A Film Unfinished (Video Response) - Jordan Wiertzema

In “A Film Unfinished” the lives of the Jewish population in the Warsaw Ghetto were revealed through a German film crew. The film was supposedly taken for propaganda purposes to be shown to the German people during World War II. The footage in the movie was forgotten but eventually found in German archives later. Many of the scenes were staged and the German film crew was very particular about choosing certain Jews to be actors and actresses in their scenes. They wanted to only show those who seemed to be doing well in life or those that weren’t dying of starvation. Their purpose was to show the German people where the Jews had gone and that they were living a decent and lavish lifestyle. This was not the case however for the majority of those living in the ghetto. At its height, the ghetto reached around 500,00 people packed into an extremely small area which was walled in and cut off from the rest of the city.

            The conditions were horrible in the film and revealed what life was actually like. There would be corpses that would be laid on the street and then carried off on carts to be buried in a mass grave. Those who were suffering from starvation would be seen laying on the ground or propped up against walls too tired to move. Many gave up hope and the despair could be seen on the faces of those Jews which appeared in the film. Some believed that their stay in the ghetto was only temporary. They had no idea that courses of action had been set in motion that would liquidate the ghetto in time. In the end, “A Film Unfinished” was able to reveal the true story of what life was like in the ghetto.