Vilniaus getas

In 1942, in Vilna, the Nazi annihilate 55,000 Jews and squeeze the 15,000 survivors in a seven blocks ghetto. The twenty-two year old sadistic commander Kittel (Sebastian Hülk) is assigned to administrate the ghetto in the capital of Lithuania, becoming the master of life or death. When he finds the gorgeous Hayyah (Erika Marozsán) sneaking with one kilo of beam stolen from the German army, he sentences her to death; but when he is informed that she was a former successful singer, he decides to activate the old theater and promote shows in the ghetto. The Jew Chief of Police Gens (Heino Ferch) uses the theater and a sewing factory to save as much lives as he can; in his ambiguous position, he kills Jews to save lives of others.

"Ghetto" is an impressively cruel and depressive movie. The first point that impresses the viewer is certainly the cruelty and sadism of Kittel. Sebastian Hülk has an awesome performance in the role of the despicable Kittel and deserved a nomination to the Oscar. The screenplay does not spare the reality of the lives of the dwellers of this ghetto and their fight to survive in times of war, including the beginning of their resistance. However, it does not show the final destruction of the ghetto after a failed uprising on 01 September 1943 organized by the first Jewish partisan unit in Nazi-occupied Europe (the "Fareinigte Partizaner Organizacje" - the United Partisan Organization). The beauty of Erika Marozsán and the dramatic and conflictive position of Gens brilliantly performed by Heino Ferch, are also amazing. The music score gives a touch of class to this great Lithuanian production. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Ghetto"

A different and unusual take on the holocaust. "Ghetto" is almost a dark comedy-musical, if you had to put it into a category ( if such a category exists...) I don't think it's fair to compare it to "The Pianist" or "Schindler's List", because this film really does it's own thing. Not everyone's cup of tea, but then I wouldn't really consider this a mainstream film. There were elements which really brought Yiddish theater to mind, in a clumsily beautiful and poignant way. I was appropriately entertained, moved and depressed, so I enjoyed this movie very much, but again, not everyone would want a movie to elicit that combination of emotions. There were some very beautiful scenes, in terms of cinematography, and despite some distracting, less than natural lip-synching, I found the music really beautiful. This film is worth watching, as long as you do so with an open mind and an appreciation for originality.

First of all, I had to say if you don't finish it you would never feel its goodness. Pianist described the Warsaw Ghetto from a pure view of a Jew. Schudler's list described from a view of a German with Humanity. Both are not enough. This movie shows a German (Nazi) Officer's mental struggling between evil and an artist. Between ghost and human. The same time, a Jew police of Ghetto also struggles mentally the same way, protecting and saving Jewish lives by killing and taking Jewish lives. If you were educated for a long time that the Jew are not human beings, and your nobel duty is to vanish them, but finally you found what you have been taught and told may be wrong. How pain you would be? The same thing as if you are a Christian, you found the Gospel of Juda is true?

When you reach the point, the Jew Police is taking "the third child" from each pair of parents for killing while assigning "the second child" to some parents with only one. You will feel what a "job" he is doing. And I can never imagine if I have a job like this.

Strong Recommended.

Very good work, i must confess i've not seen another work of this director beside this movie.

The good. The main characters are very well shaped, the artist crew, it-s so real, i have several friends that are actors, dancers, and singers, and the environment is so alike, i can see the director really knows how it is, how it feels. The Nazi guy, is the main actor, so sensitive and so unsure of what he is really doing, he was just 22 for god's sake. The end is magnificent the final performance of the main actor!!! the masacre, and at the end, there is no need of act, there is no need of keep the appearances... he could really choose what he wanted, her music and left the teather for the actors entrance.

The bad. When the girl singed looked fake, she did not breath as a singer does, she should have worked on making that look real.

