By Danny Wein

Without any context, one could easily draw the conclusion that the opening scenes from “Das Ghetto” (The Ghetto) take place in a major, modern European city midway through the twentieth century. While true, Warsaw in 1942 also bared the distinction of housing the Warsaw Ghetto—the largest of the Jewish ghettos established by the Nazis in occupied Poland—and with it, among the most oppressive living conditions in the world.

This infamous ghetto and the original footage of it, called “Das Ghetto,” is the subject of Director Yael Hersonski’s new documentary, A Film Unfinished. A chilling, yet remarkable look at Nazi-produced propaganda footage of the Warsaw Ghetto, A Film Unfinished is one enormous paradox, showing how the Nazis portrayed the ghetto as the very opposite of what it was: a place of luxury. As viewers, we witness an extravagant party full of flowing champagne; a market full of meats and vegetables; a luxurious apartment with beautiful flowers. But this footage also includes images of the worst of the ghetto conditions. The documentary does not give the viewer the answers to why the Nazis filmed both sides of the ghetto, but after seeing the filthy living conditions and dead bodies on the street, the staged images of wealthy families eating are all the more unsettling.

Scatted within this propaganda footage, A Film Unfinished occasionally transitions to several survivors of the ghetto who are screening “Das Ghetto.” We witness their reactions and comments, which serve as a major part of the documentary. In an uncomfortably humorous reaction, one survivor comments after seeing the flowers in a luxurious apartment, “What on earth. Where did one ever see a flower? We would have eaten the flower.”

Another survivor comments, “What’s the point of showing this? To show contrasts? There were many contrasts in the ghetto.” Anyone educated on the Holocaust has learned about the Warsaw Ghetto, and “learning” about it is not the significance of this documentary. The striking, almost surreal part of the film was how convincing the propaganda was; at times, I almost forgot I was watching scenes from the Warsaw Ghetto. While “Das Ghetto” was never finished, the many staged scenes, including numerous outtakes discovered with the original film, illustrate just how well the Nazis were at producing propaganda.

Having not only learned about the Holocaust for much of my life, but also toured the area of Warsaw on which the Warsaw Ghetto once stood (it has been build over today), I was provided only a glimpse of the horrendous conditions that characterized the lives of Warsaw residents. A survivor from Germany accompanied my trip to Poland, and I remember her telling us a story of being the only Jew in her first grade class, and the anti-Semitic, genocidal songs her classmates used to sing about “killing the Jews.”

“The songs and propaganda were so convincing,” she said, “that I almost felt like joining them.” To watch this movie is to literally and figuratively see behind-the-scenes of how the events of the Holocaust were able to occur in the first place: Nazi propaganda at its finest.

Watching with my parents, I discovered that Hersonski’s documentary evokes different reactions from different people. But to me, as a Jewish student starting my first semester of college in a few short weeks, I looked at it from a generational standpoint. As the oldest Holocaust survivors begin to pass away over the next decade, it is clear that my generation will be the last to hear first-hand from survivors about their harrowing ordeals during World War II and the Holocaust. After they pass, future generations will rely on the same resources we all rely on to study the World War II today: archived interviews, video, pictures and newspaper articles.

Watching the same propaganda that permeated throughout Germany, and then Eastern Europe in the 30s and early 40s, allowed me to see how a massive undertaking such as the Holocaust was allowed to occur. And more importantly, how dangerous well-produced propaganda can be.

Danny Wein is 19 and is from Highland Park, Ill. He is a freshman at George Washington University and loves politics, traveling, hanging out with his friends, going to the movies and being active.