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Thursday July 13, 2006

Documentary looks at vanished concentration camp

by michael fox
correspondent

The French documentary “Belzec,” even more than “Shoah,” is an investigation into that which is invisible, ephemeral and possibly gone.

A graceful remembrance of the Holocaust and a gentle tribute to its victims, the film is steeped in respect and curiosity. But it is less satisfying in its attempt to gauge the effect on people living today in the vicinity of one nearly forgotten slaughterhouse.

“Belzec” has its West Coast premiere in the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival in three screenings sponsored by the Taube Foundation for Jewish Life and Culture, and co-sponsored by the San Francisco chapter of the American Jewish Committee.

Belzec was one of the first Nazi death camps in Poland, a clockwork operation that executed more than 600,000 Jews in 1942. But after nine efficient months, the gas was turned off, every building knocked down and trees planted to obscure the grounds.

Heinrich Himmler called it “a glorious page of our history that has never been written and shall never be written.” He turned out to be wrong on all counts, and yet this particular episode in the annals of Nazi cruelty has largely receded into the shadows of memory.

A hilly and unassuming field of sun-dappled grass, trees and vegetation is all the site offers to the naked eye. But the elderly Poles interviewed by director Guillaume Moscovitz will never forget certain horrific details.

Belzec was so small that the unloading platform could accommodate only half of the railroad cars in a transport at a time. The town was so close that the smell from the crematorium was inescapable.

These villagers clearly describe the Nazis and their brutal Ukrainian helpers, but even as we lean forward to hear better their words don’t have a lot of power. They’re plainly not happy about what happened, as they relate their experiences 60 years later, but they are somehow untouched.

The crux of the matter is that they were neither perpetrators nor victims. Yes, some were compelled to help build the camp, deliver bread and perform other tasks. Yes, life under Nazi occupation was difficult. But these Poles were passive witnesses to the Nazis’ crimes.

The most chilling words spoken in “Belzec” belong to a couple of Jewish eyewitnesses — of the handful who survived the camp — who testified after the war. Their statements (read by actors) are devastatingly straightforward, relating in matter-of-fact detail how the Nazis systematically and cruelly dealt with the Jews arriving on train after train after train.

While the Polish attitude toward Jews has been much debated since the war, “Belzec” has no apparent axe to grind regarding the inhabitants of Belzec. Unlike Claude Lanzmann’s epic, this film is not trying to uncover the complicity of ordinary people in the Nazi death machine.

But it is less clear what lesson, if any, the young people of Belzec have learned from the vanished camp a few meters away. This all happened a long time ago, and no one seems to care about history these days.

As such, “Belzec” leaves us a little puzzled, a little sad, a little adrift and a little unsure of what to do with our knowledge. In that regard, it is an accurate reflection of the Holocaust itself.

“Belzec” screens at 2:15 p.m. Tuesday, July 25 at the Castro Theatre, 12 noon Saturday, July 29 at the Roda Theatre in Berkeley and 2 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 1 at the Century in Mountain View.

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