The Untold Story of Hitler’s First Death Camp

A Quiet Village tells the untold story of Kulmhof, the first extermination camp established by the Nazi regime during the Holocaust. Between 1941 and 1945, more than 152,000 people, mainly Jews, were murdered there in gas vans by the SS and German Police. Six people survived. A Quiet Village is a story of humanity and remembrance, exploring the depths of human darkness but also the heights of human resilience —the fight for survival and to bear witness.

About

Situated in a small Polish village called Chelmno, Kulmhof was established by the Nazi regime to carry out the murder of Jews in the so-called Warthegau — the territory of Western Poland incorporated by Hitler’s Reich. This included Jews in the Lodz ghetto, the second largest Jewish ghetto in Nazi-controlled Europe, where more than 160,000 Jews were confined. Kulmhof was created by SS functionary, Herbert Lange, who decided on using specially-constructed mobile gas vans — in which carbon monoxide exhaust fumes were routed into a rear sealed compartment. The gas vans were built in Berlin and shipped to Chelmno village. In a matter of weeks, an ordinary village and the surrounding plots of forests became a place of horror and tragedy, largely forgotten by history in the many decades since the end of the war. A Quiet Village seeks to share this story with a new generation. The film will be told through the lens of the victims and six survivors, the perpetrators who established and operated the camp, as well as the bystanders who witnessed the events unfold.

A Quiet Village is a Blackbird Pictures production, directed by Ashton Gleckman, co-written by Ashton Gleckman and Samantha Maynard (Kennedy), and produced in association with the T4 Association (Research of Nazi War Crimes) in Berlin, Germany. Chairmen, Cameron Munro and Reinald Purman, serve as producers. Munro also serves as the documentary’s supervising historical advisor. The documentary is lensed by Polish cinematographer, Jan Barszczewski.

There could no longer be any doubt that terrible things were going on here, of a kind never before known in human history. — Heinrich May (witness)