#1. Fighter (2000)

Storyline: "Fighter" follows two friends, Jan Wiener, to whom the title refers, and Arnost Lustig, a writer - both in their seventies, and both exiles from Communist Czechoslovakia now living in America - as they retrace Wiener's escape from Prague after the Nazi takeover in the 1930s. Incorporating rare archival footage from Nazi and Communist propaganda films, the documentary focuses on the interaction between Wiener and Lustig as they retrace Wiener's steps.

Plot Keywords: documentarian, holocaust survivor, mother, jew, friend, elderly person, spirited ...

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#2. Divan (2003)

Storyline: In this film, documentarian Pearl Gluck chronicles her Hasidic Jewish upbringing and her subsequent, more secular life as a Manhattanite. Gluck then documents her return trip to her old neighborhood, where she tries to reconcile with her devout father, who hopes that she will move back to Brooklyn. Gluck strikes an on-camera compromise with her dad, and agrees to trek to Hungary in order to find a long-lost family heirloom -- a couch that many notable rabbis have crashed on.

Plot Keywords: jew, great-grandfather, filmmaker, relative, rabbi, touching, amusing ...

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#5. The Specialist (1999)

Storyline: When Adolf Eichmann is brought to a tribunal and charged with crimes against humanity, he describes himself as a bureaucrat doing his job. Eichmann, an officer in Hitler's Schutzstaffel, is responsible for planning the transportation and murder of millions of people during the Holocaust. Eyal Sivan's documentary is a meditation on his unthinkable crimes. Using hours of footage from Eichmann's trial, including testimonies from survivors, Sivan paints a frightening picture of a war criminal.

Plot Keywords: nazi, prosecutor, witness, judge, israeli, officer, somber ...

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#6. Shoah (1985)

Storyline: Claude Lanzmann directed this 9 1/2 hour documentary of the Holocaust without using a single frame of archive footage. He interviews survivors, witnesses, and ex-Nazis (whom he had to film secretly since they only agreed to be interviewed by audio). His style of interviewing by asking for the most minute details is effective at adding up these details to give a horrifying portrait of the events of Nazi genocide. He also shows, or rather lets some of his subjects themselves show, that the anti-Semitism that caused 6 million Jews to die in the Holocaust is still alive and well in many people who still live in Germany, Poland, and elsewhere.—Gene Volovich <volovich@netcom.com>

Plot Keywords: victim, survivor, nazi, bystander, guard, brooding, shocking ...

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#7. Life Is Beautiful (1997)

Storyline: In 1930s Italy, a carefree Jewish book keeper named Guido starts a fairy tale life by courting and marrying a lovely woman from a nearby city. Guido and his wife have a son and live happily together until the occupation of Italy by German forces. In an attempt to hold his family together and help his son survive the horrors of a Jewish Concentration Camp, Guido imagines that the Holocaust is a game and that the grand prize for winning is a tank.

Plot Keywords: father, mother, son, waiter, schoolteacher, nazi, moving ...

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#8. The Pianist (2002)

Storyline: In this adaptation of the autobiography "The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945," Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish Jewish radio station pianist, sees Warsaw change gradually as World War II begins. Szpilman is forced into the Warsaw Ghetto, but is later separated from his family during Operation Reinhard. From this time until the concentration camp prisoners are released, Szpilman hides in various locations among the ruins of Warsaw.

Plot Keywords: musician, pianist, military officer, jew, bleak, powerful, disturbing ...

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#9. Secret Lives: Hidden Children & Their Rescuers During WWII (2002)

Storyline: Before the Second World War, more than one and a half million Jewish children were living in Europe. By the war's end, fewer than one out of ten had survived. This is the story of the non-Jewish families who put their own lives at risk to save these children.—Anonymous

Plot Keywords: child, parent, activist, soldier, survivor, sad, inspiring ...

