Overview
- Description
- Title card: "Banen Productions" "8th Infantry Division: Normandy. Northern France. Rhineland. Central Europe." Swastika flag. American soldiers in the Rhineland, smoke in field. Damaged cathedral in Cologne. Ruins. "Cologne air field" Soldiers board U.S. Army Air Forces Air Transport plane. Title card: "Crossing the Rhine! surely Jerry won't hold out long now!" American military vehicles cross the Rhine River in March 1945. Traveling in trucks on roads, passing abandoned tanks. Rubble in villages. Road sign for Altenkirchen. 01:07:16 Medics loading wounded military into ambulance "USA 725448-S". INTs, hospital, wounded with bandages, some on stretchers. 01:08:55 Displaced German men crouched with their belongings. White flags of surrender hanging from windows. More local civilians (mainly women and children), repair roads. Autobahn. Directional sign for Ratingen and Essen, and another for Dusseldorf. Title card: "Duisburg" Street scenes in Duisburg. 01:11:23 (color) Daily life in the city of Duisburg, civilians, bicycles. Ruined buildings, destruction. Newspapers posted on brick building exteriors. Title card: "Nonfraternization" American soldiers with local women. 01:13:20 Uniformed American soldier, likely Dr. Banen, on city street approaches the camera and smiles. Title card: "Hotel Duisburg I stayed here 5 days" EXT hotel. Filling buckets with water pump. Sign for a dentist: "Dr. Dalhoff Zahnarzt" Rubble, church, women riding bicycles. Children playing in bomb craters. Reparing a flat tire. CUs, children sitting besidTitle card: "Banen Productions" "8th Infantry Division: Normandy. Northern France. Rhineland. Central Europe." Swastika flag. CU, badge #8. American soldiers in the Rhineland, setting up mortars, smoke in field. City sign “#8 Grapefruit Blue” Sign posted by a military tank: “Sightseers Keep Out! Beyond this point you draw fire on fighting men. He risks his life 24 hours a day. DO YOU??” Cathedral in Cologne. Damaged buildings, ruins. Military soldiers. "Cologne air field" Soldiers board U.S. Army Air Forces Air Transport plane. Title card: "Crossing the Rhine! surely Jerry won't hold out long now!" American military vehicles cross the Rhine River in March 1945. Traveling in trucks on roads, passing abandoned tanks. Rubble in villages. Road sign for Altenkirchen. 01:07:16 Medics loading wounded military into ambulance "USA 725448-S". INTs, hospital, wounded with bandages, some on stretchers. 01:08:55 Displaced German men crouched with their belongings. White flags of surrender hanging from windows. More local civilians (mainly women and children), repair roads, cleaning rubble. Autobahn, bombed out bridge. Directional sign for Ratingen and Essen, and another for Dusseldorf. Title card: "Duisburg" Street scenes in Duisburg. 01:11:23 (color) Daily life in the city of Duisburg, civilians, bicycles. Ruined buildings, destruction. Newspapers posted on brick building exteriors. Title card: "Nonfraternization" American soldiers with local women. 01:13:20 Uniformed American soldier, likely Dr. Banen, on city street approaches the camera and smiles. Title card: "Hotel Duisburg I stayed here 5 days" EXT hotel. Filling buckets with water pump. Sign for a dentist: "Dr. Dalhoff Zahnarzt" Street scenes. Rubble, church, women riding bicycles. Children playing in bomb craters. Repairing a flat tire. CUs, children sitting beside the road.
- Film Title
-
Germany -- Abraham Banen -- amateur
- Duration
- 00:15:34
- Date
-
Event:
1945 March
- Locale
-
Germany
Cologne, Germany
Altenkirchen, Germany
Duisburg, Germany
Essen, Germany
Dusseldorf, Germany
- Credit
- Accessed at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Museum of Jewish Heritage
- Contributor
-
Camera Operator:
Abraham T. Banen
- Biography
-
Dr. Abraham T. Banen (1909-2014) served with the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II, likely with the 551st Engineer Heavy Ponton Battalion. Banen grew up in Minnesota, majored in German at the University of Wisconsin, and studied dentistry at the University of Minnesota. Banen enlisted in the Army and landed in Normandy with his infantry battalion in July 1944. In March 1945, the 551st Battalion completed the construction of the 1900-foot pontoon bridge across the swift-moving Rhine River, making it possible for the Allied Armies to cross and initiate the big push to end the war. Banen used a personal 16mm movie camera to document his wartime experiences. He was often relied upon for translations in German and French. He was shot in the back of his knee and awarded a Purple Heart. In January 1946, at 37 years old, Banen started a dental practice in International Falls, Minnesota, married Blanche Bachinski in Guatemala City in 1949, and had three children. From 1972-1974, he served as mayor of International Falls. He lived to the age of 104.
