"Filmdokumente" on the German concentration camps, made under Russian auspices with narration in English. This film was taken by a Soviet military film crew upon liberating Auschwitz in January 1945. People are shown in camp in winter with snow on the ground. CUs, prisoners behind wire (women and children). LSs, AVs, the camp covered with snow. Map of Auschwitz, plans for the crematorium. INT, old women in rows of bunks. CUs women in the bunks. CUs albums of photographs (showing different nationalities). VS groups behind wires, worn faces, dead in the street, men with blankets over their heads. The evacuation of the camp is shown: prisoners are helped and carried out; crowds march out (many wearing striped suits); horses and wagons carry the sick; children are led out by nuns and others, including child survivor Tomy Shacham wearing a uniform with extra-long arms and Eva Mozes Kor and her twin sister Miriam leading the group. CUs, children, showing numbers on their arms. The girl in the center of the frame not wearing a uniform but a regular jacket is Sarah Racimora. The boy to her right is Rene (Guttman) Slotkin. HAS, procession of children moving in barbed wire enclosure. CUs, charred heads and remains of bodies in the ovens. CUs, cans of gas and other chemicals, bodies in a deep trench, one woman with an embryo beside her. Russian commission examines a deep grave filled with bodies. Prisoners demonstrate a scaffold, including the trap and noose. CUs, prisoners who were professors and doctors. Shots of storehouse: human hair in bundles, piles of false teeth, razors, brushes, eyeglasses, shoes and clothing. Russian soldiers hold up some children's clothing. Suitcases from all countries are also piled up. VS, women weep beside grave. A band plays the funeral march. Choir boys follow the band. Many coffins are carried to large grave as hundreds attend ceremonies. Priests and flag bearers attend. Women weep as the huge grave is covered. Doctors examine some of the survivors: an emaciated youth, children with bad feet, men with swollen ankles, all evidences of brutality. Some still photographs of formerly healthy children in contrast with conditions in the camp. Still photos of Nazis. ROLLING CREDITS at end: "Three Allied Powers will follow them over to the ends of the world and will hand them over to prosecution so that justice be served. Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill." History: Sarah Racimora was born in Radom in 1940. She was smuggled into Pionki, deported to Auschwitz in August 1944, and liberated in Auschwitz at the age of 4. The Soviet film about the liberation of Auschwitz was shot over a period of several months beginning on January 27, 1945, the day of liberation. It consists of both staged and unrehearsed footage of Auschwitz survivors (adults and children) taken in the first hours and days of their liberation, as well as scenes of their evacuation, which took place weeks or months later. The film includes the first inspection of the camp by Soviet war crimes investigators, as well as the initial medical examination of the survivors by Soviet physicians. It also records the public burial ceremony that took place on February 28, 1945 for Auschwitz victims who died just before and after the liberation. The order to make the film was issued by Mikhael Oschurkow, head of the photography unit, and was carried out by Alexander Voronzow and others in his group. Eighteen minutes of the film was introduced as evidence at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. Another segment of the film disappeared for forty years before resurfacing in Moscow in 1986. [Source: Alexander Voronzow interview, Chronos-Films, The Liberation of Auschwitz, 1986] Acquisition Notes: This film, as well as letters, documents, photographs, and scrapbooks, were collected by Josef and Hadassah Rosensaft through the years since their liberation from Bergen-Belsen. The photographs in the collection were removed from the Rosensaft family archives. Materials were donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives by Hadassah Rosensaft in October 1989. The film was transferred to the Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive on March 6, 1991. Alternative accession numbers for this collection besides 1991.012 are 1989.0401 or 1989.226. Cameraman: M. Oschurkow; A. Woronzow; N. Bybow; K. Kutub-Sade; A. Pawlow Notes: Tomy Shacham and Eva Mozes Kor are interviewed in the 2015 British documentary, "Night Will Fall". Source: Hadassah Rosensaft Special Collection: Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive Event Date: January-February 1945 Genre: Documentary

• published: 03 Sep 2015
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