BELSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP - NINTH DAY [Allocated Title]

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  • Title: BELSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP - NINTH DAY [Allocated Title]
  • Film Number: A70 308-2
  • Other titles:
  • Summary: Unedited footage showing the Burgomeister of Celle, the administrative centre for the Luneburg Heath, and five other local government officials who have been brought by the British military authorities to witness conditions at Belsen watching its SS staff bury the dead.
  • Description: START 10:30:25 Shots showing a girl aged about eight wearing a check-patterned dress alongside several older female inmates behind a barbed wire fence in the small women's camp watching events going on a few yards away. On the other side of the wire and guarded by soldiers from the 113th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery (RA), eight SS men stand to attention behind a trailer full of corpses awaiting burial; two more SS men (including the camp doctor Fritz Klein) are in the trailer with the dead bodies. The girl is watching the SS men performing their grim task of carrying bodies from the vehicle to a nearby burial pit; once she notices the cameraman, she steps backwards out of shot. The scene at another (?) burial pit reveals SS men and SS women standing at attention at one end near a group of middle aged German local government officials from Celle who have been forced to visit Belsen by the British military authorities. Armed British soldiers from the 113th LAA Regiment RA stand guard at the site. A Bombardier armed with a Sten Gun Mk II keeps watch on two rows of SS 'Aufseherinnen' or warders; their general appearance, especially the state of their uniforms, is in stark contrast to that of their male colleagues who after a week's non-stop work collecting and burying bodies look worn-out and filthy. Shots taken at various points around the burial pit showing SS men unloading badly emaciated and soiled cadavers from the trailer and carrying them over their shoulders to drop them into the mass grave, watched by the German local government officials who stand bareheaded and without speaking as they observe the whole spectacle. Fritz Klein, the Belsen camp doctor, is seen @ 10:31:44 and at 10:32:05 collecting bodies for burial. Sergeant Mike Lewis, an Army Film and Photographic Unit (AFPU) cameraman, can be seen filming the scene from behind the German civilians. A small group of survivors, mostly women, watch silently from nearby. Close ups of the SS men retrieving bodies from the back of the trailer and carrying them over their shoulders to the burial pit. 10:32:33 With a cigarette in his mouth, Mike Lewis is seen carrying out a right to left panning shot with his DeVry 35mm cine camera as he films the SS men retrieving corpses from a trailer piled high with cadavers. When he completes his take, he steps back out of shot. Shots showing the SS men unloading skeletal and besmirched bodies from the trailer and from the back of its towing vehicle, a wood-fired gazogene Bussing (?) lorry past Sergeant Lewis. An SS man wearing a light-coloured shirt collects a male corpse still dressed in his striped concentration camp tunic from the back of the trailer and carries it off for burial past Sergeant Oakes, an AFPU stills photographer, who can be seen winding on the film in his camera when he reaches the end of his roll of film. END 10:33:32
  • Alternative Title:
  • Colour: B&W
  • Digitised:
  • Object_Number: A70 308-2
  • Sound: Silent
  • Access Conditions: IWM Attribution: © IWM
  • Featured Period: 1939-1945
  • Production Date: 1945-04-24
  • Production Country: GB
  • Production Details: Directorate of Public Relations, War Office (Production sponsor) Army Film and Photographic Unit (Production company) Lawrie, William Fairlie1919-07-01Family origin: Glasgow, Scotland (Production individual)
  • Personalities, Units and Organisations:
  • Keywords: British Army 1939-1945 (theme) Holocaust (theme) North West Europe 1944-1945 (theme)
  • Physical Characteristics: Colour format: B&W Sound format: Silent Soundtrack language: None Title language: None Subtitle language: None
  • Technical Details: Format: 35mm Number of items/reels/tapes: 1 Footage: 280 ft; Running time: 3 mins 7 secs
  • HD Media:
  • Link to IWM Collections page:

    A70 308-2

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