Amen (1 Viewer)

[BLReed]

A powerful and riveting account of the implementation of the Final Solution and the culpability of the Vatican in the extermination of millions in Nazi Death Camps. The strength of the film relies in part on the intimacy of the story told: chemist Kurt Gerstein is an SS officer in charge of hygiene. When he learns that methods he developed to eradicate typhus are being used in gas chambers, he turns to representatives of the Vatican for help, to find that the only one who will listen to him is a young and powerless Jesuit priest.

 

[Sentaapua]

Thanks for another movie suggestion. It also seems very interesting!

 

[blaster]

Great recommendation. I enjoyed this movie. I know that movies tend to simplify the sweep of historical events and a good understanding can only be garnered from poring through literature on the subject.
For example, Gerstein came across as a "good Nazi" but then, the same was thought of Albert Speer for a long time. I generally remain skeptical of SS and Nazi 's rationalization for their war efforts especially in light of the recently released taped evidence of german POWs culpability. The searing images of Nazi adulation are well-known, but there are exceptions such as Oskar Schindler.
Pope Pius XII was notorious in not having spoken up for the Jews but the reasoning given in this film was that there were huge diplomatic implications in dealing with the Germans (then occupying Italy) as well as the Allies. The portrayal of the priest was fictional but there was the famous recorded priest who voluntarily died in an SS massacre.

 

[BLReed]

Here's about Kurt Gerstein per the Holocaust Encyclopedia
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005840

 

[Sentaapua]

I watched the movie last night. I really enjoyed it, even though I know there are certainly several "creative licenses" in relation to what the real facts were. Yet the fact that it was the story - which I did not know - of a man who, as an SS officer and eyewitness to the monstrous massacre and industrial extermination of Jews, rebelled against it for moral and religious reasons and sought, under deep personal and family risk, to inform the world of what was happening in the prison camps of eastern Europe, is extraordinary.

I recommend watching it, because IMHO it generates a reflection that goes beyond the film itself, that is, about the position of the Catholic Church in the face of Nazi persecution of various religious and ethnic groups, especially the Jews.