List Price: $29.95You Pay Only: $26.99 You Save: $2.96 (10%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0720229910644
Format: Black & White, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Label: FIRST RUN FEATURES
Manufacturer: FIRST RUN FEATURES
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: FIRST RUN FEATURES
Region Code: 1
Release Date: June 03, 2003
Running Time: 109 minutes
Sales Rank: 40737
Studio: FIRST RUN FEATURES
Theatrical Release Date: April 22, 2003
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Product Description:
This special two film DVD features NAZI MEDICINE: IN THE SHADOW OF THE REICH and THE CROSS AND THE STAR, two riveting documentaries by John Michalczyk that confront the horrors of Hitler's Third Reich. The DVD also includes the bonus short, A Window Into the Camps, a director biography and filmography, and the photo gallery Inside the Reich: A Photographic Tour.
NAZI MEDICINE is considered 'a work of truth and timeliness' (Allan A. Ryan, U.S. Department of Justice) that studies the step-by-step process that led the German medical profession down an unethical road to genocide. It graphically documents the racial theories and eugenics principles that set the stage for the doctors' participation in sterilization and euthanasia, the selections at the death camps, as well as inhuman and unethical human experimentation. It is 'a chilling chronicle of the road traveled by the Nazi physicians from providing a medical justification for the 1933 Nuremberg sterilization laws to trying to justify their role in the holocaust as defendants in the 1946-7 Nuremberg Doctor s Trial.' (George Annas, co-editor, 'The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code'). It also 'obliges us to see how our tragic American history in eugenics theory helped to prepare the way for Nazi racial laws, especially sterilization legislation.' (Robert F. Drinan, Professor, Georgetown University Law Center)
THE CROSS AND THE STAR finds disheartening echoes of anti-Semitism in the otherwise profound, lyrical Gospel of St. John, the sermons of St. Augustine, the writings of Martin Luther and in the voices of the Crusaders and the Spanish Inquisitors - all of which may have helped sow the ideological seeds that developed into Nazism. The Cross and the Star has been called 'not only a moving and graphic history, but also the most honest and penetrating analysis of Christianity's role in the Holocaust, for good and for ill, that I know of.' (Rabbi Harold Kushner, 'When Bad Things Happen to Good People')
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - One great documentary, one somewhat above average
'The Cross and the Star' (1992) takes a look into how nearly 2,000 of Christian anti-Semitism led to the Shoah. This is a very important topic, one that a lot of people simply feel too uncomfortable to confront and come to terms with. A horrific event like the Shoah didn't take place overnight or happen in a vacuum; it's just incomprehensible how many people still believe that it was some kind of historical aberration, didn't have the roots planted and continuously girded for centuries. For every brave person who risked (and sometimes lost) his or her life protecting Jews, and for every brave priest, reverend, nun, monk, or pastor who dared to speak out against the Nazi menace, such as Pastors Martin Niemöller and Dietrich Bonhöffer, there were countless more who did nothing, who collaborated either silently or who took active part in these crimes. The churches in Europe were major powerful institutions, yet their almost total silence spoke volumes. They could have done so much to rescue so many people or to stop these things altogether, yet they chose to be silent, either through fear or because they genuinely believed in the anti-Semitic rhetoric of the Nazis. Christian anti-Semitism was alive and well literally since the religion's inception (just see the anti-Semitic libels in the Gospels, a completely false portrayal of first-century Jewry [even today most people don't know that the Pharisees were the good guys and the reformers, for example!]; the countless pogroms in the Russian Empire; ... Read More
Rating: - Horrifying
"Nazi Medicine/The Cross and the Star" looks like one of those documentaries that the History Channel plays on a perpetual loop. You know the type: World War II era grainy black and white footage coupled with modern day scholars providing historical context and a few meager details to assist the narrative flow. I tend to avoid historical documentaries because they often target viewers accustomed to MTV/modern media editing techniques. The emphasis on the bombastic and dramatic dominates every frame of these documentaries, and all of the shows must rely on historical events after the invention of photography because viewers can't seem to maintain interest in anything that doesn't move across their television screens. Sure, you'll see a few documentaries about Roman history or the Middle Ages from time to time, but even then the producers have to punch up the program with reenactments or voiceovers to keep people tuned in. As far as I can tell, about the only benefit of these shows is getting people interested enough in the subject matter to read books for further information.
