The sad fame of Auschwitz

"It is impossible to write about Auschwitz impersonally. The first duty of Auschwitzers is to make clear just what a camp is. . . . But let them not forget that the reader will unfailingly ask: how did it happen that you survived? . . . Explain, then, how you bought places in the hospital, easy posts; how you shoved the “Muselmänner” into the oven; how you bought women, men; what you did in the barracks, unloading the transports, at the gypsy camp; tell about the daily life of the camp, about the hierarchy of fear, about the loneliness of every man. But write that you, you were the ones who did this. That a portion of the sad fame of Auschwitz belongs to you as well."
—from Tadeusz Borowski’s review of a Holocaust testimony

Quoted in Ruth Franklin's A Thousand Darknesses

Portrait of a director - Bimal Roy

I remember watching this program on Doordarshan as a kid. What a nice surprise to come across it again on youtube! I specially remembered the scene where Nutan talks about the famous scene from Bandini. This was my first lesson in auteurism! Doordarshan has uploaded other episodes as well, featuring Raj Kapoor, Shyam Benegal, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen and Manmohan Desai (!).

Amusing censorship

This is one instance of  censorship which actually made me chuckle. I recently caught hold of a pirated pdf copy of Primo Levi's If This is a Man (which is one of my favourite books) and found this. Someone it seems was offended by the phrase "bloodless female friendships." I can't count the number of ironies here!