In early-1960s Israel pornographic, possibly anti-Semitic novels that detailed sensational tales of the torture and rape of male concentration camp prisoners by curvaceous female Nazi guards rapidly rose from marginal pulp reading to mass-market popularity.

Ari Libsker’s documentary “Stalags” is named for these pocket-size books, which were written under American pseudonyms in a style that suggested translation. (They were in fact done in Hebrew by Israeli writers, some of whom appear on screen.) The film examines the rise and fall of this short-lived craze and the doors it opened for discussing the Holocaust, a previously hush-hush subject in Israel.

Image The cover of a stalag, an Israeli pornographic paperback. Credit... Heymann Brothers Films

The film also considers possible inspirations for the Stalags, from the 1961 trial of the high-ranking Nazi Adolf Eichmann, which exposed sexual abuse within concentration camps, to the works of K. Tzetnik, a Holocaust historian or fabricator, depending on whom you ask. (His books recounted similar atrocities.)