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Holocaust Feature Films in Leavey Library (DVDs): Titles P

Titles P

Paradise
"ls the compelling story of three individuals, Olga, Jules and Helmut, whose paths cross amidst the devastation of war. Olga, a Russian aristocratic immigrant and member of the French Resistance, is arrested by Nazi police for hiding Jewish children during a surprise raid. As her punishment, she is sent to jail where she meets Jules, a French-Nazi collaborator who is assigned to investigate her case. Jules grows fond of Olga and offers to go light on her punishment in exchange for sexual favors. Although Olga agrees, and will do whatever it takes to avoid harsh persecution, her hope for freedom quickly fades when events take an unexpected turn. Shipped to a concentration camp, Olga is forced into a life of hell. To her surprise, she crosses paths with high-ranking German SS officer Helmut, who once fell madly in love with her and still harbors feelings. They re-kindle their old flame and embark on a twisted and destructive relationship. Helmut resolves to rescue Olga and offers her an escape that she no longer thought possible. Yet as time passes, and Nazi defeat looms, Olga's notion of paradise is irrevocably changed.

The Pawnbroker
"Sol Nazerman is a WWII Nazi deathcamp survivor. Now, he runs a pawnshop and takes refuge in misery and a bitter condemnation of humanity."

Persona Non Grata
"Chiune Sugihara is a Japanese diplomat posted in Lithuania. He is also a world-class spy. In Lithuania he and his partner, Pesh, gather intelligence on European affairs. As WWII begins and Germany invades Poland, hordes of Jewish refugees flee to Lithuania. In search of transit visas, they turn to Sugihara who is torn between his loyalty to his country and his loyalty to mankind."

Phoenix
"Set in a rubble-strewn Berlin in 1945, is like no other film about post-World War II Jewish identity. After surviving Auschwitz, a former cabaret performer, her face disfigured and reconstructed, returns to her war-ravaged hometown to seek out the gentile husband who may or may not have betrayed her to the Nazis. Without recognizing her, he enlists her to play his wife in a bizarre hall-of-shattered-mirrors story that's as richly metaphorical as it is preposterously engrossing."

The Pianist
"Based on the memoirs of Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish Jew, who was a brilliant pianist. He watched as his family was shipped off to Nazi labor camps. He managed to escape and lived for years in the ruins of Warsaw, hiding from the Nazis."

The Pin
"Two young people hid in the same barn during the harrowing days of World War II. This touching romance in Yiddish is a universal story of love and devotion over the years."

Playing for Time
"Fania Fenelon is a Jewish cabaret singer in Paris during the Nazi invasion. Fania and thousands of other Jewish and political prisoners are sent to the Auschwitz death camp. She and a group of other classical musicians are spared from death in exchange for performing music for their captors. They are also ordered to play for the thousands being herded to the gas chambers, a 'humane' means of easing the condemned into the next world."

Plus Tard = One Day You'll Understand
"As the 1987 trial of Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie unfolds on television, Victor Bastien reviews old family documents and finds a distressing "Aryan declaration" authored by his late father. This new discovery throws Victor's conception of his family's history into darkness. His mother, Rivka, keeps a stubborn silence about the past, while Tania, his sister, defends their father's declaration..."

Protektor
"This fateful love story is set in Prague during the late 1930s and subsequent Nazi occupation. It focuses on radio journalist Emil, who is deeply in love with his glamorous Jewish movie star wife Hana. When the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia is established, Hana's career is cut short and Emil's radio station put under German control. Emil chooses to collaborate with the occupiers in order to survive and protect his wife. Ironically, this choice threatens to destroy the very thing he's trying to protect: Hana."

Pius XII: Under the Roman Sky
"Based on Vatican documents and personal testimonies used for the beatification of Pope Pius XII, this epic film stars acclaimed actor James Cromwell in a powerful movie about the great, often hidden struggle waged by the Pope and many others with him to save the Jews from the Nazis during WWII." - container

Punch Me in the Stomach
"Adapted from the 36 character off-Broadway play. Deb Filler transforms herself into the various members of her extended family as she travels from New Zealand to New York and journeys back to Poland to visit Auschwitz with her father, a Polish-born concentration camp survivor."