AllMovie

On the afternoon of January 27, 1945, cameraman Alexander Vorontsov joined Russian troops to record the liberation of a labor camp. What he and the Russians found at Auschwitz shocked them (and the world) for generations to come. Director Irmgard von zur Muhlen worked with Vorontsov to sort through unreleased footage he shot on that historic day, compiling the images into this excellent documentary. The camera pans across mountains of personal possessions confiscated from the prisoners -- nearly half a million suits and dresses and tens of thousands of eyeglasses were among the hoarded goods. The gas chambers, the portable gallows, the warehouse that held countless bags of human hair for making socks, and the emaciated faces and bodies of silent survivors as they stare unblinking at the camera are burned into the viewer's memory for life.