A story of unwavering conscience and unspeakable horror, Amen. dramatizes the all-too-true history of how religious leaders in Germany and the Vatican ignored the plight of Europe's Jews during WW II. Academy Award winning director Costa-Gavras, recreates the long suppressed labyrinth of politics and piety that allowed Hitler's "Final Solution" to become a reality.
Newly commissioned SS Lieutenant and respected civilian chemist, Kurt Gerstein, discovers that the Zyklon B pellets he has developed to disinfect soldiers' drinking water are being used to gas interred Jews by the thousands. Recruited to help streamline the death camp process by a team of SS officers, Gerstein secretly approaches the Swedish Consulate, the German Protestant community and finally Vatican representatives in the hopes of exposing this unspeakable crime.
The only one who listens is Father Ricardo, a young Jesuit priest with deep family connections at the Vatican. Ricardo promises Gerstein he will alert the Pope to the Jewish genocide in hopes that the pontiff will reveal and denounce the Final Solution to the Christian world.
Costa-Gavras reveals the heroism and deceit surrounding the Vatican's response to the Holocaust with both suspenseful urgency and cool detachment, underscoring the disturbing gray areas of character that tolerated the Nazi atrocities that Gerstein and Riccardo beseech the Vatican to condemn.
Without sanctimoniousness, the bitter ironies and hollow victories that are at the heart of Amen. incriminate the Nazis, the Church, and ultimately humanity itself.
