Mathi Schenk's Last Journey to Poland (2002)

(0) based on 0 votes
In the summer of 2001, 75-year-old Mathi Schenk made his last trip to Poland, following in the footsteps of his own past. He lives in the eastern cantons of Belgium, which were forcibly united with the German Reich after the invasion of German troops in May 1940. Those who did not volunteer for the Wehrmacht were – like Mathi Schenk – sent to war as forced soldiers for Germany. When the Warsaw Uprising broke out in August 1944, the 18-year-old arrived in the Polish capital and was assigned to the notorious SS Dirlewanger Brigade. During the 63 days of bitter fighting, which cost the lives of more than 200,000 Poles, he witnessed unimaginable atrocities against the people of Warsaw. While fleeing the Red Army, Polish farmers found the young soldier wounded in a ditch. Despite his German uniform, they hid him from the Russians in their village.
Directors
Release Date
Mar 22, 2002
Runtime
01h 20m
Genre
Available in streaming on

In the summer of 2001, 75-year-old Mathi Schenk made his last trip to Poland, following in the footsteps of his own past. He lives in the eastern cantons of Belgium, which were forcibly united with the German Reich after the invasion of German troops in May 1940. Those who did not volunteer for the Wehrmacht were – like Mathi Schenk – sent to war as forced soldiers for Germany. When the Warsaw Uprising broke out in August 1944, the 18-year-old arrived in the Polish capital and was assigned to the notorious SS Dirlewanger Brigade. During the 63 days of bitter fighting, which cost the lives of more than 200,000 Poles, he witnessed unimaginable atrocities against the people of Warsaw. While fleeing the Red Army, Polish farmers found the young soldier wounded in a ditch. Despite his German uniform, they hid him from the Russians in their village.

Movies like Mathi Schenk's Last Journey to Poland

The Smuggler and Her Charges

A captivating and personal detective story that uncovers the truth behind the childhood of Michaël Prazan's father, who escaped from Nazi-occupied France in 1942 thanks to the efforts of a female smuggler with mysterious motivations.
Search similar movies
7.3
The+Smuggler+and+Her+Charges
The Smuggler and Her Charges

2016

Search similar movies
Francisco Boix: A Photographer in Hell

In 1939, just finished the Spanish Civil War, Spanish republican photographer Francesc Boix escapes from Spain; but is captured by the Nazis in 1940 and imprisoned in the Mauthausen concentration camp, in Austria, a year later. There, he works as a prisoner in the SS Photographic Service, hiding, between 1943 and 1945, around 20,000 negatives that later will be presented as evidence during several trials conducted against Nazi war criminals after World War II.
Search similar movies
5.0
Francisco+Boix%3A+A+Photographer+in+Hell
Francisco Boix: A Photographer in Hell

2000

Search similar movies
Warsaw: A City Divided

The history of the Warsaw Ghetto (1940-43) as seen from both sides of the wall, its legacy and its memory: new light on a tragic era of division, destruction and mass murder thanks to the testimony of survivors and the discovery of a ten-minute film shot by Polish amateur filmmaker Alfons Ziółkowski in 1941.
Search similar movies
6.8
Warsaw%3A+A+City+Divided
Warsaw: A City Divided

2019

Search similar movies
All I Had Was Nothingness

Forty years after the release of Claude Lanzmann’s monumental film Shoah, Guillaume Ribot reveals the director’s relentless pursuit to tell the untold, using only Lanzmann’s words and unseen footage from the masterpiece.
Search similar movies
All+I+Had+Was+Nothingness
All I Had Was Nothingness

2025

Search similar movies
Dead Gay Men and Living Lesbians

As a result of the Holocaust and later, AIDS, the male homosexual community has sustained bitter losses and, according to Praunheim, lesbian women have now placed themselves at the head of the so-called queer movement. The female protagonists in the film represent two different generations; they also incorporate the past and present status of homosexuals in society.
Search similar movies
3.5
Dead+Gay+Men+and+Living+Lesbians
Dead Gay Men and Living Lesbians

2008

Search similar movies
Stanisław Lem: Autor Solaris

An account of the life and work of the Polish writer Stanisław Lem (1921-2006), a key figure in science fiction literature involved in mysteries and paradoxes that need to be enlightened.
Search similar movies
7.2
Stanis%C5%82aw+Lem%3A+Autor+Solaris
Stanisław Lem: Autor Solaris

