Whitney Kelley

Eng 102-127

Mr. Neuburger

30 September 2012

Summary of A Film Unfinished

            The documentary “A Film Unfinished” focuses on the Warsaw Ghetto. We learn much about the life within from many of the people speaking with us. It is a horrible place with sickness and death. People were starving, beaten, and dying on the streets. But a different story is told through the tapes that were recovered from a Nazi film crew of the time. They wish to lead us to believe that this is a wonderful place. The people get to see plays, go dancing, and have extravagant meals. At the time the Warsaw Ghetto was a part of a propaganda film meant to prove that what was happening to the Jews was not bad. They wanted the world to believe that everything was okay. Often times people would be forced to watch plays for hours on end. They were not aloud to eat or take care of personal needs for hours and hours. Sometimes we would be shown beautiful women that are well fed and well clothed. As these women converse among themselves a starving child would be forced to walk by begging for food. The women, though unwilling, were forced to hold their heads up and ignore the starving children. The Nazi's wanted us to believe that they were right. That the Jews were horrible and had to be taken care of. It is impossible to imagine the mind that created such a horror. A person, a human, just like you and I, saw that people were being tortured and drained of life, and made them act for a propaganda film showing how wonderful they were doing and how little they cared about the dead lining their streets. The film lets us hear what was really happening from people who were in the Ghetto at the time. They had hope. They thought they were going to be brought to a better home. But by the thousands they were stolen from their families and sent to their deaths. I can not imagine a person who has the bitterness and emptiness to throw away human life like this. A whole race was almost wiped out due to racism. This event says many things to me. One of those is that the human mind is so much stronger than we can imagine. Many of these people speaking in the film seemed very powerful and they were able to keep living their lives. But this also says another thing to me. Humanity is capable of so much darkness and hate. What is it that makes some of us act on our hatred while some of us could never hate a soul? What is the difference? What makes us any different than a mass murderer? Perhaps there isn't a simple trigger, maybe it is a build up over time. But it is scary to think that this could be dormant in many of humankind.