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#10. The Shop on Main Street (1965)

Storyline: Fascist Slovakia during WW2. Tono lives a poor life, but the authorities offer him to take over the Jewish widow Lautman's little shop for sewing material. She is old and confused and thinks that he is only looking for employment and hires him. The odd couple begin to like each other. But some time later the authorities decide that the Jews must leave the city. What should he do with the old lady?—Mattias Thuresson

Plot Keywords: nazi, storekeeper, jew, deaf person, bleak, somber, intense ...

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#11. Prisoner of Paradise (2002)

Storyline: Kurt Gerron was a star in Germany's theater and cabaret scene in the 1920s and 1930s, performing with some of the country's best artists and entertainers of the time. But with the rise of Adolf Hitler, the acclaimed Jewish entertainer was relegated to the role of prisoner in a Nazi-run concentration camp. There he was forced to put his talents to use writing and directing a propaganda film that sang the praises of his captors. This documentary tells Gerron's shocking and tragic story.

Plot Keywords: actor, prisoner, nazi, writer, director, shocking, sad ...

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#12. The Children of Chabannes (1999)

Storyline: In the spirit of Louis Malle's "Au Revoir les Enfants" and Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List," the Emmy® Award-winning film "The Children of Chabannes" (93 minutes), has been praised as "splendid, informative and emotionally involving" (Los Angeles Times) and called "a seamless memoir of courage and a tribute to the human spirit." (New York Daily News). A magical World War II tale of resilience and love, "The Children of Chabannes" reveals the previously untold story of how the people in a tiny village in unoccupied France chose action over indifference to save the lives of 400 Jewish refugee children. Returning to the forgotten corner of France with her father and uncle (two of the saved children), filmmaker Lisa Gossels and co-director Dean Wetherell movingly recreated the joys and fears of daily life in Chabannes during the war. Through warm and wonderful accounts from the educators, townspeople and from the children themselves, we see how this oasis of hope is shattered in August of 1942, when the war reaches the doorsteps of the crumbling chateau where the children lived. A celebration of human kindness, "The Children of Chabannes" delivers a profound message of tolerance. The film documents the remarkable efforts made by the citizens of Chabannes, who risked their lives and livelihoods to protect these children, simply because they felt it was the right thing to do.—New Video/Docurama

Plot Keywords: father, daughter, jew, foreigner, teacher, child, moving ...

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#13. Au Revoir, les enfants (1987)

Storyline: In 1944, upper class boy Julien Quentin and his brother François travel to Catholic boarding school in the countryside after vacations. Julien is a leader and good student and when the new student Jean Bonnet arrives in the school, they have friction in their relationship. However, Julien learns to respect Jean and discovers that he is Jewish and the priests are hiding him from the Nazis. They become best friends and Julien keeps the secret. When the priest Jean discovers that the servant Joseph is stealing supplies from the school to sell in the black market, he fires the youth. Sooner the Gestapo arrives at school to investigate the students and the priests that run and work in the boarding school.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Plot Keywords: student, priest, nazi, headmaster, dark, emotional, profound ...

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#14. I Have Never Forgotten You: The Life & Legacy of Simon Wiesenthal (2007)

Storyline: After surviving the horrors of the Holocaust, architect Simon Wiesenthal dedicated the rest of his life to hunting down Nazis who escaped prosecution after the war. This documentary details his life and his work with the American War Crimes Unit, which tracked down more than 1,000 Nazi war criminals with his help. In interviews, various world leaders and Wiesenthal's friends discuss the motivations for his work, and how he manages to succeed even when facing seemingly insurmountable odds.

Plot Keywords: engineer, war criminal, nazi, holocaust survivor, friend, inspiring, incredible ...

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#15. Anne Frank Remembered (1995)

Storyline: Using previously unreleased archival material in addition to contemporary interviews, this academy award-winning documentary tells the story of the Frank family and presents the first fully-rounded portrait of their brash and free-spirited daughter Anne, perhaps the world's most famous victim of the Holocaust.—Dawn M. Barclift

Plot Keywords: father, mother, sister, friend, refugee, jew, emotional ...

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