The Maelstrom: A Family Chronicle

The film makes extraordinary artful use of a considerable cache of home movies shot in the Netherlands before and during World War II and dealing with the extended Peereboom family. Information is conveyed through subtitles and instead of a voice-over, the soundtrack consists of period sound, usually from radio broadcasts, and brooding, disturbing jazz score by Tibor Szemzõ. What we see is a Jewish family first living unknowingly in the shadow of the Holocaust and then trying to cope with it still unaware of what it will finally mean. A shot of Max Peereboom, and his family we've come to know, cheerfully sewing and doing general preparation for a trip to a "work camp" when their destination was in reality the nightmare of Auschwitz adds a devastating dimension to our understanding of the Final Solution that nothing else, no Hollywood movie, no documentary, has been able to provide.