and
instability of refugee life in the DP camps, and culminates in the
emergence of a hope for rebirth and renewal in Israel.
"...works brillaintly.... little-known classic... a...marvel"
Ellen Cohn, The Jewish Week, January 1996.
"...something that no film in the five decades since has been able to
recapture...."
Dave Kehr, New York Daily News, January 1996.
"Among the highlights of the [1996 New York] Jewish Film Festival."
The Forward, January 1996.
And this one:
Our Children (Unzere Kinder)
Poland 1948 68 minutes B&W Yiddish with NEW English subtitles
Directors: Natan Gross and Shaul Goskind
Cast: Nusia Gold, Shimon Dzigan, Yisroel Shumacher, Z. Skrzeszewska,
N. Kareni, R. Stolarska, H. Kestin, Y. Videcki, A. Daniewicz, N.
Meisler, I. Glantz, G. Czifdar. The Children: S. Goldbrenner, B.
Grinspan, M. Tauman, I. Greenberg, S. Redlich, E. Zalkind, S. Koczer,
C. Pretter, V. Lason
Our Children "is not only among the first films about the Holocaust,
it is also the first to critique its representation." (J. Hoberman,
Bridge of Light: Yiddish Film Between Two Worlds) In this, Poland's
last Yiddish feature, comedy duo Dzigan and Shumacher play all the
parts in a Sholem Aleichem story for an audience of children who
survived the Holocaust. But the children outdo the performers when
they exchange roles and demonstrate the healing, liberating powers of
song, dance and storytelling. With children from the JDC-supported
Helenowek Colony.
Both from this site: http://www.brandeis.edu/jewishfilm/Catalogue/yiddishaz.htm
Here is a review of "Long is the Road":
http://hs.riverdale.k12.or.us/~dthompso/german/movies/longroad/
Here is a site that discusses the subject. The cache link accesses the whole text:
http://www.historycooperative.org/cgi-bin/justtop.cgi?act=justtop&url=http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jah/92.3/mr_13.html |