This is an emotionally tale and very decent drama about the terrifying existence in Vilna ghetto including suffering , grisly executions , theatrical happenings , starvation and other grisly events until a terrible ending . Based on Joseph Sobol's play ¨Ghetto¨ recounts the last days of the Vilna Ghetto Theatre company . German troops entered Vilnius on 26 June 1941, followed by units of the Einsatzgruppe or death squads . Germans rule over Vilna and close Jews at a ghetto . It is commanded by the twenty-two year old nasty officer Kittel (Sebastian Hulk) in charge of the ghetto in the capital of Lithuania . When he finds the gorgeous Hayyah (Erika Marozsan) taking some beans from the German army, he condemns her to death; but when he is informed that she was a previous successful singer, he decides to activate the old theater and promote spectacles . The Jew Chief of Police named Gens (Heino Ferch) uses the theater to save people and makes a sewing factory . Unlike in other ghettos, the resistance movement in the Vilna Ghetto was not run by ghetto officials . Jacob Gens, appointed head of the ghetto by the Nazis but originally chief of police, ostensibly cooperated with German officials in stopping armed struggle.

This is a portentous drama about Jews suffering in the Lithuanian holocaust . Very good performances from main cast as Heino Ferch as Jew chief police who save as much lives as he can and Sebastian Hulk as sadistic Nazi who kills relentlessly and a gorgeous Erika Marozsan as Jew singer suffering the anger from villain commandant. Filmmaker Audrius Juzenas correctly directs a spellbinding portrait about the holocaust based on true facts .

Adding more details over largely described on the movie referred 'the Vilna ghetto ', the events happened on the following manner : Vilna Ghetto was called "Yerushalayim of the Ghettos" because it was known for its intellectual and cultural spirit. Before the war, Vilnius had been known as "Yerushalayim d'Lita¨ (Yiddish: Jerusalem of Lithuania) for the same reason. The center of cultural life in the ghetto was the Mefitze Haskole Library which was called the "House of Culture". It contained a library holding 45,000 volumes . Jewish groups organized events commemorating Yiddish and Hebrew authors and put on plays in these languages . The Vilna Ghetto was well-known for its theatrical productions during World War II. Jacob Gens (Heino Ferch), the head of Jewish police and the ruler of the Vilna ghetto, was given the responsibility for the starting of this theatre.Performances included poetry by Jewish Authors, dramatizations of short stories, and new work by the young ghetto people. The Ghetto Theatre was a great source of revenue and had a calming effect on the public. A total of 111 performances had been given by January 10th, 1943 and a total of 34,804 tickets were sold. The theatre was renovated to accommodate a bigger audience and create a better-looking theatre for the public eye. This theatre permitted the non-Aryan race to display their power through plays and songs .The last theatrical production, The Flood, was produced by the Swedish dramatist Henning Berger and opened in the summer of 1943, in the last week of this Ghetto's existence. This play, set in an American saloon during a flood, featured a group of people who banded together during a time of danger and need. In early 1943, the Germans caught a member of the Communist underground who revealed some contacts under torture and the Judenrat, in response to German threats, tried to turn Yitzhak Wittenberg, the head of the FPO, over to the Gestapo. The FPO The Fareynikte Partizaner Organizatsye (United Partisan Organization) was able to rescue him after he was seized in the apartment of Jacob Gens in a fight with Jewish ghetto police. Gens brought in heavies, the leaders of the work brigades, and effectively turned the majority of the population against the resistance members, claiming they were provoking the Nazis and asking rhetorically whether it was worth sacrificing tens of thousands for the sake of one man. Ghetto prisoners assembled and demanded the FPO give Wittenberg up. Ultimately Wittenberg himself made the decision to submit to the Nazi demands. He was taken to Gestapo headquarters in Vilnius and was reportedly found dead in his cell the next morning. Most people believed he had committed suicide. The rumour had it that Gens had slipped him a cyanide pill in their final meeting.During roughly two years of its existence, starvation, disease, street executions, maltreatment and deportations to concentration camps and extermination camps reduced the population of the ghetto from an estimated 40,000 to zero. Only several hundred people managed to survive, mostly by hiding in the forests surrounding the town, joining the Soviet partisans, or finding shelter among sympathetic locals.