Having complained about history programs, I do have to say that "Nazi Medicine" is an immensely intriguing introduction into a topic little discussed in the broader context of the Nuremberg trials. Created by Professor John Michalcyzk of Boston College's Department of Film Studies, "Nazi Medicine" focuses a spotlight on the Nazi doctor's trial of 1946. Most of us know about the first Nuremberg trial where Herman Goering, ... Read More
Rating: - The horrors of Nazi eugenics and experimentation
"In the Shadow of the Reich: Nazi Medicine" is a 60-minute documentary by Professor John J. Michalczyk, Director of Film Studies at Boston College, made in 1997, which was the 50th anniversary of the Nuremberg Physicians Trial, which was held from December 1946 to August 1947. Michalczyk went to the Auschwitz and Majdanek concentration camps to interview both survivors of the Nazi experimentations and leader scholars who studied the practices of Nazi medicine such as Dr. Michael Grodin, Dr. Charles Roland, and Professor Michael Kater. There is also an interview done at Auschwitz in 1995 with Hans Munch, a former S.S. doctor in this video, which is narrated by Donald Winning.
The film begins by examining how not only Germany but also the United States were interested at the start of the 20th century in eugenics as an example of a scientific Social Darwinism. In the U.S. eugenic studies were being funded by Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockerfeller and over half the states had sterilization laws on the books at one point. However, it was the Nazis in the 1930s who then put the theoretical work done by American scientist into practice in the Third Reich, beginning with the Nuremberg Laws excluded Jews from various professions, including the practice of medicine. It was doctors in Nazi Germany who pushed for the state-sponsored program of "racial hygiene," which meant the forced euthanasia of almost a half-million citizens with mental and physical defects. In the death camps these physicians ... Read More
Rating: - Finally--the truth
I just watched this entire video--the first part deals with Nazi Medicine, starting with turn of the century German medicine and its high acclaim. By the 1930's the field of eugenics had taken hold in many countries, including the USA. This generated sterilizations of the 'undesirables' and was the law in 27 states in America. But, Germany, already under the Nazi Regime in 1933 began with mass sterilizations--50,000 per year for seven years--and took it a step further. From mass sterilizations and then euthanasia of its own German population--Hitler decreed the incorporation of Nazi party doctors to participate in the killing machine of eradicating Jews, plus the human experimentations of Josef Mengele on 1500 sets of Jewish twins, dwarfs, etc. Most were gassed after the experiments either failed or resulted in eyewitnesses.
The 1946 Doctors' Trial in Nuremburg took place and resulted in hangings, prison sentences and acquittals. Most were free by 1967.
The second film 'The Cross and the Star' is about Christian antisemitism that pre-existed the Holocaust for 2000 years and stemmed directly from the Book of John and Matthew with those antisemitic first-century accounts. Taught for centuries by St. Augustine to Martin Luther, etc. ..the Holocaust was the inevitable result of Christian antisemitism.
The film depicts the agonizing after the Holocaust by Christian scholars and notables as well as every-day Christians, tormented by the failure of the Church to intervene ... Read More
Rating:  - Interesting but�
This video is a two-part production concerning two related aspects of the Holocaust. The first is the part that the medical doctors of Germany played in the Holocaust and the second is about the measure of guilt that the church is responsible for.
The first part is titled: Nazi Medicine. I really enjoyed learning about this topic. The video conveys the slippery slope of morals that eugenics and euthanasia played in the degradation of human life. The video makes some interesting connections between social Darwinism and Nazi theology.
The second part is focused on the guilt of the church in not standing up to the Nazis in the 1930's and 40's. I did not enjoy this part of the video as much. Although there are some valid points made here the general spirit behind this is anti-Christian. I say this not to defend those who were apathetic to the Nazis, but to counter the humanistic rhetoric that is promoted as being responsible for the survival of Jews as well as the reason for why people helped Jews; not to mention that most studies of Holocaust survivors state that faith was the number on common denominator between those who survived.
All in all, I recomend the first video but not the second.
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