Nuit et Brouillard

Título Original: Nuit et Brouillard
Año: 1955
Duración: 32 min.
País: Francia
Director: Alain Resnais
Guión: Jean Cayrol
Música: Hans Eisler
Fotografía: Ghislain Cloquet, Sacha Vierny
Narrador: Jean Ferrat
Productora: Cocinor / Cosmo-Films / Argos Films

"There is a dual meaning behind the title of Alain Resnais' eviscerating holocaust documentary, Night and Fog: a reference to the arrival of interned prisoners into concentration camps under the cloak of darkness, and the subconscious suppression of knowledge and culpability for the resulting horror of the committed atrocities. Arguably one of the finest documentaries ever captured on film, Night and Fog opens with the fluid, horizontal tracking of an idyllic, seemingly impressionistic, barren countryside. But this is no ordinary remote open field. It is 1955, and this is postwar Poland, the site: Auschwitz. Using highly unsettling, archival footage recorded during postwar liberation contrasted against the stillness of the modern-day landscape, Resnais creates a powerful, haunting chronicle of cruelty, dehumanization, and denial of personal responsibility. Night and Fog is an examination of repressed memory. Night and Fog is a scathing indictment of the conscious, deliberate obscuration of truth - an oppressive truth with moral and universal repercussions. In 1955, ten years after the end of World War II, the deflection of accountability are reflected in the Nuremberg trials, a defiance of personal guilt tempered by cowardice, as the narrator (Jean Cayrol), a concentration camp survivor, asks the fundamental question: Who is responsible? Even today, at the turn of the century, it is still a relevant question that is met with uncomfortable silence. "

On December 7, 1941, Hitler issued Nacht und Nebel, the Night and Fog Decree.

This decree replaced the unsuccessful Nazi policy of taking hostages to undermine underground activities. Suspected underground agents and others would now vanish without a trace into the night and fog.

SS Reichsführer Himmler issued the following instructions to the Gestapo.

"After lengthy consideration, it is the will of the Führer that the measures taken against those who are guilty of offenses against the Reich or against the occupation forces in occupied areas should be altered. The Führer is of the opinion that in such cases penal servitude or even a hard labor sentence for life will be regarded as a sign of weakness. An effective and lasting deterrent can be achieved only by the death penalty or by taking measures which will leave the family and the population uncertain as to the fate of the offender. Deportation to Germany serves this purpose."

Field Marshall Keitel issued a letter stating:

"Efficient and enduring intimidation can only be achieved either by capital punishment or by measures by which the relatives of the criminals do not know the fate of the criminal. The prisoners are, in future, to be transported to Germany secretly, and further treatment of the offenders will take place here; these measures will have a deterrent effect because - A. The prisoners will vanish without a trace. B. No information may be given as to their whereabouts or their fate."

The victims were mostly from France, Belgium and Holland. They were usually arrested in the middle of the night and quickly taken to prisons hundreds of miles away for questioning and torture, eventually arriving at the concentration camps of Natzweiler or Gross-Rosen, if they survived.

FUENTES:

• Film Affinity. Noche y Niebla. http://www.filmaffinity.com/es/film133039.html
• Strictly Film School. Alain Resnais. http://www.filmref.com/directors/dirpages/resnais.html
• The History Place: World War II in Europe. The Night and Fog Decree. http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/nacht.htm