What Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that this brutal, emotionally devastating three-hour drama won several Oscars and has a powerful message about the human spirit -- but it pulls absolutely no punches when depicting the Holocaust. There are arbitrary murders and mass killings, Nazi commanders compare Jews to rats, children are killed, and there are scenes of shocking, grisly violence. There's also plenty of anti-Semitic language, smoking and drinking, and several scenes of nakedness. In two of them, a woman is naked from the waist up in bed and in sexual situations. But in the rest, nakedness is used to humiliate and harass Jewish residents of concentration camps.
- Families can talk about their reaction to the film's emotionally difficult material.
- Do you believe the atrocities depicted here can happen again? Why or why not?
- Discuss other ways in which individuals make a difference.
- Families may want to watch additional DVDs produced by the Survivors of the Shoah Foundation designed to help kids understand and confront bias.