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In the spring of 1944 inmates of the camp, commissioned by the German camp commander Gemmeker, filmed life in camp Westerbork. They filmed the arrival of prisoners in the camp, workers in the battery factory and a football match organised within the camp. But also the horrific images of the departing trains to the extermination camps. Breslauer's material has always been preserved. A number of fragments of it are world-famous and are still used today in documentaries and other media. The residual material is virtually unknown, but at least as interesting because of the unique insight it provides into life at camp Westerbork.
Director
Status
Released
Original Language
NL
When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".
A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.
