Product Details

• Directors: studio
• Format: Black & White, Full length, Full Screen, NTSC
• Number of tapes: 1
• VHS Release Date: January 10, 1996
• Run Time: 60 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 1585850039
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #252,923 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

From the Producer

"A must for all to see". "It 's not easy to witness, but once you have, you know it must never happen again". "It's part of our education in the 20th Century, one that we must learn well and never let happen again".

Product Description

This is the official film documentary recorded by the United States Army of the Nazi Death Camps as Allied forces advanced into Germany.

Although by then the fires in the Third Reich's crematoria had been reduced to smoldering ash, the remaining evidence was so unspeakably horrible that were it not for this documentary, the mind would refuse it. We are made witness to the half-dead prisoners, victims of "medical" experiments, gas chambers, and open mass graves of the camps whose names have become synonymous with human suffering and degradation. Every film frame of the Death Camps is irrefutable testimony to a lesson the world must never be permitted to forget.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

75 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars History-Social Studies Educator's Perspective, September 22, 2003

By 

Scott G. B. Dakers (Visalia, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Death Camps [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Every history-social studies teacher is given the almost impossible task of describing to students things which we have not personally seen. The challenge of teaching the Holocaust becomes even greater, because most people cannot begin to imagine the horrors let alone the mind that could conceive them. Our challenge as educators is not to just to communicate the concept, it is to provide understanding. Once the process of understanding has begun, our task is then to help students deal with it.

To do this in any real manner is next to impossible. Hollywood has tried to depict the events but falls far short. This is not Hollywood's fault. The Holocaust is too vast, far beyond description, and just how far is in some small way shown in this film.

The footage comes from the official film record taken by Allied Forces in Europe. Labelled "The Death Camps," the film documents not only some of the smaller camps, but some of the other institutions of mass murder. Living survivors, like walking skeletons with terror in their eyes along with the callousness of the Germans is all there. Bergen-Belsen is beyond description.

Auschwitz is not included because it was captured by the Russians. The film record of Auschwitz is, retrettably, scant. The film is in black and white and has precious little narration. Only one clip with a voice recording. The images are as dispassionately shown as possible.

Clearly, this video is shocking and graphic. It is not for the faint at heart, but it is mandatory viewing for any history-social studies educator. Since 1945, there have been more than a dozen attempted genocides. This is a lesson that must be learned if we are going to survive as a species.

This is not just a video. It is a historical archive of one of the greatest horrors the world has ever seen.

65 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars You don't know what it was like until you've seen this......, September 27, 2000

By 

Jason (Champaign IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Death Camps [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I'm a fifteen year old student in high school and our teacher let us watch a portion of this video after reading Elie Wiesel's "Night". It definately helped me get a better understanding of the death camps. As a student it is hard to understand and believe that this type of inhumane activity happened, but after getting a visual of the mass graves and the diseased, hungry, mistreated people it gave us the right impression.

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars --An experience never to forget--, March 2, 2004

By 

B. Johnson (Elmhurst, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Death Camps [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Seeing this film for the first time was not exactly an easy thing to get through. Watching the torcher at first hand is alot easier to understand then a teacher trying to explain it (not saying they do a bad job). This film gives you an upclose + personal look at life as a prisoner in one of the death camps. It also gives you a tour of some of them, and you'll be surprised how many there were, not only the famous ones like Auswitz. I can't express enough the fact that its not an easy film to get through, but its one that everyone in this world should see, everyone should know what they went through, and everyone should know and be sure to see that something like this will never happen again.
--My Prayers to all those who not only died, but who survived to tell the tale of the Holocaust--

**And i really recomend this film**