2016

Search similar movies
A Hole In The Head

A pig farm in Lety, South Bohemia would make an ideal monument to collaboration and indifference, says writer and journalist Markus Pape. Most of those appearing in this documentary filmed in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, France, Germany and Croatia have personal experience of the indifference to the genocide of the Roma. Many of them experienced the Holocaust as children, and their distorted memories have earned them distrust and ridicule. Continuing racism and anti-Roma sentiment is illustrated among other matters by how contemporary society looks after the locations where the murders occurred. However, this documentary film essay focuses mainly on the survivors, who share with viewers their indelible traumas, their "hole in the head".
Search similar movies
6.3
A+Hole+In+The+Head
A Hole In The Head

2017

Search similar movies
The Many Lives of Jorge Semprún

The incredible life of Jorge Semprún (1923-2011): son of a republican intellectual; exiled in the early days of the Spanish Civil War; survivor of the Buchenwald concentration camp during World War II; clandestine communist in Spain during Franco's dictatorship; controversial socialist politician; acclaimed writer, screenwriter and filmmaker.
Search similar movies
6.0
The+Many+Lives+of+Jorge+Sempr%C3%BAn
The Many Lives of Jorge Semprún

2023

Search similar movies
Elie Wiesel Goes Home

A documentary chronicling the adolescent years of Elie Wiesel and the history of his sufferings. Eliezer was fifteen when Fascism brutally altered his life forever. Fifty years later, he returns to Sighetu Marmatiei, the town where he was born, to walk the painful road of remembrance - but is it possible to speak of the unspeakable? Or does Auschwitz lie beyond the capacity of any human language - the place where words and stories run out?
Search similar movies
Elie+Wiesel+Goes+Home
Elie Wiesel Goes Home

1997

Search similar movies
St. Louis

Hamburg, Germany, 1939. Getting a passage aboard the passenger liner St. Louis seems to be the last hope of salvation for more than nine hundred German Jews who, desperate to escape the atrocious persecution to which they are subjected by the Nazi regime, intend to emigrate to Cuba.
Search similar movies
7.0
St.+Louis
The Dead Nation

A documentary-essay which shows Costică Axinte's stunning collection of pictures depicting a Romanian small town in the thirties and forties. The narration, composed mostly from excerpts taken from the diary of a Jewish doctor from the same era, tells the rising of the antisemitism and eventually a harrowing depiction of the Romanian Holocaust.
Search similar movies
6.5
The+Dead+Nation
The Dead Nation

2017

Search similar movies
Verbotene Liebe - Queere Opfer der NS-Diktatur

Sexual minorities were oppressed, imprisoned and murdered by the Nazis. Paragraph 175 criminalized homosexual men during the Nazi era – but the Nazis also discriminated against lesbians and trans people. They should be excluded from the national community. More than 50,000 queer people have been proven to have been persecuted. The documentary highlights three poignant fates in the context of Nazi terror.
Search similar movies
Verbotene+Liebe+-+Queere+Opfer+der+NS-Diktatur
Verbotene Liebe - Queere Opfer der NS-Diktatur

2024

Search similar movies
Let's Keep It

Let's keep it is a cinema documentary (99') about the still problematic attitude of the Republic of Austria towards the restitution of "aryanized" real estate which - for whatever reason - became the property of Austria after 1945. The film is also the director's bow to the victims of the darkest chapter of Austria's recent history. A chapter that seems to have been extended to a certain extent when it comes to restitution of looted property to the descendants of Holocaust victims.
Search similar movies
Let%27s+Keep+It
Let's Keep It

2018

Search similar movies
Poland 1939: When German Soldiers Became War Criminals

September 1st, 1939. Nazi Germany invades Poland. The campaign is fast, cruel and ruthless. In these circumstances, how is it that ordinary German soldiers suddenly became vicious killers, terrorizing the local population? Did everyone turn into something worse than wild animals? The true story of the first World War II offensive that marks in the history of infamy the beginning of a carnage and a historical tragedy.
Search similar movies
8.0
Poland+1939%3A+When+German+Soldiers+Became+War+Criminals
Poland 1939: When German Soldiers Became War Criminals

2019

Search similar movies
Three Minutes: A Lengthening

The story of the only three minutes of footage —a home movie shot by David Kurtz in 1938— showing images of the Jewish inhabitants of Nasielsk (Poland) before the beginning of the Shoah.
Search similar movies
7.2
Three+Minutes%3A+A+Lengthening
Three Minutes: A Lengthening

