Zeugen - Aussagen zum Mord an einem Volk

1981: for the first time, contemporary witnesses of the Holocaust speak on German television in the two-part documentary "Witnesses - Testimonies to the Murder of a People" - at prime time on the first channel. Only 36 years after the Second World War, Bremen filmmaker Karl Fruchtmann has created a counter-design to the US drama series "Holocaust". While there are hardly any people left today who can personally recount their experiences of the Holocaust, there were still many contemporary witnesses in the early 1980s for whom the murder of the European Jews was still very present. Karl Fruchtmann interviewed 60 survivors of the Nazi concentration camps in Israel and Poland, the tapes are in the archives of Radio Bremen, almost 80 hours of interviews, a historical legacy! Only a small part of them has been published so far.

Directed by Karl Fruchtmann, Zeugen - Aussagen zum Mord an einem Volk leans on a strong ensemble — Ruth Elias, David Kahane, Gideon Schuster — to carry a story that balances spectacle with character.

The film landed with audiences for its craft and performances, and remains one of the most talked-about documentary titles of 1981.