Transcript [00:09] [music] [00:10] >> The lazy Jews are immediately [00:12] conscripted for cleaning duties. [00:15] This isn't a story about labor. [00:17] The footage you just saw was featured in [00:19] a German newsreel and screened across [00:21] Nazi Germany on July the 16th, 1941. [00:25] No location is mentioned, no date is [00:27] given, only a voiceover that narrates [00:33] a lie. [00:35] Nazi propaganda units filming, editing, [00:37] striving to stage reality, and control [00:40] memory. The Jews in these photographs [00:42] are voiceless. [00:44] The narration controls the mind and the [00:46] camera, it is an accomplice to the [00:48] crime. [00:49] Could it be that part of our Holocaust [00:52] memory was actually shaped by the Nazis? [00:55] Are we even capable of watching Nazi [00:57] propaganda films and photographs without [00:59] being influenced by them? [01:01] The archives are filled with propaganda [01:03] footage. What historical value does this [01:05] documentation, left behind by the [01:07] killers, truly hold? How can we reclaim [01:09] these images and extract the truth from [01:11] within the Nazi lie? [01:13] Through testimonies and in-depth [01:14] investigation, the truth has been [01:16] revealed. Four days after the German [01:18] invasion of the Soviet Union, the [01:20] regional capital of Šiauliai, Lithuania, [01:23] was occupied. Immediately, the [01:25] systematic murder of the city's Jewish [01:27] population began. [01:29] Assisted by local Lithuanian [01:30] collaborators, the Nazis imprisoned and [01:33] then murdered the Jews of Šiauliai in [01:35] the Kužiai forest on June the 28th, [01:38] 1941. [01:39] This massacre signaled the start of the [01:41] systematic murder of the community. Just [01:44] months later, on September the 1st, the [01:47] Šiauliai ghetto was established. This is [01:49] not a record of Jewish labor. [01:51] This is a record of mass murder. [01:54] The Jews of Šiauliai were forced to dig [01:56] their own graves. [01:58] In the prison, they abused us to their [02:00] hearts' content. Afterwards, they messed [02:02] with our beards and hair, preparing a [02:04] group for filming. Delicacies and good [02:07] material for the Sturm they filmed us [02:09] from the front and the backs, striving [02:11] to make the shot look as caricatured and [02:13] ridiculous as possible. [02:15] The camera intended for propaganda [02:18] became a witness to the final moments of [02:20] the Jews of the Shoule community. At Yad [02:22] Vashem, we work tirelessly to identify [02:25] them, to reveal their faces and their [02:27] names, and to tell the stories of those [02:29] whose voices were silenced. A Jewish [02:32] life, an entire world. What was their [02:35] fate? [02:36] Using these photographs, artifacts, [02:38] journals, and drawings, all from the Yad [02:41] Vashem collections, we seek to restore [02:43] their voices, their humanity, and their [02:45] true stories. [02:47] To reclaim their faces. [02:49] There were not 6 million Jews murdered, [02:51] there was one murder six million times.
Is it possible that part of our Holocaust memory was actually shaped by the Nazis? Are we even capable of watching Nazi propaganda films and photographs without being influenced by them?
Historical archives are filled with propaganda footage from the Holocaust but through testimonies and in-depth investigation, the truth is revealed. Using these photographs in addition to artifacts, journals and drawings, all from the Yad Vashem Collections, we seek to restore the voices, humanity and true stories of the victims.
Watch to discover the disparity between the Nazi narrative presented in 1941 and our knowledge today of the mass murder of the Jews of Šiauliai, Lithuania.