2022

Search similar movies
Nazi Death Camp: The Great Escape

The secret Nazi death camp at Sobibor was created solely for the mass extermination of Jews. But on the 14th October 1943, in one of the biggest and most successful prison revolts of WWII, the inmates fought back.
Search similar movies
7.5
Nazi+Death+Camp%3A+The+Great+Escape
Nazi Death Camp: The Great Escape

2014

Search similar movies
The Paper Brigade

Lithuania, 1941, during World War II. Hundreds of thousands of texts on Jewish culture, stolen by the Germans, are gathered in Vilnius to be classified, either to be stored or to be destroyed. A group of Jewish scholars and writers, commissioned by the invaders to carry out the sorting operations, but reluctant to collaborate and determined to save their legacy, hide many books in the ghetto where they are confined. This is the epic story of the Paper Brigade.
Search similar movies
6.0
The+Paper+Brigade
The Paper Brigade

2018

Search similar movies
Memories of a Nazi Camp

Holocaust survivors describe their experiences being interred at the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp.
Search similar movies
8.5
Memories+of+a+Nazi+Camp
Memories of a Nazi Camp

2019

Search similar movies
Golda Maria

In 1994, film producer Patrick Sobelman recorded the testimony of his grandmother Golda Maria Tondovska, a Polish Jewish survivor of the Shoah.
Search similar movies
5.7
Golda+Maria
Golda Maria

2022

Search similar movies
Hitler's Games, Berlin 1936

Summer 1936 - The Berlin Olympics, organized by the Nazi regime on the eve of World War II, acted as a grand showcase for a Germany that was athletic, peaceful and rejuvenated. The violence and hate that until then had reigned in the streets of Berlin suddenly vanished. Adolf Hitler became the triumphant host of European countries he would soon try to invade or face in a deadly global conflict.
Search similar movies
6.8
Hitler%27s+Games%2C+Berlin+1936
Hitler's Games, Berlin 1936

2016

Search similar movies
Besa: The Promise

A documentary exploring how Albanians, including many Muslims, helped and sheltered Jewish refugees during WWII at their own risk, and trying to help the son of an Albanian baker that housed a Jewish family for a year return some Hebrew books that the family had to leave behind.
Search similar movies
10.0
Besa%3A+The+Promise
Besa: The Promise

2012

Search similar movies
Paper Clips

Whitwell, TN is a small, rural community of less than two thousand people nestled in the mountains of Tennessee. Its citizens are almost exclusively white and Christian. In 1998, the children of Whitwell Middle School took on an inspiring project, launched out of their principal's desire to help her students open their eyes to diversity in the world and the horrors and enormity of the holocaust.
Search similar movies
6.9
Paper+Clips
Paper Clips

2004

Search similar movies
What Our Fathers Did: A Nazi Legacy

Can you imagine what it means to grow up as the child of a mass murderer? Hans Frank and Otto von Wächter were indicted as war criminals for their roles in WWII. Nazi Governors and consultants to Hitler himself, the two are collectively responsible for thousands of deaths. But what stood out to Philippe Sands were the impressions they left on their sons. While researching the Nuremberg trials, the human rights lawyer came across two men who re-focused his studies: Niklas Frank and Horst von Wächter. The men hold polar opposite views on the men who raised them.
Search similar movies
6.6
What+Our+Fathers+Did%3A+A+Nazi+Legacy
What Our Fathers Did: A Nazi Legacy

2015

Search similar movies
March of The Living

The moving story of the last generation of Holocaust survivors who travel to Poland with thousands of teenagers from around the world to retrace the Death March from Auschwitz to Birkenau.
Search similar movies
8.8
March+of+The+Living
March of The Living

2010

Search similar movies
Hitlers Angriff aus dem All - Das Geheimnis der V2

The Nazis knew it was their last chance. The British knew it was the deadliest threat they'd ever face. And the Americans knew it could fall into the wrong hands. The V2 rocket quickly became Hitler's greatest deadly weapon and beacon of hope to turn the course of World War II in his favor. Watch Nazi Germany's desperate attempt at victory as the Allies race to stop them and see how the V2 miraculously went from deadly weapon to amazing feat of space technology.
Search similar movies
Hitlers+Angriff+aus+dem+All+-+Das+Geheimnis+der+V2
Hitlers Angriff aus dem All - Das Geheimnis der V2

