Latest news with #AuschwitzMemorial
The Guardian
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
New ‘historically accurate' digital replica will allow films to be set within Auschwitz
The Auschwitz Memorial has launched a 'historically accurate' digital replica of the former concentration camp for filmmakers to set their pictures in, breaking a long-held taboo around shooting features at the grounds where an estimated 1.1 million people were murdered by the Nazi regime. At the Cannes film festival on Thursday, he organisers of the Picture from Auschwitz project said they have harnessed 'cutting-edge 3D scanning technologies' to build a digital model of the concentration camp that matches the site in its current state 'down to every single brick'. A second phase of the €1.5m project will involve 3D scanning the adjacent Birkenau site, which is roughly 30 times larger than Auschwitz, as well as building historically accurate digital replicas of the crematoriums and gas chambers that were destroyed by the Nazis in late 1944. 'We are responding to a growing need,' said Wojciech Soczewica, director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial. 'More and more people are coming to visit Auschwitz because they are interested in history, and it's our responsibility to provide the film industry with resources that are credible.' Soczewica said the licensing model for Picture from Auschwitz had not yet been finalised, but that any fees would go directly to the memorial and thus support its mission to commemorate the victims. Currently, the memorial only allows documentaries to be made on its site, a ban that has been in place since the late 1980s. In 1963, the makers of acclaimed Polish film Passenger were still given permission to film at Auschwitz. In the early 90s Steven Spielberg was denied permission to film Schindler's List inside the concentration camp, setting one scene outside the infamous Auschwitz gatehouse and building replicas of the barracks just outside the camp. Italian director Roberto Benigni's Life Is Beautiful, which is partially set in a concentration camp, was filmed in an abandoned factory near Papigno, Umbria, while Hungarian director László Nemes's Oscar-winning Auschwitz drama Son of Saul was shot on the outskirts of Budapest. The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial said the feature-film ban was due to the need to preserve the site and prevent closures, rather than moral concerns. But some film-makers and artists have argued that setting films inside Auschwitz is outright unethical. Austrian director Michael Haneke condemned Schindler's List as 'unspeakable' for drawing suspense out of the question of whether gas or water would flow out of the shower heads at the camp. Oscar-winning 2023 film The Zone of Interest was filmed on grounds next to the camp, but British film-maker Jonathan Glazer made an artistic and ethical point about never allowing his cameras to swoop over its walls. Asked about what kind of films could use the Picture from Auschwitz resource, the memorial's spokesperson Pawel Sawicki said: 'When assessing proposals for film projects, we put historical accuracy above everything else: whether this is what happened at Auschwitz, or what could have happened at Auschwitz, given the knowledge coming from the testimonies, historical documents we have, and years of historical research.' As to whether this could in principle allow horror films, action movies or video games to be set inside Auschwitz as long as they were historically accurate, Sawicki said the rules around genre had not been finalised. 'The lines have not been drawn yet, as this is something very new for us, but there will certainly be boundaries. The camp should not be used as a stage in any way. If the proposal is to make a film that distorts history, dishonours the memory of victims, or serves purely as entertainment, that's a red flag for us.' One of the people who has advised the project is Ryszard Horowitz, 86, a photographer who was interned at Auschwitz as a five-year-old in 1944, and survived after his family were taken under the wing of Oskar Schindler. 'I'm for keeping this story alive, and I like the idea of authenticity,' he said. Polish film-maker Agnieszka Holland, who is acting as Picture from Auschwitz's director, said she believes opening up the site for film-makers of the future was necessary to allow a new generation to confront the darkest moment in European history. 'For a long time, the horror of the second world war and the Holocaust was a warning lesson that brought about important changes, such as the construction of a European identity,' Holland said. 'But the vaccinating effect of the Holocaust has evaporated, and now we are in a similarly dangerous situation to where we were 90 years ago.'
