In this year marking 80 years since the liberation of the last concentration camps, renowned historian Sir Simon Schama has made an extraordinary new documentary film.
The Road to Auschwitz is the most personal and unflinching film of Simon Schama’s career, in which he confronts the enormity of the Holocaust as not just a Nazi obsession, but as a European-wide crime of complicity. In a journey that ends with his first visit to Auschwitz, Simon travels to mass killing sites in Lithuania – the home of his mother’s family – and to the Netherlands – a nation famed for its long history of tolerance – to reveal how across the continent deep-rooted prejudice was weaponised to turn people against their Jewish neighbours.
Simon was born two weeks after the liberation of Auschwitz – it’s been with him all his life, but until now he’s never actually been there. He has dedicated much of his career to documenting Jewish history, but has been committed to telling the story of life, not death. In a profoundly emotional first ever visit to Auschwitz, the film follows Simon as he finally confronts the ‘monster’ and comes face to face with the horrifying reality of what happened there.
The second Evelien Gans Lecture will be given by historian Simon Schama. Afterwards, he will engage in a conversation with Arnon Grunberg.
Simon Schama, Olga Zuiderhoek en verhalen van verzet
Op 4 mei herdenken we Nederlandse oorlogsslachtoffers. Op 5 mei vieren we dat we tachtig jaar in vrijheid leven. Het gebouw van De Balie heeft als voormalig Huis van Bewaring een bijzondere band met de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Kom op 4 en 5 mei naar De Balie voor verhalen over verzet. De Balie staat vandaag de
Op de eerste verdieping van De Balie, in de hoek van het kopieerhok, zit een deur verstopt. “Verboden toegang” staat erop, in klassieke letters. Je loopt er makkelijk aan voorbij. Waarom zit die deur daar? Waarom kan die niet open? En leidt de deur naar niks? Kunstenaar Sarah van Sonsbeeck zet de deur tijdelijk open.
