night and fog
Director: Alain Rainay
Narration: Jean Carroll
Even a quiet and peaceful view
even harvest season pastures
There are crows hovering overhead and over the grass
Even the trails where vehicles, farmers, and couples come and go
Even remote villages with churches and bazaars
can lead to concentration camps
Strutov, Olaniberg, Auschwitz
Newngham, Belsen, Ravensbrook, Dacha—
These were supposed to be some bland place names on maps and guidebooks
The blood has dried up, the mouthpiece has been silent
The camera is the only visitor there
Unknown weeds cover the path once trodden by refugees
The power grid has been cut off
Only the sound of our own footsteps
In 1933, German tanks launched
A nation without any voice of opposition
No objections and arguments
This nation is plotting a bloodbath
Repairing a concentration camp is no different from repairing a stadium or a hotel
Contractor, Evaluation, Bidding
Undoubtedly mixed with bribery
No specific style - just let your imagination run free
Alpine style, garage style, Japanese style, no style
The architect calmly designed the front door as a one-way street
Meanwhile, Berg, a German worker
Stern, a Jewish student in Amsterdam
Simmsky, a Krakow businessman
And Annette, a girl who goes to school in Bordeaux and lives as usual
Don't know in a few hundred miles away
there is a place waiting for them
One day when their barracks are ready
It's them that disappear
Arrested in Warsaw, from Lodz, Prague, Brussels, Athens
Zagreb, Odessa, or Rome departure
Detained at Peysville, captured at Vertif
Resistance elements concentrated in Compiègne
Most people, unprepared, by accident or necessity
Started the journey to the concentration camp
The train was blocked and hurried out of the station
Hundreds of people packed into a carriage
Can't tell day, night, hunger, thirst, suffocation, madness
Will a message slip on the ground and anyone find it?
This is the prelude to death
its second act unfolds in night and mist
Today, the sun is shining on the same rails
We walk along them, what are we looking for?
Is it the trace left by the body that fell to the ground when the door of the carriage was opened?
Or those who were taken to concentration camps by rifles, barking dogs, and blinding searchlights
In the distance is the fire of the crematorium
They were so familiar to Nazi soldiers on countless similar nights
When I saw the concentration camp for the first time, it was like entering another planet.
Shower room/disinfection room, under the pretext of cleanliness
Naked refugee, lost all dignity
Shaved, tattooed, numbered, don't put on incomprehensible grade symbols
Wear a blue-striped uniform, sometimes divided by the infamous "Night and Fog Decree"
"Night and Fog" political prisoners wear red triangles
Others wear green triangles: common criminals, people of all classes
The top tier, the prisoner head, is usually the common criminal
And higher up: the unshakable SS, keeping ten feet apart
The highest level, the commander, is responsible for managing the day-to-day affairs of the concentration camp
Pretend not to know anything that happened in the concentration camps, who knows anything?
The truth about these camps, except those who built them
and incredible survivors
—What truth do we expect to know?
Temporary wooden house, three people squeeze a bed
cramped shelter, eating in fear
where sleep itself becomes a threat—
It cannot be measured in words or imagination:
Fear without borders
We need straw mats to store food and valuables
Thick blankets, condemnations, curses, everyone repeats
The Nazi Party popped up, with the fervor of spot checks and pranks
These brick and wooden dormitories are filled with tortured dreams
we can only show you the shell, the surface
Here is the scene where the story takes place:
A building that can double as a stable, garage or factory
The soil was poor, now a wasteland
And the indifferent autumn sky
We can only imagine those heart-piercing and crying nights with these leftovers
They grabbed their lice, their teeth chattered, trying to fall asleep earlier
Wake up as soon as dawn breaks and ask those around you tremblingly
Did you see the belongings you lost last night?
