Peter Lewis

When a regime has a separate death camp, specifically to house thousands of children, most of whom were under the age of 14, is there any point in trying to cover over the extreme brutality. The children's camp, was under the command of Catholic Nuns, all of whom stood trial after the war for war crimes. Even the Pope, knew about the atrocities being carried out, and absolved the main perpetrators, of any wrongdoing. This is a time in history, when everything was centered on the Nazis and Adolf Hitler, but equally distressing and some may say, far far worse crimes were being carried out in Yugoslavia. The Nazis tried to distance themselves from their mass slaughter of human beings, by herding thousands of victims into sealed gas chambers, closing the doors, out of sigh. The mass shootings by the Einsatzgruppen, was clinical, quick, and was over quickly, but at the Jasenovac camps, guards took pleasure in murdering their victims in the most brutal ways possible. Certain camp guards made hideous bets, on how many prisoners they could murder in a set time, with the winner killing nearly 1300 victims by cutting their throats. The cutting of the throat, beheading with an axe, or even worse, struck over the head with a large hammer, and then thrown into the nearby river, or into a large pit. Is there any point in making such a film, unless the true barbarity of the camps is shown or depicted. Few people have heard about the Jasenovac genocide, and until you read about it, you could never imagine how barbaric the prison guards were. If your going to make a film on such a subject, a time in history that few of us know about, then make it a film warts and all. Remember, the film is made from personal testimony of survivors, so get the known facts right, and if it shocks the viewer, then so be it.