At the end of director Alain ResnaisÆ Nuit et Brouillard (Night and Fog), the documentary-like filmÆs narrator contends: ôAt the moment I speak to you, the icy water of the ponds and ruins is filling up the hollows of the channel house. A water as cold and murky as our own bad memories. War is napping, but with one eye always open.ö Providing viewers with a touristÆs eye-view of the site of the unspeakable atrocities of the Nazi concentration camps, the film mimics a documentary by using black-and-white photos of concentration camp horrors intercut with color footage of the camps a decade after their liberation. Based on a biographical book called SchindlerÆs Ark, by Thomas Keneally, director Steven SpielbergÆs SchindlerÆs List provides exposure of the horrors of the Holocaust through the personal story of Schindler. At the end of the film, titles tell us that ôThere are fewer than four thousand Jews left alive in Poland today. There are more than six thousand descendants of the Schindler Jewsö (Spielberg). Both films provide a different approach in exposing the horrors and inhumanity of the Holocaust, but each suggests in its own way that such an atrocity may occur in future if each individual does not recognize his or her responsibility in ensuring it does not.
ôNever forget,ö has long been a mantra of the Jewish international community with respect to ensuring the suffering and deaths of more than six million Jews during the Holocaust will never be forgotten or repeated. Both Night and Fog and SchindlerÆs List reinforce this theme. We are warned at the end of ResnaisÆ film that war sleeps with one eye open. In this manner, the filmmaker is reminding us that despite the unprecedented brutality of the Holocaust, such an atrocity might occur again in future. It is up to the individual to be wary and ensure it does not. SchindlerÆs List, reminds us of the enormous difference one individual can make agains...