The Last Stage (1948)

Shot on location in Auschwitz in 1948 with non-professional actors speaking their native languages, The Last Stage is a landmark and influential post-Holocaust film.

The female prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp come from many countries. Wanda Jakubowska drew from numerous individual testimonies for her realistic depiction of everyday life there, a balancing act between forced labour and the infirmary, between death threats and the will to live. The cruelty of the guards and the SS mass murders are on full display. But amid the constant pall of smoke from the crematoria chimneys, there are also acts of opposition and solidarity as the women prepare for their liberation by Russia’s Red Army.