God is on trial - BBC 2 Play on now

[Buzzer]

Wow!

This is PROPER television viewing. Not dumbing down, not faffing about with z-list reality cookery programmes.

This is big stuff. Great acting, superb script and what a subject matter. All the more poignant because I went to Auschwitz in July and was left somewhat unmoved (which surprised me). I found it unreal and impossible to relate to. This play on the other hand....

Hats off to the Beeb.

 

[Buzzer]

Please, CB. Not on this thread.

 

[The Large One]

You say you were unmoved then, do you reckon you've been moved looking back on it?

I'm asking because I've not been to Auschwitz, but do intend to go one day, and I'd be keen to think what others think.

For instance, I've been to Anne Frank's House, and it wasn't what I was expecting, and I've been trying to get the missus to go, but she won't. She doesn't think she could handle it.

 

[Starry]

i was reading about this earlier today. it sounded very good. i am a big fan of cottrell boyce, it is good to see him doing stuff for tv again. hopefully this is the first of many from him.

have to wait for it to come on the iplayer though.

 

[Buzzer]

You say you were unmoved then, do you reckon you've been moved looking back on it?

I'm asking because I've not been to Auschwitz, but do intend to go one day, and I'd be keen to think what others think.

For instance, I've been to Anne Frank's House, and it wasn't what I was expecting, and I've been trying to get the missus to go, but she won't. She doesn't think she could handle it.

Probably not, Al. I'd read quite a bit Holocaust stuff and the pictures, the stories, the photos all affected me but there was just something not real about it in real life. It just felt too quiet, too small and just impossible to get my head around the numbers of people, the brutality that could happen in that place. I really, really thought I'd come out in floods of tears but there were 2 things only that blew me away.

The first was the mountain of human hair on display. f***, that was breathtakingly shocking. Secondly - and Matt and Marcus (Wilko and Tony Meola) will also verify, there was one specific photo on a wall of photos of early inmates. This poor bloke lasted about 3 months there (quite a long time compared too). The photo showed him in absolute FEAR. You could taste it, it was so written across his face. I've NEVER seen a face so afraid in my life.

Anne Frank's house felt a bit unreal too. I found the WWI war graves more profound.

Let me just add that I'm not belittling what happened or deliberately trying to be disrespectful. My reaction surprised me too. The unrealness is not me saying it didn't happen. It means I can't get my head around it.

 

[portlock seagull]

In Athens and Salonika today, you can still see the Jewish gravestones that the germans ripped up and used deliberately to form pavements and use as hardcore in buildings. It's still there 60 years on, people pounding the pavements walking on them on their way to work utterly oblivious to it.

Anyway, have taped this programme tonight as wife didn't want to watch it. Good to see it's worth a watch.

 

[Basil Fawlty]

Bollocks, I totally forgot about this was on!

 

[Easy 10]

I kind of know where you're coming from Buzzer.
I am currently reading The Holocaust by Martin Gilbert. Its a huge volume documenting the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis (as well as the other various eastern european citizens) against the Jews during WW2, and after a while, the stats just get mind-boggling. I'm reading it, I'm taking it in, but I'm struggling to comprehend the sheer numbers involved because the massacres are so widespread and so numerous.

I FEEL I should be more horrified....and reading the numbers, I should be. But I can't quite connect with it. I don't know what it is. I think I'd have to visit one of the death camps to really bring it home (but I'm not sure I'd want to).

 

[Easy 10]

I had no idea about this God On Trial play. Hopefully I can pick it up on BBC iplayer.

 

[Buzzer]

Bollocks, I totally forgot about this was on!

Then don't panic.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00dc2hn/b00dc2h5/

Very accessible. Very powerful stuff. the bit that really got me was the Dutch Jew explaining the choice (sic) that he was offered by the Nazi. That bloke who played the jew is a very good actor. Played the mate of Pierrepoint in the film Pierrepoint. Was also in that recent Mike Leigh film. Made me think what I'd do faced with such a "choice". I'd probably say take me with both my boys. Actually I haven't got a clue and never will need to find out thank God.

I digress. Seriously, if you've got an hour going dpare then you could do worse than watch it. Sher's role in the end shows why he is such a damned good actor too.

 

[The Large One]

It's got Anthony Sher in it?

Deffo have to watch. Ta for the head's up.

 

[Gully]

I read the book called if this is a man by Primo Levi, following a recommendation from someone on NSC, that was a truly moving account of his experience in Auschwitz...then later watched a programme about Levi, which was a monologue acted out by (I think) Anthony Sher, quite brilliant.

Ironically, the film about Pierrepoint was on the other week, he executed many of the Nazis after they were put on trial and found guilty of crimes against humanity. It was a pretty graphic and although I knew that it was acting, albeit about true events, it still made me feel really uncomfortable...but how good an actor is Timothy Spall?

 

[Twinkle Toes]

Thanks for putting a thread up about this Buzzer. I didn't realise this was on tonight (I've been out anyway), but I'll watch it tomorrow via the iplayer wotsit.

 

[Evil Edna]

Will be watching this tonight on iplayer for sure, don't have TV so always have to be a day behind everyone else.

 

[Brovion]

I kind of know where you're coming from Buzzer.
I am currently reading The Holocaust by Martin Gilbert. Its a huge volume documenting the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis (as well as the other various eastern european citizens) against the Jews during WW2, and after a while, the stats just get mind-boggling. I'm reading it, I'm taking it in, but I'm struggling to comprehend the sheer numbers involved because the massacres are so widespread and so numerous.

I FEEL I should be more horrified....and reading the numbers, I should be. But I can't quite connect with it. I don't know what it is. I think I'd have to visit one of the death camps to really bring it home (but I'm not sure I'd want to).

I don't think it's jut you (or Buzzer) I think it's a human condition. It was probably best summed up by a saying which goes something like "One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is just a statistic". I think as humans we need to relate before we can feel anything; that's why tabloids and more sensationalist programmes will always try and pick an individual as representative of a tragedy. So rather than saying "An earthquake killed 2 million people in Japan" it would be "She was just a normal little girl but suddenly her life was ripped apart when the earth split asunder and her house collapsed, killing her doting mother, wonderful father, happy siblings and her beloved pet dog. Now she's all alone in the world."

I'm sorry, I'm being flippant, but I'm guessing that if you don't know anybody who died at Auschwitz then it IS hard to get a 'handle' on it; you get the feeling you should be more uoset than you are. If you knew someone who'd died, or even (as was the case with this programme) simply sympathised with the characters in a drama, you can relate to the pain better.

 

[Easy 10]

I think you're probably spot on there Brovion.

 

[strings]

Sort-of related question - I have been interested to see everybody's thoughts on Auschwitz, which is somewhere I am hoping to go one day. I went to Sachsenhausen (sp?) a few years ago and found it shocking, which surprised me as it was only one of the minor 'work camps' as opposed to some of the extermnation camps such as Auschwitz. What stuck me was how raw it was - some parts were continuing to be used well into the 1960's under Soviet rule.

I would like to know if anybody has been to Hiroshima/Nagasaki? I am currently writing the dissertation for my masters' degree on this subject, and wondered if anybody has been and whether it was worthwhile.

 

[Cheeky Monkey]

Rather than God, the BBC should be 'on trial' for putting on a Holocaust play where the characters look as though they've been tucking into four course meals three times a day.

 

[Easy 10]

Rather than God, the BBC should be 'on trial' for putting on a Holocaust play where the characters look as though they've been tucking into four course meals three times a day.

Fair point, but not ALL the jews arrived at Auschwitz starving and malnourished. And some wern't alive there long enough to ever reach that condition.