Ein Tag in Auschwitz (2020)

Using archival sources, historical photographs, film footage, and testimony from victims and perpetrators, the documentary attempts to reconstruct a day in May 1944 at the Auschwitz concentration camp. During this period, as part of the so-called Hungary Program, around 350,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz over eight weeks and murdered in the gas chambers; “most of the people in the pictures were murdered hours after their arrival.” The documentary takes as its starting point an Auschwitz photo album compiled by SS perpetrators, which is now held at the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem. The 89-minute film builds on Winfried Laasch’s Das Geheimnis der Auschwitz-Alben (ZDF, 2016), and some reenactment scenes were carried over. The concentration camp was liberated by the Red Army on January 27, 1945, and is now synonymous with the Holocaust. Former prisoners and Holocaust survivors, including Dario Gabbai, Czeslaw Mordowicz, and Irene Weiss, recount their experiences in the camp. The perpetrators’ perspective is represented by former Auschwitz SS man Oskar Gröning and photographs by Auschwitz photographer Bernhard Walter. Philipp Moog narrates the film, while Nick Bolton narrates the English-language version (Auschwitz: One Day). Stefan Hördler serves as historical adviser, placing the events in the film in context and explaining them.