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madali
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« on: October 02, 2011, 05:05:PM » |
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Conspiracy (Frank Pierson, 2001)
In "Conspiracy", we have a meeting of important decision makers from different departments. In a way, I have been to such meetings, where most of it is a waste of time, departments arguing against each other, the chairman of the meeting asking for everyone's opinion but also knowing that the decision is already been made and it is all just show.
The only difference between my meetings and the meeting in this film is that, I discuss sales productions in a logistic company, while in the film, they discuss the final solution to the Jew problem in Nazi Germany. Well, my job probably doesn't affect people's lives that much.
The film is based on the Wannsee Conference, a meeting held in Nazi Germany on 20 January 1942. Apparently, the meeting was used to discuss the final solution to the Jew problem, such as deporting them, using them in hard labor, etc. The movie acts like it was a significant meeting that was somewhat responsible for pushing forward the actual holocaust policy, but Wikipedia, my old trusty friend, pours cold water over that. The meeting seems to have just been just another meeting in a busy week for the attendees. But that is part of the fascination also. Not how important the meeting was, but how normal it was. Genocide is nothing unique in the history of the human race and it has happened before and after the Holocaust, but what makes it unique in Germany's case, is the Nazi's emotionless, technical, efficient approach to it. It wasn't maniac soldiers macheting the enemy, it was a well-planned, approach to a defined problem.
Admittedly, the Holocaust has been done to gas chambers by the film industry, but at least, in this film's case, it was still interesting to have the full movie be about several people in a room, having a meeting.
Oh, by the way, something interesting that I saw in the movie, and I have read about it in the actual minute of the meetings. It seems Nazis was trying to force the Jews out of Germany, but no country was accepting them, and those that were, were asking for high amounts of money to accept the Jews! Meaning, one of the ways the holocaust could have been avoided was if other countries had just welcomed them.
From the actual minutes of the meeting,
"The work concerned with emigration was, later on, not only a German problem, but also a problem with which the authorities of the countries to which the flow of emigrants was being directed would have to deal. Financial difficulties, such as the demand by various foreign governments for increasing sums of money to be presented at the time of the landing, the lack of shipping space, increasing restriction of entry permits, or the cancelling of such, increased extraordinarily the difficulties of emigration. In spite of these difficulties, 537,000 Jews were sent out of the country between the takeover of power and the deadline of 31 October 1941."
4/5
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