Overview
- Description
- Women working in a garden at Displaced Persons Camp near Paris in September 1946. Children smile and laugh, dance with young woman, Pola Stopnicki (nee Shechter/Schaechter). Pan, David Boder examines a bundle of crops with a group of DPs. Child holds up a freshly picked vegetable. CUs, DP families. Pan, group of men pose for the camera with a religious Jew reading from a book. CUs, women smile, one waves at camera, holding flowers, celebrating. Father with baby. 01:03:33 Sign above the Hénonville chateau doorway for ORT vocational training facility 65km NW of Paris: “Atelier d'Ébénisterie de l’O.R.T. Hénonville (...),” with a group of DPs posing and smiling on September 14, 1946. They pose with Boder (at far right with glasses at 01:04:07). Two women in fashionable dresses. 01:04:36 LS, car approaches the gate before a palatial building.
- Duration
- 00:04:42
- Date
-
Event:
1946 September 14
- Locale
-
Henonville,
France
- Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Drs. Nicholas and Dorothy Cummings Center for the History of Psychology at University of Akron
- Contributor
-
Camera Operator:
David P. Boder
- Biography
-
David Pablo Boder was a professor of psychology at the Illinois Institute of Technology who traveled in 1946 to Europe to record interviews with displaced persons. Arriving in Paris in late July, Boder would spend the next two months interviewing 130 displaced persons in nine languages and recording them on a state-of-the-art wire recorder. The interviews were among the earliest (if not the earliest) audio recordings of Holocaust survivors. They are valuable not only for the testimonies of survivors and other DPs, but also for the song sessions and religious services that Boder recorded at various points during the expedition. Boder's itinerary included four countries—France, Switzerland, Italy, and German—and sixteen different interview sites. On most days he conducted between two and five interviews, with each interview lasting anywhere from 20 minutes to several hours. As the weeks went by and Boder sensed his time drawing short, he stepped up the pace. Toward the end, he completed as many as nine in a single day (on September 21 in Munich). Most days total half that number; some days are unaccounted for. Boder left Europe in early October, having recorded over ninety hours of material and completely used up the two hundred spools of wire that he had brought with him. A very detailed biography is published at http://voices.iit.edu/david_boder and in Alan Rosen's The Wonder of Their Voices: The 1946 Holocaust Interviews of David Boder, New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Physical Details
- Language
- Silent
- Genre/Form
- Amateur.
- B&W / Color
- Black & White
- Image Quality
- Fair
- Time Code
- 01:00:00:00 to 01:04:42:00
- Film Format
- Master
Master 4233 Digital: Uncompressed QT - HD
Master 4233 Digital: Uncompressed QT - HD
Master 4233 Digital: Uncompressed QT - HD
Master 4233 Digital: Uncompressed QT - HD
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- You do not require further permission from the Museum to access this archival media.
- Copyright
- The University of Akron
- Conditions on Use
- Contact the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology at the University of Akron for permission to license materials for reproduction. Users are required to agree to and sign an Access Policy and Request for Digital Materials form and pay a licensing fee. To learn more, email ahap@uakron.edu.
- Copyright Holder
- The University of Akron
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Film Provenance
- The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum created digital copies of the film prints from the Dr. David Boder Papers at The University of Akron in April 2017.
- Note
- At the ORT school in Henonville, Boder recorded Gute Frank, a seamstress-in-training under the guidance of Madame Anna Blankenstein, singing a story of persecution in the song Undzer Shtetl Brent, “Our Village is Burning." She begins unwavering: “It’s burning, brothers, it’s burning! Oh, our poor village, brothers, burns...” “...Don’t stand there, brothers, looking on. With futile, folded arms. Don’t stand there, brothers, douse the fire—” At the end of the song, Gute strays from the standard text, altering the last line “while our village burns" to "while the Jewish nation burns." Guta Frank was born in Kalisz to the Lipszyc family. Her sisters had been in the Kalisz ghetto and Hasag Labor Camp in Czestoschowa.
Identification of Pola Stopnicki (nee Shejter) provided by her son, Roberto Stopnicki, via CoSe feedback form 11/23/2021. - Film Source
- The University of Akron
- Special Collection
-
Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2024-02-21 08:08:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn561967
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Also in David P. Boder Film Collection
Home movies recorded by Dr. David Boder during his postwar project in France, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany between July and October 1946 interviewing 130 displaced persons in nine languages and recording them on a state-of-the-art wire recorder. Dr. Boder captured displaced persons camps with his private movie camera.