5:00 a.m. - dark crowds gather at the surveillance site
The night is dead, discarded the disguise
The orchestra plays a march from some operetta
Refugees walking towards quarries or factories
Working in heavy snow that quickly turns to permafrost
Working in the August heat, exhausted by thirst and dysentery
3,000 Spaniards died trying to build the stone steps leading to the quarry of Mautausen
Working in an underground factory, month after month
They burrowed, buried, avoided, killed
There are women's names among them: Dora, Laura
But these 70-pound guys aren't reliable
Nazi soldiers guarded and watched them closely
Gather them together and search them before returning to the camp
Village signs direct everyone home
Prisoner head just jot down daily victims
Refugees gather again to receive what they desire most:
Food, soup, every spoonful is priceless
One less spoonful means one less day to live
Two or three cigarettes in exchange for a bowl of soup
Many are too skinny to protect the food they deserve
They're waiting for the tundra or the snow to take their lives
Lying somewhere, anywhere, dying alone
Public toilets and surrounding facilities, people with swollen stomachs and skinny people
Come here seven or eight times a night, the soup is diuretic
Mourning those who ran into the drunken prisoner in the moonlight
Refugees look at each other with fearful eyes
See if you have similar symptoms: 'Blood in the urine' is a sign of death
Secret buying and selling and killing on the black market
They greet their friends, exchange news, spread the grapevine
Organizing resistance groups, a society is gradually born out of fear
But not as good as the Nazis and their famous quote, insanity
"Cleanliness is health", "Work is freedom", "Everyone does their part"
"Lice equals death", what if it was a Nazi officer's louse?
Every concentration camp has its own surprise, orchestra, zoo
The greenhouse where Himmler (German Nazi leader) cultivated rare plants
Goethe Oak in Buchenwald
Orphanage, short-lived, but always adding new children
Temporary wooden houses for the elderly and the sick
Meanwhile, a real world comes from the past
And its quiet and peaceful scenery seems not far away
But for the Jews it was just an illusion
His world is so close to a separate universe, surrounded by outposts
Soldiers stand on top to watch and aim at prisoners with walls
Shoot them when they're bored
Everything can be an excuse for abuse, punishment, humiliation
Hours-long roll call, quilt not folded, means twenty batons
Don't get the officer's attention, don't pray to God
They have their own gallows and execution ground
The yard in District 11 was isolated and used to execute prisoners
It has protection on the walls to avoid bullet bounces
Hansom, where the train leaves with fog on the window
Carrying passengers who will never be seen again
The 'black transport' departed at night and never heard of again
But man, by nature, is cheerful
Though the body is exhausted, the mind continues
Bandaged hands are still busy
They make spoons, puppets, monsters, boxes that you can hide at any time
They try to record in words
Keep your mind clear, keep your dreams alive
"crawfish a la basquaise" (French)
they talk to god
They even organize politically
Challenging ordinary prisoners who manage concentration camp affairs
They take care of friends who are in worse condition
share food with them and help each other
When there is no way, with a sad heart
They take dying people to concentration camp hospitals
This building with hospital beds is mistaken for a real hospital
But there's only death
The medicine is fake, the clothes are paper thin
Take an ointment no matter what the condition
Sometimes these starving people have to eat their own clothes
In the end, all refugees become about the same
I can't tell my age, my eyes are wide open when I die
This is the surgical building. At first glance, you would think that
yourself in a real clinic, nazi doctors, horrible nurses
What's behind the stretcher?
