Customer Reviews

Lest We Forget [VHS]

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In view of Robert Hilliard's book (Surviving the Americans) on the American treatment of D.P.s (Displaced Persons) and Jews in the American sector after V-E day this film, in its original form with film of concentration camps (Konzentrationslager or KZ in German) is all the more important. Eisenhower required orders from ABOVE to open the KZs and these sections were deleted from later versions of the film.

There are many scenes on this video that the baby-boomers need to see, and in some cases, their children. The original video, later somewhat sanitized, contained horrific scenes of liberated POW and "Labor Camps" that must have shocked the liberating soldiers to the point of active nausea. The soundtrack narration, written in a "hokum" style from the perspective of the ordinary "grunt" soldier, belies the impact of these black and white images, from Great Britain, through Normandy, and on from town to town through France, and on to Germany. There is brief mention of the important campaign of 1944 which ended at Arnhem (subject of the movie, "A Bridge too Far"), which failed to end the war by Christmas, 1944 as hoped.

As an introduction to the fighting in the European theatre, one might view this with the volume off. Clearly, the Allied strategy was to destroy anything in the path leading to Berlin, anything defended by what the narrator refers to as "Heinies"...and this does in a way detract from the film...but nonetheless, I recommend it to viewers of any political persuasion who are contemplating what the landscape of the 21st century may bring. As the destruction of civilian and military targets shows, we may be thankful for the advance in technology intended to spare noncombatants.