Schindler's List is a 1993 American epic historical drama film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Steven Zaillian. It is based on the historical novel Schindler's Ark (1982) by Thomas Keneally. The film follows Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist who saved more than a thousand mostly Polish–Jewish refugees from the Holocaust by employing them in his factories during World War II. It stars Liam Neeson as Schindler, Ralph Fiennes as SS officer Amon Göth, and Ben Kingsley as Schindler's Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern.
Sir Dirk Bogarde was an English actor, novelist and screenwriter. Initially a matinée idol in films such as Doctor in the House (1954) for the Rank Organisation, he later acted in art house films, evolving from "heartthrob to icon of edginess".
Alois Brunner was an Austrian officer who held the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer (captain) during World War II. Brunner played a significant role in the implementation of the Holocaust through rounding up and deporting Jews in occupied Austria, Greece, France, and Slovakia. He was known as Final Solution architect Adolf Eichmann's right-hand man. In 1988, Simon Wiesenthal called Brunner "doubtless the worst" "living criminal of the Third Reich"
Tessa Charlotte Rampling is an English actress. An icon of the Swinging Sixties, she began her career as a model. She was cast in the role of Meredith in the 1966 film Georgy Girl, which starred Lynn Redgrave. She soon began making French and Italian arthouse films, notably Luchino Visconti's The Damned (1969) and Liliana Cavani's The Night Porter (1974). She went on to star in many European and English-language films, including Stardust Memories (1980), The Verdict (1982), Long Live Life (1984), and The Wings of the Dove (1997). In the 2000s, she became the muse of French director François Ozon, appearing in several of his films, notably Swimming Pool (2003) and Young & Beautiful (2013). On television, she is known for her role as Dr. Evelyn Vogel in Dexter (2013).
Maria Mandl was an Austrian SS-Helferin and a war criminal known for her role in the Holocaust as a top-ranking official at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, where she is believed to have been directly complicit in the deaths of over 500,000 prisoners. She was executed for war crimes.
Bent is a 1979 British-American play by Martin Sherman. It revolves around the persecution of gays in Nazi Germany, and takes place during and after the Night of the Long Knives.
The Damned (Götterdämmerung) is a 1969 historical-drama film directed and co-written by Luchino Visconti, and starring Dirk Bogarde, Ingrid Thulin, Helmut Berger, Helmut Griem, Umberto Orsini, Charlotte Rampling, Florinda Bolkan, Reinhard Kolldehoff and Albrecht Schönhals in his final film. Set in 1930s Germany, the film centers on the Essenbecks, a wealthy industrialist family who have begun doing business with the Nazi Party, and whose amoral and unstable heir, Martin, is embroiled in his family's machinations. It is loosely based on the German Krupp family of steel industrialists from Essen.
Kurt Gerron was a German Jewish actor and film director. He had a very successful career in cabaret and film before World War II, but was then forbidden to work and was sent to Theresienstadt Ghetto after the Nazis had occupied the Netherlands, where he and his family had fled to. He was forced by the Nazis to make a propaganda film about Theresienstadt, officially named Theresienstadt. Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet, before he and his wife, Olga Gerson-Meyer, were sent to Auschwitz concentration camp and murdered. The film was completed not long before the end of the war, but was never shown to the public, and only fragments remain.
The Holocaust has been a prominent subject of art and literature throughout the second half of the twentieth century. There is a wide range of ways–including dance, film, literature, music, and television–in which the Holocaust has been represented in the arts and popular culture.
Liliana Cavani is an Italian film director and screenwriter. Cavani became internationally known after the success of her 1974 feature film Il portiere di notte. Her films have historical concerns. In addition to feature films and documentaries, she has also directed opera.
The Kastner train is the name usually given to a rescue operation which saved the lives of over 1,600 Jews from Hungary during World War II. It consisted of 35 cattle wagons that left Budapest on 30 June 1944, during the German occupation of Hungary, ultimately arriving safely in Switzerland after a large ransom was paid to the Nazis. The train was named after Rudolf Kastner, a Hungarian-Jewish lawyer and journalist, who was a founding member of the Budapest Aid and Rescue Committee, a group that smuggled Jews out of occupied Europe during the Holocaust. Kastner negotiated with Adolf Eichmann, the German SS officer in charge of deporting Hungary's Jews to Auschwitz in German-occupied Poland, to allow over 1,600 Jews to escape in exchange for gold, diamonds, and cash. The deal was controversial and has been the subject of much debate and criticism, with some accusing Kastner of collaborating with the Nazis, while others argue that he made difficult choices to save lives.
Nazi exploitation is a subgenre of exploitation film and sexploitation film that involves Nazis committing sex crimes, often as camp or prison overseers during World War II. Most follow the women in prison formula, only relocated to a concentration camp, extermination camp, or Nazi brothel, and with an added emphasis on sadism, gore, and degradation. The most infamous and influential title is a Canadian production, Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1974). Its surprise success and that of Salon Kitty and The Night Porter led European filmmakers, mostly in Italy, to produce similar films, with just over a dozen being released over the next few years. Globally exported to both cinema and VHS, the films were critically attacked and heavily censored, and the sub-genre all but vanished by the end of the seventies.
Gabriele Ferzetti was an Italian actor with more than 160 credits across film, television, and stage. His career was at its peak in the 1950s and 1960s.
The Passerby is a 1982 French-West German drama film directed by Jacques Rouffio, based on the 1936 novel on the same name by Joseph Kessel, and starring Romy Schneider and Michel Piccoli. It was Schneider's last film.
Bent is a 1997 British-Japanese drama film directed by Sean Mathias, based on the 1979 play of the same name by Martin Sherman, who also wrote the screenplay. It revolves around the persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany after the murder of SA leader Ernst Röhm on the Night of the Long Knives.
Amon Leopold Göth was an Austrian SS functionary and war criminal. He served as the commandant of the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp in Płaszów in German-occupied Poland for most of the camp's existence during World War II.
Luci Pollreis was an Austrian woman who was recognized as Righteous among the Nations for saving three Jews hiding from the Gestapo in Vienna during World War II.
Salon Kitty is a 1976 erotic-war-drama film directed by Tinto Brass. The film was co-produced by Italy, France and West Germany. It is based on the novel of the same name by Peter Norden, covering the real life events of the Salon Kitty operation, under which the Sicherheitsdienst took over an expensive brothel in Berlin, had the place wire tapped, and replaced all the prostitutes with trained spies, in order to gather information on various members of the Nazi party and foreign dignitaries.
"Deutscher Girls" is a song by Adam and the Ants. Initially included in the 1978 Derek Jarman film Jubilee, in which Adam Ant appears as "The Kid", the song was not released as a single until 12 February 1982 when it reached number 13 in the UK Singles Chart.
Piero Terracina was an Italian Jewish manager, Holocaust survivor.
