[BwanaNdege]

He was terribly naive in some ways:

Being unable to cognitively assess the unthinkable when initially informed of it does not make one "naive".

Big Red One Movie Death Camp Scene

Terrible video copy - Lee Marvin hears a long series of slow, evenly spaced shots. When he investigates, he finds Mark Hamill clearly in shock from the horror of the ovens and the 'near death' experience when the Nazi soldier's machine gun failed to fire, twice. Marvin looks around, then quietly says into Hamill's ear, "I think you got him, kid."

A display of true wisdom by Marvin's character in bringing Hamill back from the edge of the abyss.

[pierrem15]

I agree with you: after nearly a century of mass slaughter of civilians, it was too shocking to be believed until the truth came out at the end of WWII.

I think it was a shock even to many Germans: they knew something not good had happened to the Jews, but what actually happened was far worse than they could imagine.

In a scene in the documentary Shoah there's a long interview on secret camera with an SS guard from Auschwitz. He told Lanzmann that even after a year being trained in brutality at Buchenwald or some other concentration camp, when his contingent of SS got to Auschwitz they could not believe what they saw. Some of them collapsed, vomiting.

Everyone was more naive then.

[AppyPappy]

I did theater with a guy who was in the movie. It was the only movie he ever did.