Pointless surgery, amputation, experimental excision
Prisoner, like a Nazi surgeon, is also eager to try
Big Pharma sends samples of toxic chemicals to concentration camps
Or buy a batch of refugees for testing
Some "guinea pigs" survived, were castrated, burned with phosphorus
For some, their flesh becomes the price of life
And the shadow will accompany them for life
The administration will take a photo of each refugee who has just arrived
And note their names, from a total of 22 countries
They fill up hundreds of ledgers, thousands of files
Scratching the name of the deceased with a red pen
Prisoners under the watch of Nazi officers and privileged prisoners
These crazy and error-filled books
These people are the bosses of the concentration camps, the hardcore
Prisoners have their own room to store necessities
and enjoy the caresses of young women at night
The Commander's Villa is nearby
His wife lives here and maintains a healthy family life
like any other garrison town
Although she might be a little bored
The war doesn't seem to end
Lucky Chief Prisoners, and a Brothel
The women here are relatively better off, but just like everyone else
There is only one dead end
They sometimes throw some crusts out of the window to their companions outside
Nazi administrators disguised it as a real city
Hospitals, red light districts, residential areas, and yes, even prisons
All words pale in front of these cells
In such a cage, refugees can neither stand nor lie down
Men and women are systematically tortured here, air holes that cannot be soundproofed
In 1942, Himmler visited
'We must destroy efficiently'
leave production to his technicians
Himmler focused on destroying
They discuss plans, make models, and put them into practice
Let the prisoners build it themselves
From the outside, the crematorium looks like a scenic postcard
Tourists take pictures at their gates today
Deportations spread across Europe
Guard lost, stopped, started again
Got bombed and finally arrived
For some, the Great Purge has begun
for others will be done soon
The one on the left continues to work, while the one on the right...
These pictures were taken before a massacre
Too much time to do it yourself
Tubes of poisonous gas were transported
From the outside, the gas chamber is no different from other buildings
Inside, it looks like a shower room that welcomes newcomers
The door is closed, the clock keeps going
The only sign -
But you have to know-
It's a nail scratch on the ceiling
Even the concrete was scratched and cracked
When the crematorium is not enough, light the pyre
But the crematorium can dispose of thousands of corpses a day
everything is preserved
These are the war reserves of the Nazi army
these are their warehouses
full of women's hair
Fifteen centi per kilo, used for weaving
This is the skeleton
Fertilizers - at least, they tried
Using skeletons as raw materials - indescribable
they make soap from dead bodies
As for the skin...
In 1945, concentration camps were everywhere, overcrowded
Cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants continue to emerge
Heavy industry relies on this constantly renewed workforce for profit
The factory also had its own concentration camp, which the Nazis were not allowed to enter
Steyer, Krop, Henkel
I.G. Farben, Siemens, Hermange get new workforce from here
if the nazis won the war
These new towns will be part of the German economy
But they are losing the war
The crematorium has no coal, and the Jewish refugees have no food
The streets of the concentration camp are full of corpses
Typhus spreads everywhere
When the Allies opened the door
All doors...
Jewish refugees look at everything in bewilderment
Are they free? Has the peaceful life finally returned?
'I'm not responsible,' says chief prisoner
'I'm not responsible,' says officer
"I am not responsible"
Whose responsibility is that?
Ice water in ponds and ruins as I tell you everything
Filled the void of mass graves
Cold and muddy water, as cloudy as our memories
The war is over
But always keep your eyes open
Green grass once again covers the surveillance field near the concentration camp
An abandoned village still heavy with danger
The crematorium has been shut down
Now the Nazi trickery has become a child's trick
Nine million dead roam the countryside
Join us in peering out of this strange watchtower
Is it warning the visitor to be wary of a new executioner?
Are their faces really different from ours?
Among us, the lucky prisoner is still alive
And those reinstated Nazi officers and anonymous whistleblowers
Some people refuse to believe, or only temporarily believe
We looked at the pile of ruins with serious eyes
It's like an old monster falling forever under the rubble
When these pictures are in the past, we pretend to be hopeful again
As if the suffering in the concentration camp was healed
We pretend it's only going to happen once at a certain time and place
We are blind to the things around us
Deaf to the never-ending cry of humanity
—————————————————————
- Then, whose responsibility is it?
We can't answer why we see this scene, we can only keep silent. Gentle people are always slaughtered, the resistance gradually subsided, and finally the black eyes of tears are left - history is looking at Auschwitz.
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