Educational Media Reviews Online

Six Million and One follows filmmaker David Fisher, his sister Esti and his brothers Gideon and Ramon as they visit the places where their late father Joseph was held prisoner during the last months of World War II. The four siblings have differing views and attitudes towards Joseph and the impact of the Holocaust on their family; at first only David feels this trip is even necessary. As they tour the sites of lesser-known concentration camps Gusen II and Gunskirchen and descend into the Birgkristall tunnels—an underground Nazi airplane factory their seventeen-year-old father was forced to help build—they reminisce, argue, tease each other, and struggle to understand the significance to themselves of their father’s experience. Joseph never discussed the Holocaust with his children but left them a detailed memoir, which only David has read as the Fishers begin their trip. At the former sites of Gusen II and Gunskirchen many camp buildings have been converted to private homes or public spaces. The Fishers take an eerie audio tour of Gusen II and David interviews locals who are trying to preserve the sites. In a further effort to understand Joseph’s memoir, David also travels to the United States to see the surviving American soldiers who liberated the camp; they describe their horror at the inmates’ condition, still weeping over how little they were able to help injured and starving prisoners. By the film’s end David Fisher’s siblings have come to some agreement about the trip and all are paging through Joseph’s memoir as they picnic at the farm where he first stayed after liberation—where “he got his life back.” A lovely, eerie and well-produced film, highly recommended.