From Amazon.com
Aptly titled
Hell on Earth, this fourth installment of the
Final Solution four-video set vividly documents the years from 1942-1945, when the Nazi plan to exterminate all of Europe's Jews climaxed in a widespread and systematic program of murder. Survivors of Auschwitz appear in interviews, talking about the horrors they witnessed when they arrived at the massive death camp, sadly displaying the numbers tattooed on their arms by Nazi guards who sought to strip them of any human identity. Stories of brutality, such as guards who would bludgeon people to death on a whim, are recounted by the survivors, and Nazi film footage shows evidence of the horrific medical experiments that were carried out on prisoners by SS doctors. This British production features political figure Anthony Eden, who served in Winston Churchill's wartime cabinet, explaining the dilemma the western powers faced as they debated whether bombers could reach and destroy Auschwitz, and if they did, whether it would merely contribute further to the killing. A poignant interview with a former inmate who was put to work in the Auschwitz crematorium, burning the bodies of victims of the gas chambers, graphically illustrates how the Nazis refined their techniques so they could murder on the scale of a factory. Some of this documentary will be difficult to watch, but it is an intelligently produced look at the ultimate horrors created by the Nazis.
--Robert J. McNamara
