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Summary: Unedited film showing a British ambulance damaged by enemy action and sick children in Belsen.
Description: START 10:21:09 Shots filmed in Belsen No. 2 Camp (the panzer training school) showing an ambulance driver from 11th Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC), pointing out to a medical orderly dressed head to foot in decontamination overalls the two perforations in his Humber light ambulance (registration A 1219248) made by 3cm (?) cannon fire from a Luftwaffe fighter-bomber during an air raid on No. 2 Camp at dawn on 20th April 1945. There is one penetration on the Red Cross marking on the left hand side of the ambulance; the other is at the rear on the left hand door panel.
10:21:28 A sequence showing Hungarian soldiers wearing white armbands on the left sleeve of their tunics busy digging a mass grave with spades in the compound at the western end of Belsen Camp No. 1.
10:22:03 Out of focus interior shots in natural light of sick children - all typhus victims - lying in beds inside one of the huts in No. 1 Camp. Two boys stare silently at the camera. A comb is used on the hair of a young girl. A toddler being carried by a nurse holds his hand in his mouth and cries. Scissors are used to cut the hair of a child.
10:23:25 A boy has his left forearm bandaged by a nurse - the camera focus is set on the nurse, not the boy.
END 10:23:45
Production Details: Directorate of Public Relations, War Office (Production sponsor)
Army Film and Photographic Unit (Production company)
Lewis, C M (Production individual)
Technical Details: Format: 35mm
Number of items/reels/tapes: 1
Footage: 246 ft; Running time: 2 mins 44 secs
HD Media:Yes
Notes: Summary: The Hungarian soldiers seen here were permitted under the terms of the truce between the British 2nd Army and the German 1. Fallschirmjager Armee to remain in the Belsen area to prevent any prisoners with typhus fleeing into the surrounding countryside. They elected not to return to the German lines once the truce ended.
Technical: In some of the close-up shots, the cameraman forgot to set the focus correctly and was unable to frame his subject properly, owing to the fact that the DeVry 35mm cine camera, like most others of its kind, lacked reflex lenses and was fitted with only a parallax view finder. This last deficiency was not normally a problem in shooting wide shots but tended to spoil close-ups where proper framing becomes important.
