SCENES IN BELSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP (Part 2) [Allocated Title]
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- Title: SCENES IN BELSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP (Part 2) [Allocated Title]
- Film Number: A70 304-2
- Other titles:
- Summary: Unedited mute film showing Belsen concentration camp's SS personnel being made to bury some of the 10,000 unburied bodies British troops found when they occupied the site on 15 April 1945 and the arrest of the camp commandant, Josef Kramer.
- Description: START 10:10:37 A civilian German Bussing (?) gazogene lorry fitted with a wood charcoal fuel generator approaches the camera at the entrance to the small women's camp; riding in the back are the SS men seen in the corpse collection party in the main women's camp and the cadavres they are now transporting for burial. At a burial pit dug in the compound at the western end of Belsen camp, the SS men collect the cadavers from the back of the lorry and, watched by armed soldiers from the 63rd Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery (RA), they carry them by their arms and legs along the edge of the pit and drop them into the mass grave. A group of women who have gathered near the burial pit clap hands and yell insults at the SS men as they return with another cargo of corpses from the main women's camp. The camera focuses on one woman who cannot restrain her anger and shakes with rage. Other survivors rush forward as the SS burial detail passes by. Their fury makes some of the soldiers riding shot-gun on the back of a Morris Quad artillery tractor and the lorry carrying the SS burial detail and the cadavers visibly uneasy. 10:12:22 Close up shots of SS-Hauptsturmführer Josef Kramer, unshaven, with slicked-back dark hair and with a scar on his nose above the left nostril, as he speaks to somebody off-screen after his arrest. 10:13:07 .A British 'Redcap' stands guard outside Belsen camp's administrative block as armed British soldiers emerge from the doorway with Josef Kramer, the camp commandant; Kramer gestures to inquire where he should sit in the jeep parked outside and he is instructed by an VIII Corps Major carrying his .38 service revolver in his right hand to sit in the passenger seat next to the driver. 10:13:21 Two oddly-framed, out of focus shots taken in the burial compound. 10:13:28 Women survivors standing near the burial pit. Shots showing the SS 'Aufseherinnen' riding in another lorry delivering bodies for burial, filmed from the ground and from the truck itself. Two SS women drag a corpse along the edge of the pit from the opposite end to the SS men and heave it into the mass grave - the camera follows it as it drops lifelessly onto the other cadavers below. The women on the truck roll more bodies down the tailgate onto the ground from where they are picked up by their arms and legs and taken away to the burial pit a few yards away. From the opposite end of the mass grave, an SS man shoulders a badly-decomposing corpse along the narrow ledge by the side of the burial pit and lets it fall, the camera following it as it tumbles down. 10:14:23 Survivors and a British soldier watch a small bulldozer (probably loaned by the 6th Airborne Division) excavate a trench in the compound at the western end of Belsen concentration camp for the burial of corpses left to rot in the open air by the SS camp administration; they can be seen in the background. Two bulldozer operators, Driver Wrinn from Scotland and Driver Burridge from Yorkshire, take turns at the controls. The final shot is out of focus. END 10:15:27
- Alternative Title:
- Colour: B&W
- Digitised:
- Object_Number: A70 304-2
- Sound: Silent
- Access Conditions: IWM Attribution: © IWM
- Featured Period: 1939-1945
- Production Date: 1945-04-17
- 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: British Army 1939-1945 (theme) Holocaust (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: 455 ft; Running time: 4 mins 50 secs
- HD Media:
- Link to IWM Collections page:
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Related IWM Collections Objects:
A70 514-73 (ATROCITIES AT BELSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP, GERMANY, APRIL 1945 [Allocated Title]) A70 304-1 (SCENES IN BELSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP (Part 1) [Allocated Title]) A70 514-75 (ATROCITIES AT BELSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP, GERMANY, APRIL 1945 [Allocated Title]) A70 514-74 (ATROCITIES AT BELSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP, GERMANY, APRIL 1945 [Allocated Title])