SCENES IN BELSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP (Part 1) [Allocated Title]

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  • Title: SCENES IN BELSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP (Part 1) [Allocated Title]
  • Film Number: A70 304-1
  • Other titles:
  • Summary: Unedited mute film showing the inmates of Belsen concentration camp - the majority of whom are Jewish and female - in the first 48 hours after the arrival of the British 2nd Army on 15 April 1945, the arrest of the SS camp personnel and the first efforts to collect and bury the thousands of bodies lying in the open air.
  • Description: START 10:00:00 Scenes shot in Belsen Camp No. 2. A British 'Redcap' (Military Policeman) armed with a Sten gun and an armed German soldier (a Gefreiter in a 1915-pattern German steel helmet and wearing an Iron Cross, 2nd Class, on his tunic) stand guard together at the entrance to the Panzer training school at Belsen taken over by the British near a sign, 'Allied Military Commander. Entrance Belsen Camp'. The German has a white arm band on his left sleeve that denotes he is participating in a truce arranged between the British 2nd Army and the German 1. Fallschirmjäger Armee to prevent typhus spreading into the countryside around Belsen. Inside its grounds, a British army officer guides a three-ton truck as it is reversed and Hungarian and British soldiers unload sacks of flour from the back and carry them into one of the stables. 10:00:48 Scenes shot inside Belsen Camp No. 1 (the actual concentration camp). Out-of-focus shot of a tattooed concentration camp number (48174 ?) on the arm of a camp survivor. A small group of women in ordinary clothing with camp numbers sewn onto them talks to an Army Film and Photographic Unit Sergeant (probably Bill Lawrie). A sign in Cyrillic for Soviet prisoners banning them from approaching the perimeter barbed wire fence stands in front of the fence itself, behind which a group of women can be seen pushing a cart with soup tureens (?) escorted by an armed Hungarian soldier. A group of women survivors gather behind a barbed wire fence to wave at the camera and talk to its operator - they include Maria Salinger and Hella Goldstein (who appears elsewhere in the film coverage of Belsen). 10:01:43 A pile of naked female corpses smeared in blood or dirt, mouths and eyes open, their limbs entangled with one another. 10:02:06 A British soldier opens tins of sweets for a group of young women. Views across the small women's camp populated by women backlit by the sun and smoke coming from several open fires over which they are boiling water and cooking food. One woman stripped to the waist washes herself. A woman in a star patterned black dress cooks food in a pot over an open fire; the majority of the survivors seen here are wearing striped concentration camp uniforms. The camera examines in detail slowly decomposing naked and emaciated corpses lying in a pile in the open - the majority are female but there are one or two males, one with the tattooed number 35698 BL 24 (?). A decomposing naked male cadaver lies arms and legs outstretched on the ground. 10:04:07 A wooden watch tower standing over the entrance to the small women's camp. Scenes showing women survivors dressed in a variety of ordinary clothes and striped concentration camp uniforms preparing food for cooking and sitting in the sun near the bodies of women who have recently died. A women wearing a white slip and facing away from the camera puts on a skirt over her head. Another woman sitting on the ground facing away from the camera and naked from the waist up scratches her back (she probably has lice) and then puts on a jacket, watched by another woman lying next to her on the ground. A woman stripped to the waist washes her arms, face and upper body with a handbasin of water perched on a wooden stool. Three women lie resting, sleeping (or on the point of dying) on the ground under and on top of a pile of clothing. Women wearing mainly striped concentration camp uniforms sit out in the open air near a fire emitting dense black smoke (probably from shoes which they are using as fuel) - some are preparing food. A woman survivor, identified as Rosalie Weisner, has grasped the right hand of Lieutenant Martyn Wilson, No. 5 Army Film and Photographic Section, and tearfully presses it to her face; another woman nearby clasps her hands. 10:06:15 Camp inmates - the majority women - pass to and fro at the entrance to the small women's camp (?) past a watch tower (Number 6); a large pile of shoes can be seen in the background. From the watch tower, the camera surveys part of the adjacent 'Star Camp' where a crowd of male inmates has gathered in the space between two barrack huts to receive hot food (the nearest hut has the number 38). Looking over to the small women's camp, women are seen grouped around open fires where they are cooking food and crouched near a drainage ditch running through the camp. Survivors - mainly women - pass to and fro through the entrance to the small women's camp; some of them are carrying hot soup in bowls and pots. In the 'Star Compound', hot soup is ladled out from a soup tureen into bowls held out by a moving queue of male inmates. As the last in the queue receive their soup ration, another group of men seated a short distance away (evidently obedient to whoever is in charge here) gets up to take their place. A hand holds a complete loaf of white bread. A male survivor tucks a loaf in his left arm and holds an ordinary table knife in his right hand. 10:07:50 Tightly-framed shots showing two SS men, the one on the right an SS-Oberscharführer with an Iron Cross, 2nd Class, the other man on the left an SS-Sturmmann, having their pay books, driving licenses and wallets searched by a British gunner. The camera focuses on the SS 'Totenkopf' or Death's Head insignia on his right collar patch. Just inches away from their backs are spike bayonets on the end of SMLE No. 4 rifles held by their British captors. Overlooking the whole scene is a gunner armed with a Bren light machine-gun (from his unseen vantage point on a Crusader gun tractor). One after the other, fifteen SS 'Aufseherinnen' or women warders file out of a doorway without looking at the camera; the first two women who appear are Juana Bormann and Herta Bothe (tall with fair hair). Some of them have white arm bands on their left sleeve. They stand in a row for the camera under close guard; the nearest one is Herta Bothe. 10:09:02 A Yugoslav inmate (identifiable as such from his Yugoslav army cap) talks to Australian-born war correspondent Colin Wills. Shots of spring blossom on trees in Belsen village (the first one is out of focus). 10:09:21 SS men are made to collect naked cadavers in the main women's camp at Belsen by their British captors from the 63rd Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery (RA). They pick up the horribly emaciated bodies and swing them onto the back of an open lorry. The majority are wearing standard field grey Waffen-SS uniforms and 1943-pattern caps (Feldmütze), with the SS Eagle and Swastika insignia on the left side. However, one guard is wearing a camouflage smock normally worn by frontline Waffen-SS troops and another a white fatigue tunic. Survivors, all young women in apparently good health, weep at the terrible spectacle and clap and shout insults at the SS men. 10:10:25 A British 'Redcap' stands guard outside Belsen camp's administrative block as armed British soldiers emerge from the doorway with SS-Hauptsturmführer 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. END 10:10:37
  • Alternative Title:
  • Colour: B&W
  • Digitised: Yes
  • Object_Number: A70 304-1
  • 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) German Army 1939-1945 (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: 998 ft; Running time: 10 mins 37 secs
  • HD Media:Yes
  • Link to IWM Collections page:

    A70 304-1

  • Related IWM Collections Objects:

    A70 304-2 (SCENES IN BELSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP (Part 2) [Allocated Title]) A70 514-73 (ATROCITIES AT BELSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP, GERMANY, APRIL 1945 [Allocated Title]) A70 514-75 (ATROCITIES AT BELSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP, GERMANY, APRIL 1945 [Allocated Title]) A70 514-76 (ATROCITIES AT BELSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP, GERMANY, APRIL 1945 [Allocated Title]) A70 514-77 (ATROCITIES AT BELSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP, GERMANY, APRIL 1945 [Allocated Title]) A70 514-74 (ATROCITIES AT BELSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP, GERMANY, APRIL 1945 [Allocated Title])
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