2016

Search similar movies
Chaja & Mimi

Chaja Florentin and Mimi Frons have been best friends for 83 years. Born and raised in Berlin, they had to escape from the Nazis to Palestine with their families in 1934. They talk about their complicated relationship with Berlin in a Tel Aviv café where they meet everyday. A film about friendship, homeland and identity.
Search similar movies
Chaja+%26+Mimi
Chaja & Mimi

2013

Search similar movies
Riefenstahl

Explores Leni Riefenstahl's artistic legacy and her complex ties to the Nazi regime, juxtaposing her self-portrayal with evidence suggesting awareness of the regime's atrocities.
Search similar movies
7.3
Riefenstahl
Riefenstahl

2024

Search similar movies
The Eichmann Trial

In 1961, history was on trial... in a trial that made history. Just 15 years after the end of WWII, the Holocaust had been largely forgotten. That changed with the capture of Adolf Eichmann, a former Nazi officer hiding in Argentina. Through rarely-seen archival footage, The Eichmann Trial documents one of the most shocking trials ever recorded, and the birth of Holocaust awareness and education.
Search similar movies
The+Eichmann+Trial
The Eichmann Trial

2025

Search similar movies
The Hitler Home Movies

Secluded deep in the Bavarian Alps, Hitler, his family, and closest allies hid away- issuing orders for armies across Europe while they relaxed, dined, and enjoyed an otherworldly peace.
Search similar movies
The+Hitler+Home+Movies
The Hitler Home Movies

2023

Search similar movies
Hitler's Teen Killers

They grew up under the Nazi regime. They pledged to give their lives for Hitler. They were fanatics who would not be stopped. They were the 20,000 teenagers who made up the 12th SS Panzer Division. Unleashed in France to halt the Allied invasion, they would sow terror and destruction in their wake. Historical colorized archives and a handful of survivors tell us this story.
Search similar movies
7.3
Hitler%27s+Teen+Killers
Hitler's Teen Killers

2020

Search similar movies
Shoah

Director Claude Lanzmann spent 11 years on this sprawling documentary about the Holocaust, conducting his own interviews and refusing to use a single frame of archival footage. Dividing Holocaust witnesses into three categories – survivors, bystanders, and perpetrators – Lanzmann presents testimonies from survivors of the Chelmno concentration camp, an Auschwitz escapee, and witnesses of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, as well as a chilling report of gas chambers from an SS officer at Treblinka.
Search similar movies
8.2
Shoah
Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie

Marcel Ophuls' riveting film details the heinous legacy of the Gestapo head dubbed "The Butcher of Lyon." Responsible for over 4,000 deaths in occupied France during World War II, Barbie would escape—with U.S. help—to South America in 1951, where he lived until a global manhunt led to his 1983 arrest and subsequent trial.
Search similar movies
7.0
H%C3%B4tel+Terminus%3A+The+Life+and+Times+of+Klaus+Barbie
Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie

1988

Search similar movies
Hitler & Stalin: Portrait of Hostility

A double portrait of two dictators who were thousands of miles apart but were constantly fixated on each other.
Search similar movies
7.3
Hitler+%26+Stalin%3A+Portrait+of+Hostility
Hitler & Stalin: Portrait of Hostility

2009

Search similar movies
The Last Laugh

Feature documentary about humor and the Holocaust, examining whether it is ever acceptable to use humor in connection with a tragedy of that scale, and the implications for other seemingly off-limits topics in a society that prizes free speech.
Search similar movies
6.9
The+Last+Laugh
The Last Laugh

2016

Search similar movies
Hunting Down the Nazis

For the first time, a film recounts the story of the long pursuit of Nazis in hiding from 1945 to the present day. Sixty years of investigations, set-backs trials and dramas, brought about principally by three extraordinary individuals—the Austrian Simon Wiesenthal, and the German-French couple, Beate and Serge Klarsfeld.
Search similar movies
7.4
Hunting+Down+the+Nazis
Hunting Down the Nazis

2007

Search similar movies
The Pageant

Every year since 2011, a unique beauty contest has been taking place in Haifa. The contestants are female survivors of the Holocaust. In the midst of this flashy spectacle, their personal traumas remain as deep as ever. There are many things about this contest that are controversial: it is organized by the right Zionist organization, the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, and the dubious contest itself rises the public indignation of various speakers, including other survivors.
Search similar movies
4.7
The+Pageant
The Pageant

2020

Search similar movies