PARADISE CAMP

Tells the story of the Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia, which was used by the Nazis during WWII in an elaborate hoax to deceive world opinion about the Third Reich's extermination campaign against the Jews. In 1944 Theresienstadt was hastily transformed through a Great Beautification Campaign into a so-called Model Jewish Community prior to an inspection visit by the Red Cross. The deception was so successful that Hitler commissioned a propaganda film entitled Hitler Gives a Town to the Jews. This macabre story is told through interviews with survivors, archival footage and photos, paintings and drawings by camp inmates, and excerpts from the Nazi propaganda film.

Directed by Frank Heimans and Paul Rea
1986, 56 minutes
Purchase: $310 Classroom Rental: $125

"...a moving documentary..."--Booklist (American Library Association)

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