COME AND SEE (1985) B

Russian: subtitles

This movie is about the rape of Byelorussia, USSR by the German SS during WW II. 

After the Germans overran this part of Russia in 1941, the Germans performed their own form of ethnic cleansing by killing
and deporting the Jews and destroying Russian villages. They
considered the Russians less than human . . . only suited for slave labor. Among other horrors, the movie GRAPHICALLY depicts the herding of Russians in a church like building and then setting the building on fire. It also describes the horrendous experiences of a boy (about 15 years old) who joins the Partisans (Russians fighters behind the German lines). More a documentary than a drama.

This story should be told and retold to all the people in our
"civilized world" over and over and over and over and over and over
and over. If you were not cynical about the human condition before
seeing this film, you surely will be after viewing it.

If you think we learned anything after the cataclysm of WW II please
let me know. I don't think we are capable of learning. As
Shakespeare said in Julius Caesar, Act 1, Scene 2, "it is not in our
stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings".