THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD AT BELSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP [Allocated Title]

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  • Title: THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD AT BELSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP [Allocated Title]
  • Film Number: A70 305-1
  • Other titles:
  • Summary: Unedited mute footage showing the gradual establishment of some kind of order in Belsen concentration camp by the British and the use of a bulldozer to dispose of unburied bodies that constitute a deadly health hazard.
  • Description: START 10:15:35 Women survivors applaud as a Tatra (?) lorry carrying a burial detail consisting of subdued-looking SS female warders and corpses collected in the main women's camp in Belsen heads past them towards a burial pit; a British soldier from the 63rd Anti-Tank Regiment RA rides shot-gun on the lorry's running board. 10:15:43 Close up shots of at least two signposts put up by the British Military Police on a road leading to the entrance of Belsen concentration camp with the single word 'Typhus' on them. 10:16:28 Shots filmed in Belsen's 'Zeltlager' (Tent Camp) showing two men serving with 11th Field Ambulance, a Royal Army Medical Corps unit attached to the British camp administration, who are seen in their captured German Type 166 VW Schwimmwagen amphibious car; they have attached a Red Cross flag to the vehicle. They are seen talking to a young Czech woman. Sergeant Bill Lawrie, an Army Film and Photographic cine cameraman (on the left) and Sergeant Harry Oakes, an AFPU stills photographer, with his camera slung around his neck, are seen in conversation with two male survivors and a young French woman with an attractive smile. 10:17:16 A French inmate kneels in front of two pieces of wood shaped like a cross as he cooks food. A long shot showing a small bulldozer loaned by 6th Airborne Division (?) excavating a mass grave in the compound at the western end of Belsen concentration camp, followed by shots taken on board the bulldozer itself and around it as it shoves a pile of badly-decomposing corpses towards the burial pit. The bulldozer operator, Driver Wrinn from Scotland, has a cigarette in his mouth to keep the awful stench at bay but has to turn his head away to spit in order to expel the taste of death. The camera focuses both on the lifeless human remains as they are pushed along by the dozer blade like broken dolls towards the grave and on Wrinn, whose facial expression registers his anguish at the terrible things he is seeing. Afterwards, he lights up another cigarette and takes in a few puffs. A very brief out of focus shot of the bulldozer at work. 10:18:55 The bulldozer shovels corpses into the burial pit. The tangle of decomposing corpses it has collected piles up against the dozer blade. There is a replacement operator at the controls; Driver Burridge, from Yorkshire. He is wearing a hankerchief soaked in petrol over his mouth but he has to pinches it over his nostrils to keep the stench out. A close up of him operating the controls of the bulldozer. A group of woman stare silently at the spectacle. The bulldozer spreads dark-coloured soil over bodies lying in the burial pit. The camera does not flinch from persisting with recording at close range the tangle of rotting bodies being pushed by the dozer blade and the driver in charge of the operation, his face masked by his petriol-soaked hankerchief. END 10:21:01
  • Alternative Title:
  • Colour: B&W
  • Digitised: Yes
  • Object_Number: A70 305-1
  • Sound: Silent
  • Access Conditions: IWM Film: IWM
  • Featured Period: 1939-1945
  • Production Date: 1945-04-18-1945-04-19
  • Production Country:GB
  • Production Details:Directorate of Public Relations, War Office (Production sponsor) Army Film and Photographic Unit (Production company) Lewis, C M (Production individual)
  • Personalities, Units and Organisations:
  • Keywords:
  • Physical Characteristics:Colour format: B&W Sound format: Silent
  • Technical Details:Footage: 489 ft; Running time: 5 mins 26 secs
  • HD Media:Yes
  • Link to IWM Collections page:

    A70 305-1

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