The Last Witness (documentary)
 

After reading a nerws story last posted last week about Rochs Misch, I ordered the Documentary "The Last Witness" from 972 films (they specialize in Israeli films).

Story:
http://news.scotsman.com/world/No-mo...39s.6703389.jp



It was interesting, not a documentary in the traditional sense, the followed Misch around for a day or two, got comments from his housekeeper, daughter, and a WWII "historian" (I put this in quotes because his credentials were not spelled out and he seemed more interested in Third Reich memorabilia, but Misch had apparently helped him out with some drawings of the bunker.

This was an odd an interesting story, my thoughts

Misch: He does not seem like the brightest guy, but does seem very friendly and I think genuinely thinks he is performing some sort of service by telling his story and talking to people and probably gets taken advantage of. They file showed him offering autographs which he said he sent out all the time, go search his name on eBay and see what they are going for. It is hard to tell if this is his intelligence, after affects from the war and some bad treatment afterwards by the Soviets, or his age. If you read accounts by people on Hitler’s staff, they all referred to him as Der Chef versus Der Fuhrer and by most accounts was a great guy to work for and a great boss. Some of them have trouble reconciling the man they knew versus what he did. Misch does not deny the holocaust, but he seems to try to minimize it and absolve Hitler of much of the responsibility. He also mentions individual Jews that Hitler employed or did nice things to as an argument.

The Housekeeper: This lady is clearly not to sharp, she seems to see Misch as a celebrity and is enthralled with him, she pretty much repeats that bad things happened, but they were not so bad and maybe Hitler was not such a bad guy.

The Daughter: This lady has some problems, she barely saw her Dad until he came back from the Soviet camps and really harbors some kind of grudge against him. She found some Jewish relative on her mother’s side of the family, married and Israeli and works to restore synagogues in Germany. All that is fine, but it almost seems hold some deep hatred of her Dad and almost makes him out to be responsible for the Holocaust. She resents why he is a celebrity of sorts and seems to wish he would have never told his story. She also mentions she did not care for the movie Downfall as it humanized Hitler and seems to think Misch is doing the same thing with his stories. She is a very bitter woman for reasons not really explained in the film

I found it pretty interesting, I wish it had been a bit longer (63 minutes) and had a bit more structure (you hear answers without hearing the question).