AUSTRIA ANNO 1938 IN COLOR  (2012) (switchable English subtitles) 

AUSTRIA ANNO 1938 has 72 minutes of color film showing Austria, its people and landscapes as they all looked like in the year the country was forcibly annexed into the German Reich. Taken mostly from private collections, these wonderful color films not only provide a unique historical insight into the country shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, but show the beauty that was -- and still is -- Austria.  Also included on the DVD is Private Films of the March into Austria, a 5 minute film with music only taken by an amateur cameraman, which documents the German march into Austria; and The Anschluss in Austria - Linz 1938, another amateur film with musical background only. Both films total 30 minutes.

ANSCHLUSS IN AUSTRIA 1938  (2012) (switchable English subtitles)

Contemporary look at the events which led up to and included the annexation of Austria in March 1938 by Nazi Germany. The film explains the situation in Austria in the interwar period and how the mass of people in Austria felt about the Anschluss. Also included are two newsreel features: The Germans March into Vienna - March 1938, an unsubtitled newsreel showing the events in Vienna during the annexation (mostly music and very little dialogue); and a silent film with German intertitles and switchable English subtitles: The March into Austria.

ESCAPE INTO UNCERTAINTY – THE JEWISH REFUGEES OF AUSTRIA  (2012)  (switchable English subs)

When the Nazis marched into Austria in March 1938, a Jew baiting of such ferocity, which up to that point had not even been seen in Nazi Germany, took Austrian Jews by complete surprise. The assaults, arbitrary arrests and persecution which soon followed caused a rush among many Austrian Jews to flee the country and seek refuge elsewhere. This film tells the story of four of these people, who were able to find a new home abroad. What was it like to be a Jew in March 1938, when the Anschluss took place? How difficult was it not only to leave Austria, but to find a country willing to take you in? How difficult was it to adjust to your new life in a foreign country very different from your own? This film answers those questions and through personal interviews, reveals much about the seldomly told part of the Holocaust: the difficulties of flight and life in a new land.

Accompanying this film is the German propaganda film, The Fuhrer gives the Jews a City, made in 1944 in the Theresienstadt Ghetto. The director of the film was Kurt Gerron, a very successful director of films in Germany before the Nazis took over in 1933. Having missed the opportunity to emigrate to the United States several times, because of some petty disagreements about the mode of transport and what kind of work he'd find in the States, Gerron eventually ended up in Theresienstadt, where he was picked by the Nazis to make this film shortly after a successful visit by the neutral Red Cross to the ghetto. The intention of the film, to serve as a propaganda piece to counter rumors about the extermination of the Jews, came to naught: during filming, the Soviets overran Majdanek extermination camp and the story of the Holocaust got out to the world (though like most of the Holocaust stories coming out of Europe, it was pretty much considered an "exaggeration" until American and British forces overran Nazi camps in 1945). With the film's propaganda value gone, Gerron was put onto one of the last trains to Auschwitz-Birkenau from the ghetto and was gassed upon arrival. A short time afterwards, Himmler was to order the cessation of gassings at Birkenau.

TOTAL DURATION:  233 MINUTES  (Almost 4 hours).

PLEASE NOTE THAT SWITCHABLE (SOFT) SUBTITLES WILL NOT SHOW UP WHEN VIEWING THE SAMPLE BELOW.  IF YOU SEE SUBTITLES, THEN THEY ARE HARD-ENCODED (meaning, they cannot be turned off when viewing the film):