Nazi Concentration Camps (film)

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Nazi Concentration Camps
Directed byGeorge Stevens
Produced byJohn Ford
Release date
  • 1945 (1945)
Running time
59 minutes

Nazi Concentration Camps, also known as Nazi Concentration and Prison Camps,

Nazi war crimes in the Nuremberg trials in 1945,[2] and the Adolf Eichmann trial in 1961.[3]

In 1944, General

Signal Corps cameramen to take complete still and motion pictures of the camps. The memo suggested the potential use of this footage as evidence for the Judge Advocate General War Crimes Commission.[5]

The film was presented in the courtroom on 29 November 1945 and entered as evidence in the trial. It includes extremely graphic scenes and shocked both the defendants and the judges, who adjourned the trial.[6][7] The film, approximately one hour in length and spread over six reels, comprises 6,000 feet of the 80,000 feet of film shot by both American and British cameramen. The film contains footage from the liberation of twelve camps in Austria, Belgium, and Germany: Leipzig, Penig, Ohrdruf, Hadamar, Breendonk, Hannover, Arnstadt, Nordhausen, Mauthausen, Buchenwald, Dachau, and Belsen.[8]

Contents

The contents of the films as described by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and documented in catalog entry 43452 (public domain material):

Reel 1

Army Lt. Col. George C. Stevens, Navy Lt. E. Ray Kellogg and U.S. Chief of Counsel Robert H. Jackson read exhibited affidavits which attest to authenticity of scenes in film. Map of Europe shows locations of concentration camps in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Danzig, Denmark, France, Germany, Isle of Jersey, Latvia, Netherlands, Poland and Yugoslavia. At Leipzig concentration camp [de], there are piles of dead bodies, and many living Russian, Czechoslovakian, Polish and French prisoners. At Penig Concentration Camp, Hungarian women and others display wounds. Doctors treat patients and U.S. Red Cross workers move them to German Air Force hospital where their former captors are forced to care for them.[1]

Reel 2

At

Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force commander; Omar Bradley; and George S. Patton. General Eisenhower speaks with Congressmen. They see bodies heaped on grill at crematorium and Polish, Czechoslovak, Russian, Belgian, German Jews and German political prisoners. Col. Heyden Sears, Combat Command A, 4th Armored Division commander, forces local townspeople to tour camp. U.S. officers arrive at Hadamar, where Polish, Russian and German political and religious dissidents were murdered. Maj. Herman Boelke of U.S. War Crimes Investigation Team (WCIT) examines survivors. Bodies are exhumed from mass graves for examination, identification and burial. Four-man panel interviews facility director Dr. Waldman and chief male nurse Karl Wille.[1]

Reel 3

At

Breendonck concentration camp in Belgium, methods of torture are demonstrated. At Harlan Concentration Camp near Hannover, U.S. Red Cross aides Polish survivors. Allied troops and able-bodied survivors bury dead. At Arnstadt Concentration Camp, German villagers are forced to exhume Polish and Russian bodies from mass graves.[1]

Reel 4

At

Nordhausen concentration camp, there are piles of bodies. Troops treat, feed and remove survivors who are mainly Polish, Russian and French. At Mauthausen concentration camp, Navy Lt. Jack H. Taylor stands with fellow survivors and describes his capture, imprisonment and conditions at Mauthausen. Volunteers bathe victims.[1]

Reel 5

At

Buchenwald, Army trucks arrive with aid for survivors. Piles of dead, mutilated and emaciated bodies. Some survivors among dead. Huge ovens and piles of bone ash on floor of crematorium. Civilians from nearby Weimar are forced to tour camp. They see exhibits of lampshades made of human skin, and two shrunken heads.[1]

Reel 6

British commander of Royal Artillery describes conditions at

Bergen-Belsen. Schutzstaffel (SS) troops are forced to bury dead and aid survivors. Woman doctor, former prisoner, describes conditions in female section of camp. Belsen commander Kramer is taken into custody. German guards bury dead. Bulldozer pushes piles of bodies into mass graves.[1]

Notes

  1. title card that reads Nazi Concentration and Prison Camps. However, Nuremberg trial transcripts and the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration use the title Nazi Concentration Camps.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g "Nazi Concentration Camps". National Archives Catalog. 1945. Retrieved 2023-04-15.Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  2. ^ Michalczyk 2014, pp. 25–26.
  3. ^ Michalczyk 2014, pp. 171.
  4. ^ Michalczyk 2014, pp. 25.
  5. ^ Michalczyk 2014, pp. 26.
  6. ^ Priemel 2016, pp. 104–105.
  7. ^ "FILM PRESENTED AS EVIDENCE: "NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMPS"". Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2023-04-10.
  8. ^ Michalczyk 2014, pp. 78.

Sources

External links
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