The Independent
29-01-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
From grinding up baby animals to freezers full of roadkill: What RFK Jr's weirdest habits tell us about him
Marking Holocaust Memorial Day on Monday, the Auschwitz Memorial posted that 'Auschwitz was at the end of a long process. It did not start from gas chambers. This hatred was gradually developed by humans…. Auschwitz took time.' I am thinking about this even more after reading Kirsten Miller 's satirical novel Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books. People don't just suddenly become 'evil' overnight. It needs to be encouraged, nurtured, allowed – communal. One character in Miller's book that particularly struck me is a Hollywood actor who has found success playing stereotypical Southern roles (the 'evil' Sheriff, the 'evil' prison guard, etc) and who finds further fame by saying out loud what certain right-wing people find exhilarating on social media. He wants power – and this is how he will get it. But even he eventually baulks after encountering the real-world acolytes of the words he doesn't believe. Such consequences are a fairytale ending. We are seeing in real time the effects of people leaning into stories they don't believe to achieve power and hold on to it and the seeming powerlessness of others to change these stories with the truth. Caroline Kennedy, daughter of JFK and the former US ambassador to Japan and Australia, has taken the unprecedented upper-class step of airing dirty family laundry in public and sending a letter to the Senate laying out the total unsuitability of her cousin, Robert F Kennedy Jr for office, let alone the health secretary position that he has angled for since dropping out of the presidential race where he ran as an independent, and handing his 6 per cent vote share to Trump. People have called RFK Jr's habits 'weird' – a little too generously, one feels. Caroline Kennedy recalls that her cousin would show off blending up baby chicks and mice to feed his birds of prey (one assumes that the prey was dead – a pet shop providing live food is a new level of 'weird'). This is both a power play to those forced to watch and the sign of a terrible bird handler: who feeds a hawk puréed food? Similarly 'weird': his freezer of roadkill (the man lives in LA, for heaven's sake); discussing how a worm ate part of his brain; and his picking up a dead bear cub while hiking in New York state and later dumping it in Central Park – a 10-year mystery until the New Yorker published the story in a profile on Kennedy Jr. Treating animals as things is one step from treating humans as things. And this is the truly sickening nature of much of modern politics. In her letter, Caroline Kennedy describes Kennedy Jr as being "addicted to attention and power" and that he 'preys on the desperation of parents of sick children – vaccinating his own children while building a following by hypocritically discouraging other parents from vaccinating theirs." Indeed, over the course of a decade, Kennedy Jr has gone from publicly declaring that he had vaccinated all six of his children to saying that no vaccine is safe and effective. He has repeatedly shared false information about Covid-19 and shared conspiracy theories with such inspired ardour that their accompanying charts look credible to the casual eye. This hypocrisy from public figures, let alone politicians, is lethal. It is a slow and malevolent creep on from the days of Hollywood stars crediting a line-free face on drinking lots of water. Unregulated social media, coupled with news reporting, has allowed objectively mad and unacceptable fringe views – and behaviour – to go unchallenged to the point that they become mainstream. Look at the new Defense Secretary. RFK Jr may no longer be a drug taker, but his behaviour shows that he is far from sober. Caroline Kennedy credits her cousin for 'pulling himself out of illness and disease' but notes that this wasn't the case for 'siblings and cousins who Bobby encouraged down the path of substance abuse suffered addiction, illness, and death while Bobby has gone on to misrepresent, lie, and cheat his way through life.' This has serious ramifications for the future. The powerful won't suffer for the lies they tell – Trump and Musk were quite casually stretching the truth on X about the mission to bring back the NASA astronauts, which was planned by the Biden administration and well underway when they claimed the team had been abandoned. Whether in sacrificing healthcare or fearing the wider world, it will be the people who suffer; the people who are trampled on in the quest for control. As the old saying goes, a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth has had time to get its boots on. Lies are sexy. That doesn't stop the truth from being important – and the need to remember the past, and how we got there, is just as crucial.
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Royals from Around the World Gather at Auschwitz to Mark 80th Anniversary of Liberation
Today, world leaders will gather at Auschwitz to mark the 80th anniversary of its liberation, including royalty from around the world. Among the royals attending the solemn affair are the UK's King Charles, Spain's King Felipe and Queen Letizia, Belgium's King Philippe and Queen Mathilde, Norway's Crown Prince Haakon, Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria, Denmark's King Frederik and Queen Mary, and the Netherlands' King-Willem-Alexander, Queen Máxima, and Princess Catharina-Amalia. "To be in Poland on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, as we commemorate eighty years since the liberation of Auschwitz, is both a sombre and indeed a sacred moment," King Charles said earlier today. He added, "As the number of Holocaust Survivors regrettably diminishes with the passage of time, the responsibility of remembrance rests far heavier on our shoulders, and on those of generations yet unborn. The act of remembering the evils of the past remains a vital task and in so doing, we inform our present and shape our future." No politicians will speak at the event, only Holocaust survivors. The 80th anniversary is the "the last where we will have a visible group of survivors with us, and this is why it is so important to put the entire spotlight on the survivors," Paweł Sawicki, the deputy spokesman for the Auschwitz Memorial, said. Here, see photos of royals attending the ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz: King Charles and King Willem-Alexander were directed to their seats. Denmark's King Frederik and Queen Mary were among the royal guests. King Charles passes by Polish President Andrzej Duda and the Polish President's wife Agata Kornhauser-Duda as he finds his seat in the tent. King Willem-Alexander wore a kippah out of respect; he was joined by his wife, Queen Máxima, who wore a black head wrap for the occasion. Belgium's King Philippe and Queen Mathilde arrived with their arms linked, followed by King Felipe VI of Spain (second from left) and Queen Letizia (her face is obscured behind King Philippe in this photo). King Charles sat next to Denmark's King Frederik. They both wore headphones to listen to translations of the speeches by survivors. Queen Mathilde leaned over to speak with King Charles. You Might Also Like 12 Weekend Getaway Spas For Every Type of Occasion 13 Beauty Tools to Up Your At-Home Facial Game
