Getting Away with Murder(s)

I was lucky enough to see this documentary at Broadway cinema in Nottingham during its opening UK tour. I knew it was going to be a long film, followed by a Q&A with the Director, and Malka Levine, who is a survivor of the Holocaust, and also appears in the film. I can honestly say that I've never experienced a documentary like it before, unparalled for it its depth and intensity. From beginning to end it asks important questions and highlights layers of injustice on injustices that have never been highlighted before in the myriad of Holocaust documentaries that have been produced since the end of World War II. Like all films on this subject, it is at times harrowing and disturbing, but this is a documentary that had to be made, and deserves to be watched. It is without question an important piece of cinematic work.

I had known for a couple of years that Mr. Wilkinson was in the throes of trying to get this documentary made, though the original conception I believe was eighteen years old altogether. I had done some 'magpie' research regarding The Holocaust myself and had questioned the how and why's of how a whole nation seemingly had turned into a huge killing machine and similarly the virus of Nazism had been transmitted across Europe, so much so that thousands of others had been either been recruited or volunteered themselves for the most terrible of crimes against humanity. The 'mystery' of the how's and whys are revealed here in this most extensive and painful documentary. It makes for difficult viewing and lays out as clearly as it can the whole gamut of what happened and the reasons why millions of innocent Jews and others were eliminated and how only 1 percent of those responsible were ever put on trial. You will have to watch it for yourselves to untangle the whole terrible web of horror and the equally terrible injustice not given to the Jewish people after the war. One thing you can take away from it is the warning that we have so often been given. How ordinary men (for these were not monsters) turned their back on their fellow man, murdered innocent men women and children for a toxic belief in the hateful dogma of the other being inferior and different to you and amounting to no more than the life of a beetle you would crush beneath your feet and that these same people could then return back to civilian life and allowed to live out their lives, a luxury not afforded to their victims.

Although this documentary rigorously explored the lack of justice for the millions of victims of the Nazis in minute detail, it finished with a warning about mass murderers today being emboldened by a similar refusal to dispense full retribution today, mentioning the most recent offenders of modern times. This list ends with RUSSIA. Considering the genocide taking place in Ukraine as I write, this film could not be more pertinent to right now.

An important film on so many levels and hugely relevant in our current global and domestic political landscape. Be warned this is a long film and it is a difficult watch at times but this is history that should be common knowledge and should never be forgotten.

I had always presumed once Joseph Mengele escaped to Argentina that he remained in South America until his death. Not so. The truth about were he went and when and who he visited is truly disturbing. GETTING AWAY WITH MURDERS lays bare many uncomfortable truths - perhaps too many for some, especially those who try to deny that the holocaust ever happened.

Good documentaries tell stories, the best ones are films that the viewer learns from. And there is a lot to take in here. Emotion is overwhelming; anger and shame against compassion and sorrow.

This film really should form part of the school curriculum in the UK and beyond. Everything revealed within it could all so easily happen again, especially now in our post-truth age.

GETTING AWAY WITH MURDERS is essential viewing.