This post-war German documentary film, entitled “The Fuhrer Gives the Jews a City”, presents fragments of what was intended to be a much longer film made during WWII entitled “The Jewish Self-Government in Theresienstadt.” “The Jewish Self-Government in Theresienstadt” was without a doubt one of the most cynical, deceptive and horrendously despicable Nazi propaganda films ever planned. It was created to present a completely false narrative related to the Jews and their plight during the war, showing inmates in civil clothing enjoying normal lives instead of striped pajama-wearing death camp prisoners.

While some mistakenly attribute “Theresienstadt” to Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, the film was primarily project of the SS and the so-called Office of the Regulation of the Jewish Question in Bavaria”. The film’s purpose was to deceive the foreign public and the International Red Cross about the horrific reality of the camps and to cover up the ongoing organized genocide of the Holocaust. The movie was directed by the German Jewish actor Kurt Gerron and the Czech filmmaker Karel Pečeny. Both worked under close SS supervision in the concentration camp. Filmed mostly in the fall of 1944, a version of the movie was completed on 28 March 1945 and screened privately four times. It was never released, but some material was apparently shown in Nazi newsreels. After the war, the complete version of the film was lost but about twenty minutes of footage was later rediscovered in various archives.

This 20-minute version of the film was created post-WWII in an effort to reveal the breadth and depth of the Nazi plan to deceive the world about “the final solution.” Testimony from survivors of the death camps who were part of the Terezin ghetto is included at the end of the film. A card at 20:19 notes that out of 140,000 persons who were transported to Theresienstadt between 1941-1945, 118,000 died. Over 30,000 starved and 84,000 were sent to and murdered at Auschwitz.

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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com