Despite its exploiting English title "Nazi Love Camp 27" and despite the fact that this film belongs to the so-called "Nazi Camp films" (or, even worse, "Nazi porn films", although these films are all not pornographic) that were made in Italy following the success of both "Ilsa - She-Wolf of the SS" by Don Edmonds and Pier Paolo Pasolini's shocking masterpiece "Salo o le 120 Giornate di Sodoma", it is rather an anti-war drama than an exploitation movie.
Unlike the other films of this notorious genre - like e.g. Bruno Mattei's "KZ9 - Lager di Sterminio" or the outrageous "Le Ultime Orgie del Terzo Reich", it focuses on a very depressing story about a young Jewish woman that gets captured by the Gestapo and deported in a concentration camp, only to be taken home by a influential Nazi general with masochist tendencies (of course he only shows these tendencies towards the Jewish woman when they're alone). He makes her the boss of a brothel for Nazi officers, and at first, she accepts the job because it's her only way to stay alive. Needless to say that the story doesn't offer a happy end.
Although there are some scenes of Nazi war atrocities during the scenes in the concentration camp, but unlike similar scenes in other such films, they are never exploiting, but just show up the unbelievable crimes Nazi Germany committed during World War II. The end of the film, which is a very realistic approach to this difficult topic, is pure tragedy and kicks the viewer unpleasantly in the stomach, because director Caiano manages to make one feel and hope with the tragic Jewish woman.
"The swastika in the stomach", how the title translates literally, is an intriguing and depressing film, but also a very powerful one that is much too rare. In my opinion, it should have a status just alongside Pasolini's far more grotesque "Salo", because it's one of the most impressing anti-war dramas that won't let you forget the terrible things that had happened in Europe during World War II.
Unlike the other films of this notorious genre - like e.g. Bruno Mattei's "KZ9 - Lager di Sterminio" or the outrageous "Le Ultime Orgie del Terzo Reich", it focuses on a very depressing story about a young Jewish woman that gets captured by the Gestapo and deported in a concentration camp, only to be taken home by a influential Nazi general with masochist tendencies (of course he only shows these tendencies towards the Jewish woman when they're alone). He makes her the boss of a brothel for Nazi officers, and at first, she accepts the job because it's her only way to stay alive. Needless to say that the story doesn't offer a happy end.
Although there are some scenes of Nazi war atrocities during the scenes in the concentration camp, but unlike similar scenes in other such films, they are never exploiting, but just show up the unbelievable crimes Nazi Germany committed during World War II. The end of the film, which is a very realistic approach to this difficult topic, is pure tragedy and kicks the viewer unpleasantly in the stomach, because director Caiano manages to make one feel and hope with the tragic Jewish woman.
"The swastika in the stomach", how the title translates literally, is an intriguing and depressing film, but also a very powerful one that is much too rare. In my opinion, it should have a status just alongside Pasolini's far more grotesque "Salo", because it's one of the most impressing anti-war dramas that won't let you forget the terrible things that had happened in Europe during World War II.