1940s
YearCountryTitleDirectorNotes
1940United KingdomNight Train to MunichCarol ReedFirst feature film to depict concentration camps.
1940United StatesThe Mortal StormFrank BorzageOne character is sent to a concentration camp and dies there, while his family is trying to leave Nazi Germany.
1940United StatesThe Great DictatorCharlie ChaplinA condemnation of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, fascism, antisemitism, and the Nazis. The film focuses on two men: a ruthless fascist dictator named Adenoid Hynkel (a parody of Hitler) and a persecuted Jewish barber. The Jewish barber is sent to a concentration camp, but manages to escape (and ends up mistaken for Hynkel, while Hynkel is mistaken for the Jewish barber, and sent off to a concentration camp). In one scene, Herring (a parody of Hermann Göring) makes a passing mention that they have discovered a new poison gas, that will kill everybody. In his 1964 autobiography, Chaplin stated that he could not have made the film if he had known about the true extent of the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps at that time.[2]
1942United StatesTo Be Or Not To BeErnst LubitschOne villain is jokingly -and repeatedly- called “concentration camp Erhardt”.
1944United StatesThe Seventh CrossFred ZinnemanSeven inmates, one Jewish, escape from a concentration camp
1944PolandMajdanek: Cemetery of EuropeAleksander FordOne of the first films to include footage of concentration camps
1945Soviet UnionThe UnvanquishedMark DonskoyFirst feature film to show mass murder of Jews and hunting for them on the occupied territories. 1946 Venice festival award.
1946United StatesThe StrangerOrson WellesFirst feature film to include footage of concentration camps[3]
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