Black and white footage of Nazi concentration camps has been colourised for the first time for a documentary akin to Sir Peter Jackson’s acclaimed First World War retrospective They Shall Not Grow Old.
Auschwitz Untold in Colour, a two-part series, will feature testimony from 16 survivors of the camps to bring “contemporary resonance” to the horrors of the Holocaust, producers Fulwell73 said.
The Ben Kingsley-narrated documentaries air on More 4 this month, to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on January 27.
The colourisation technique used on the archive footage is similar to that used in Sir Peter’s They Shall Not Grow Old, which was released in 2018.
It is thought to be the first time that monochrome footage from inside the Nazi camps has been colourised for a television documentary.
Fulwell73’s Sheldon Lazarus, development producer of Auschwitz Untold In Colour, said: “The 16 survivors who feature in this series tell their extraordinary accounts of survival and resistance against all odds in their own voices, and accompanied by remarkable colourised footage from the archives, we hope this series will help remove a barrier that separates contemporary audiences from the reality of the Holocaust so that we never ever forget the atrocities of the past.
“With the 75th anniversary to commemorate the liberation of Auschwitz in 2020 we felt it was really timely and important to bring to life the untold stories of the Holocaust in a new way.”
David Shulman, the series’ producer and director, said: “My ambition in making Auschwitz Untold in Colour was to have as much contemporary resonance as possible.
“The colourisation of black and white archive is one aspect of making this history more accessible to a younger audience and giving greater humanity to the people seen in the footage.”
Among survivors’ testimonies will be that of the “seldom heard” voice of a Romani Holocaust survivor and a resistance fighter from Lithuania, which “adds unique perspectives typically overlooked by most documentaries,” Mr Shulman said.
Other survivors featured include Arek Hersh, born in Sieradz, Poland in 1928, and Czech-born Mindu Hornick, who was recently awarded an MBE for services to Holocaust education and commemoration.
Fulwell73 has previously produced football documentaries The Class of ’92 and Sunderland ‘Til I Die.
