'Bawaal' Over 'Auschwitz': All About The Poland Town And Its Holocaust Link Varun-Janhvi Film Talked About

Janhvi Kapoor, Varun Dhawan's 'Bawaal' has received a lot of backlash for dialogues around Hitler and Auschwitz. Here is everything you need to know about Auschwitz, the Poland town

Bawaal' Over 'Auschwitz': All About The Poland Town And Its Holocaust Link Varun-Janhvi Film

Source : Twitter/@LoyalVarunFan, Getty Images

New Delhi: 'Bawaal' starring Janhvi Kapoor and Varun Dhawan premiered on Prime Video last week to mixed reviews from audiences and critics. The makers of the film received a lot of backlash for drawing on World War II history and historical figures like Adolf Hitler to justify the film's plot. Dialogues like 'hum sab bhi Hitler ki tarah hai' or 'har rishte to apne auschwitz se guzarna padta hai' have been criticised alot from various viewpoints. Many have pointed out how such dialogues and scenes recreating the camp experience trvialise the enormity of the horrors of the Holocaust. 

The Nitesh Twiari directorial 'Bawaal' was shot in many regions of Europe which are crucial landmarks of WW II including the Omaha Beach in Normandy, Auschwitz and Berlin. Auschwitz in Poland is one of the most promiment symbols of post War horrors of the Holocaust.

All About Auschwitz

Auschwitz, in Poland, was a complex of 40 concentration and extermination camps during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschwitz I, the main camp in  Oświęcim and Auschwitz II in Birkenau. The Birkenau camp was where the infamous extermination with gas chambers occured. There was also an Aushwitz III, a chemical conglomerate of many subcamps in Monowitz.

 

The gates of Auschwitz I with the inscription in German 'Arbeit Macht Frei' meaning in English 'work sets you free' ( Source: Getty)

 

Auschwitz collectively was called the most lethal of Nazi extermination camps. Auschwitz was the site of 'final solution', a synonym used for extermination of all Jews, differently abled people, communists, prisoners of war, and many more who did not suit and support the idea of the 1000 year Reich across the world.

 

Prisoners of Auschwitz on the day the camp was liberated by the Soviet Army ( Source: Getty)

 

Initially, Auschwitz 1, an army barracks was converted into a prisoner-of-war camp in September 1939 when Germany ( the Schutzstaffel or SS) invaded Poland and World War II began. The camp had a reputation for sadim. Prisoners were beaten, tortured and executed for the most trivial reasons. 

 

Jewish children who survived Auschwitz in 1945. The children were dressed up by the Russians with clothing from adult prisoners (Source: Getty)

The first gassings of Soviet and Polish prisoners in Aushwitz 1 happened in 1941 in block 11. It is said that the SS and police deported at least 1.3 million people to the Auschwitz camp complex between 1940 and 1945. Of these people, approximately 1.1 million people were murdered. The unofficial figures suggest more. Those who were no gassed were murdered via starvation, exhaustion, individual execution, beatings and work that drove extreme exhaustion. Some were also killed during medical experiments.

 

Women in the barracks at Auschwitz. Picture taken by a Russian photographer at the time of liberation of camp in 1945 ( Source: Getty)

The Holocaust or the genocite of European Jews during the WW II, is the best documented genocide of history. As per reports, of the 802 prisoners who tried to excape Auschwitz, 144 successed successfully. Many surived through the years they were at the concentration camp and went on to write memoirs of their experiences at the camp. Unfortunately, many notable names such a Primo Levi and many other Holocaust survivors committed suicide due to  trauma and the loss of family and loved ones during the genocide.

 

Serial number tattoed on the inside of the arm of a former prisoner of the Auschwitz death camp in Poland ( Source: Getty)

The Nazi policy of degradation and extermination of Jews was rooted in a racist and anti-Semitic ideology propogated by the Third Reich.

In 1947, Poland founded the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum on the site of Auschwitz I and II, and in 1979 it was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

 

Auschwitz camp: pile of shoes, human hair, teeth, clothes, everything from the killed prisoners was harvested in furthering the German industrial state ( Source: Getty)

It is not possible to understand the history about this town in Poland without looking at the material and contemporary evidence in the literature, arts and historical archives. 

Holocuast in literature/history

To know more about Auschwitz and the horrors of Holocaust in detail; one can best read the memoir of Primo Levi, an Italian chemist, who survived the Auschwitz camp and wrote 'Is This Is A Man', Eddie Jaku's The Happiest Man On Earth' Anne Frank's 'The Diary of A Young Girl', Lily Ebert's 'Lily's Promise', among others.

Holocaust Films to watch 

Nuremberg Trials ( documentary from 1947)

The Schindlers List 

Shoah

The Pianist

Life is Beautiful

Europa Europa