CONCENTRATION CAMP BELSEN [Allocated Title]

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  • Title: CONCENTRATION CAMP BELSEN [Allocated Title]
  • Film Number: A70 311/1
  • Other titles: BRITISH ARMY OPERATIONS IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR [Allocated Series Title]
  • Summary: Scenes at Bergen-Belsen camp, including hospital blocks and ambulances.
  • Description: A young woman wearing rags in her hair puts on clean clothes outside a tent at Bergen-Belsen . A man crouches beside her. Close up of a hand brushing the back of the woman's jacket with a clothes brush. An ambulance drives past a cleansing station, ST.17. Other ambulances are parked outside. Another ambulance moves off, past two soldiers talking. Close up from driver's point of view of the steering wheel of an ambulance. Side view of the female driver's face. Close up of Red Crosses on the ambulance doors and the wording British Red Cross & Order of St. John A58499. The ambulance driver (identified in the dope sheet as Miss Russell Smith of Hartfield, Sussex and a member of British Red Cross Civilian Relief, Team 103) gets out and goes to the back of the ambulance. She and others remove stretcher cases from the ambulance. Close up of a man on a stretcher being carried into the hospital. Close up shots of a Russian mother and her baby in the hospital. Long shots of the hospital blocks and a Red Cross flag flying in the foreground. An ambulance drives past a door to the hospital, on which the words FULL and 1 Free Bed have been written. A soldier carries a sign marked FULL and places it on the step. Men being helped onto a truck with a suitcase. A man is carried on a chair. On the back of a truck one man plays the trumpet and another the accordion. Close up of man playing trumpet. The trumpet player plays as the man beside him, smoking, beats time. Close up of the Scandalli accordion being played. Men listening to the trumpet player as he plays. Close up shots of men smiling. A Polish man sings as the accordion is played behind him. Various shots of a group of soldiers and former prisoners listening to the music. Long shots of the hospital blocks with the Red Cross flag flying in the foreground. A sign on the road reading Typhus. A soldier puts a FULL sign on the hospital step. Close up of another FULL sign. A hand chalks FULL on a blackboard. A German Jewish woman, Renate Lasker, from Breslau, speaking to Private W Barratt (of Grays, Essex) in front of a sign reading H.Q British. Close up of Renate Lasker. Close up of Private Barratt. Renate Lasker and two other young women walk past sentries and out of the camp. A sentry stands by a sign reading Dust Spreads Typhus. 5 MPH. A woman who has travelled from Osnabruk to search for her husband in the camp speaks to British soldiers via a female interpreter. An officer of the RASC is sprayed with disinfectant before entering the camp. Sign reading Dusting Room beneath words chalked onto a hut Come For Spraying With DDT Powder. Though the window a soldier can be seen spraying another. Two men resting on a grass verge as ambulances drive into the camp to evacuate more patients. Photographer Sergeant Harry Oakes of the Army Film and Photographic Unit talks to two Hungarian women as they prepare a meal. Food being distributed and women washing clothes in buckets. Close up of a woman’s face as she washes clothes. Views of trees and cattle in a field in the village of Bergen-Belsen. A woman rakes leaves under trees in blossom. Two girls sit on the grass with a toddler and a ball.
  • Alternative Title: BRITISH ARMY OPERATIONS IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR [Allocated Series Title]
  • Colour:
  • Digitised: Yes
  • Object_Number: A70 311/1
  • Sound:
  • Access Conditions: IWM © IWM (A70 311/1)
  • Featured Period: 1939-1945
  • Production Date: 1945-04-24-1945-04-25
  • Production Country:
  • Production Details:War Office Film Unit (Production Company) Lewis, Mike (Production individual)
  • Personalities, Units and Organisations:
  • Keywords:
  • Physical Characteristics:Colour format: B&W Sound format: Silent
  • Technical Details:35mm Number of items/reels/tapes: 1 Footage: 929 ft; Running time: 10 mins
  • HD Media:Yes
  • Link to IWM Collections page:
  • Related IWM Collections Objects:
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