“Night and Fog” is a gripping documentary about the atrocities of the Holocaust, filling me with anguish and sorrow as I witness hundreds of lives being lost from the concentration camps. The documentary eases the viewer gracefully as pictures of beautiful meadows show up on the screen, but brings the realism of the event as soon as the camera pans onto the wire fence. Seeing a concentration camp 10 years after it was operated, I still feel tense, as somehow the feeling of pain is imprinted in the area. Buildings that were once stored with prisoners, freezing and fearful of the next day, resided here. Medical centers where the bedridden were given the same kind of ointment for all types of illness, experimented on, then left to die resided here. As the director stated, the buildings looked identical, and what may have looked like the barracks a prisoner was staying in before, could have been the gas chambers. There was no safety for the prisoners nor privacy as the video shows, people of many professions and walks of life were being called as numbers, being separated from family and friends forever.
The director’s calm and affirming voice adds gravity to documentary, as present-time video of the camp was matched with the black-white photos and footage of the camp in full-force. Towards the end, I like how director provided film of SS officers and commanders saying they were not responsible for the horrors that occurred, and then the director stating: “Then who is responsible for it?”, a statement that get rid of the excuse that the officers were only doing what was instructed of them. From beginning to end, the documentary was compelling and has me thinking of how there are still similar atrocities occurring today.