Boder travels overseas on USS Brazil; French village; displaced persons camp
Film
MS, group of four at railroad station, including David Boder. “United States Lines Car M.” 01:00:51 VAR views of the deck of a large ship, probably the USS Brazil which Boder sailed to Europe on in late July 1946. Boder with the recorder on his shoulder, walks down the stairs on the ship. A man writes in a journal. A man wearing a yarmulke takes off his glasses. Boder with two men. Woman with her young son. More shots of the ship, American flag. 01:03:07. CU, alternating shots of Boder and a man with still camera. Other ships in the water as they approach a harbor. People on deck. 01:05:20 Rural town. Woman follows two dairy cows. Sign with arrows, “Amblainville Meru D 121.” (a town in France). Man walks with a cane, kettle and scythe down the street. People gathered around on a cobblestone street look at the camera and smile. Men on horseback lead them down the street. Donkey pulls a woman in a wagon. CUs, women with baby in a stroller. Man and young child. 01:07:13 Building in a displaced persons camp, unknown location. VAR shots of DPs, men and children. LS of the camp. Children, one with a bandage, and other DPs. Man with the cane and scythe on the sidewalk. LS, large castle-like estate. People stand in the cemetery for a funeral, wreaths. Men walk through the gardens/cemetery. Funeral procession, men dressed formally with top hats. Group outside of a building, pan up a ruined building, USA automobile in front. Street activity. Crowd. Woman rides her bike with a child in the front basket. Boys. Woman carries boxes.
Children at displaced persons camp
Film
Crowd of DPs moves off a field, wild panning shots show faces, volleyball net, camp buildings at a DP camp. The young men and women congregate in a line. 01:19:37 CU, man with two mugs smiles and talks to the camera; two women. DP camp camp building with people in the window. Large residence. VAR CUs, DPs, young girls dancing, schoolchildren. The children stare at the camera, hold hands, dance in concentric circles, smile, play, and chat. 01:22:35 Brief shot of Boder with the children, boy sings for the camera, playing. 01:23:27 Elders pose for the camera. (glimpse of girl with head bandage seen before on FV4234)
Displaced persons camp at Henonville
Film
DP stands in a garden in front of a palatial but dilapidated building. Pan of the DPs gathered in front in Hénonville. A woman and her baby. More lovely shots of the men, women, and children in front of this building. 01:10:06 The vegetable garden. Kids walk towards the camera with a man in a light-colored suit. Men work on the soil in the garden.
Displaced persons camp; tattoo numbers
Film
Young men (displaced persons) crowded on benches outdoors, pan and CUs, at unknown DP camp location. Baby in a carriage. 01:12:44 DPs display the numbers tattooed on their forearms from the Nazi concentration camps. Women sit on a bench and knit. A young man washes his feet under a faucet. Waking on a path. Large group of people stand beneath a castle. CUs, scar on the leg of a man, presumably a result of labor during the Holocaust. Palace grounds. More CUs, portraits of displaced people. A young girl holds a puppy. The group lines up in rows in the courtyard, lowering a Zionist flag.
Displaced persons camp at Funk Caserne and Dachau; ruins
Film
01:00:00 Sign: “Funk Caserne, Emigrant Assembly Center, Repatriation Center, Infiltree Center.” Soldier in front of a gate. Signs: “Deutsche Ungaren Rumanen Bulgaren Dürfen das Lager nicht betreten,” and “Übernachtungen von Gasten und Enzelnen durchreisenden im Lager sind nicht erlaubt.” Displaced men, women, children, one carries a funeral wreath. Men and women in uniform smile for camera. WS, ambulances, bombed out buildings in a city (Munich?), piles of rubble next to remains of buildings. A woman in uniform looks at the camera. Man with hat shakes her hand. VAR, several people waiting with luggage, pan. 01:02:35 Woman with a baby in her arms. Children, boy crying. Overexposed, Nazi aircraft debris, woman posing, swastika. 01:03:55 MS, gate at Dachau concentration camp: “SS Compound.” “Crematory” sign. WS, camp barracks, barbed fences, male displaced persons on camp grounds. Signs marking “The grave of thousands unknown,” “It was true. Let’s see that this never happens again,” “Hanging tree,” “Trading or bartering with prisoners is prohibited.” MS, a woman with glasses smiles for the camera. Pan, buildings at Dachau. DPs in front of a building marked “Camp Council” in English and Hebrew. Pan, Munich? destroyed, rubble below. Statue. A large billboard reads, “In town tonight, VD.” The destroyed Opera House. A sign reads, “Off limits to military personnel between 2200 0600.” Beneath it a piece of paper has been posted that reads, “Danger!!! VD!!! Contacted in this Park. This year 119, This month 22.” More shots of the destroyed city. 01:06:14 Boder at the bus station, walking towards the camera. CUs, soldiers in uniform, smiling.
Paris Peace Conference, 1946
Film
Posing on a balcony in Paris with children, one woman smokes a cigarette. Bus: “Service Special. Conference de la Paix,” children posing in the window. Ornate facade of the Academie Nationale de Musique. Statue, CUs woman seen earlier, gentleman. The marquis for the Hotel Scribe. Women and children on the sidewalk. 01:07:54 Another shot of the Conference de la Paix bus.
Street scenes in Paris during the peace conference
Film
In Paris, the American Express building on the corner. A man stands in front of the Conference de la Paix bus.
