Last Days

Theatrical Release Date: 1999 02 05 (USA)

UPC: 025192279621

Studio: Universal Studios

MPAA Rating: PG13   Contains:[Violence, Adult Situations]

Summary: In late 1944, at great cost while Germany was losing the war, Adolph Hitler brought the Holocaust to Hungary. In one of the last centers of Jewish culture, the Nazis deported and killed 425,000 people in just sixty days. The Last Days is an outgrowth of the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, as was 1996's Survivors of the Holocaust on TNT. Created by Steven Spielberg in 1994 after he filmed Schindler's List, the organization is dedicated to recording the oral histories of as many Holocaust survivors as possible before it's too late. In The Last Days, directed and edited by James Moll, we hear the accounts of five survivors of the "cleansing" of Hungary. ~ Chris Gore, Rovi

Category: History [nf]

Awards: Best Documentary Feature – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Documentary Feature – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Features: ccSteven Spielberg introduction to the Shoah Foundation
Outtakes and behind the scenes footage
Survivor's photo gallery
Production photo gallery
Theatrical trailer
Widescreen and full screen formats
English 2.0
English closed captioned

Last Days

Format: DVD

Release Date: 11/05/2002

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Theatre Wide-Screen, 1.33:1 Pre-1954 Standard

Audio: DD2 Dolby Digital Stereo

Runtime: 87 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Side #1 --
1. Before the War
2. Hitler Invades Europe
3. Occupation of Hungary
4. Deportation
5. The Ghetto
6. Protected Houses, Raoul Wallenberg
7. Cattle Car
8. Auschwitz-Birkenau Death Camp
9. A Madman's Hell
10. Experiments
11. Blind Hatred
12. A Prayer
13. Sonderkommando
14. Death March
15. Dachau Concentration Camp
16. The Liberators
17. Cannot Forget
18. New Freedom
19. Searching for Answers
20. Returning
21. Life Today
22. Remembrance
23. Closing Credits

Tom Wiener

Here is a film that offers further proof of the madness of the Final Solution. At a time when the Nazis might have tried propping up their sagging fortunes on the war front, they devoted precious resources toward deporting and exterminating Hungarian Jews. Thus, the five people whose stories are told here, all of them now living in the United States (and one, Tom Lantos, a long-serving Congressman), begin with disbelief. They had heard of the atrocities visited by the Nazis on other countries in Europe, but they never thought it would happen to them. Once the German army invaded in March 1944 that disbelief quickly turned to terror ("You were a hunted animal 24 hours a day," Lantos says) and finally to sorrow over so many lives lost and so much culture destroyed. The film is more than just storytelling and vintage clips of Jews being rounded up; each survivor revisits the old country with a child or grandchildren, to walk the old neighborhoods and among the ruins of the death camps where four of them were imprisoned. (Lantos remained in Budapest for the duration of the war.) Among the most painful memories stirred up by these trips is how neighbors turned so quickly against their Jewish friends. ~ Tom Wiener, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Steven Spielberg  Executive Producer 
Nathan Wang  Composer (Music Score) 
Hans Zimmer  Composer (Music Score) 
Ken Lipper  Producer 
June Beallor  Producer 
James Moll  Director 
Bill Basch  Actor 
Alice Lok Cahana  Actor 
Renee Firestone  Actor 
Tom Lantos  Actor 
Irene Zisblatt  Actor 

Country: USA