Physical Details
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- You do not require further permission from the Museum to access this archival media.
- Copyright
- Museum of Jewish Heritage
- Conditions on Use
- For permission to reproduce and use the materials, contact the Museum of Jewish Heritage at collections@mjhnyc.org with the subject line "Reference Inquiry" or "Licensing Request".
- Copyright Holder
- Museum of Jewish Heritage
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Film Provenance
- Wendy Banen, the daughter of Dr. Abraham Banen, donated her father's 16mm films taken during his U.S. Army service in Europe during World War II to the Museum of Jewish Heritage around 2001. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum digitized several amateur film originals from the Museum of Jewish Heritage (New York) collections in 2019-2020.
- Note
- Some sequences are introduced with handmade intertitles.
- Copied From
- 16mm bw color reversal print
- Film Source
- Museum of Jewish Heritage
- File Number
- Source Archive Number: Banen 5/5
Lender Number: IL2019.1.1 - Special Collection
-
Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2024-02-21 07:59:17
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn722682
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Also in Abraham Banen Collection
Amateur films taken by Jewish dentist, Dr. Abraham Banen, during his U.S. Army service in Europe during World War II. Dr. Banen recorded on film the liberation of forced labor camps, U.S. soldiers crossing the Elbe river, displaced German civilians, a prisoner of war camp, female Jewish survivors near Rostow showing their prisoner tattoos, GIs in Paris, and bombed out German cities. Sequences are introduced with handmade intertitles.
Elbe river crossing; Woebbelin after liberation; POW camp
Film
Field camp of German anti-aircraft soldiers. Title card: “Forced labor camp of Poles, Russians and French" Low brick buildings of unidentified forced labor camp. Men, women and children dressed in civilian clothes, daily activities. Title card: “Just married this morning! I just missed it. Romance blossoms under any conditions it seems”. Social gathering in town center. Title card: “The Germany of the future…I hope!” People tilling soil on farm with cow pulling plow. “Note primitive wood plow” Walking along road - soldiers in uniform along with women and men in civilian clothes, all smiling. Title card: “Just liberated these French after 4 years of labor start their long trek home and were they happy!” 01:04:39 Title card: “Wonderfully good roads” Red Cross, other military trucks. Passing British soldier’s grave draped in flowers, soldier’s helmet. Caravan, including tanks crossing over Elbe River on bridge. Displaced German civilians walking in opposite direction on foot through villages. 01:09:00 Title card: "Germans waiting for milk. Doors open at 3. They were here at 6.” 01:09:29 Title card: “Inside forced labor camp” American soldier inspects empty building of bunks at camp, dishes left on tables. Title card: “Boards, a little straw to sleep on” Title card: “Concentration camp at Wobbelin” Low wooden camp buildings, barrels, barbed wire fencing and guard towers, concealed in wooded area. Sign: “Auffanglager Woebbelin Kommandantur”. Pan, remains of camp building with brick columns, wood beams. Title card: “Barbed wire to sleep on!” 01:12:54 Title card: “Germans fleeing from Russians become refugees” Displaced German refugees set up camp, tents in fields. Men, women, children, daily activities. Title card: “Horses plentiful but going fast for food”. Massive number of people (displaced civilians and soldiers) on foot, some with carriages, trucks with personal belongings. Title card: “Fleeing from the Russians, Germans by the thousands jam the road.” 01:16:30:23 “Soldiers by the 100,000! Thrill packing hours”. 01:18:23 Title card: “PW Camp” Soldiers on foot, horseback with weapons, prisoners (POWs) marching in fields.
Survivors with concentration camp tattoos; USO performance; Russian soldiers
Film
American soldier walking amongst fly bombs, low buildings in fields with tree cover. CU, bomb,“Nicht Auftreten” Title card: “So well concealed it was never bombed” 01:02:06 Title: “A British plane is consumed by explosion of ammunition train it strafed.” Bombed out plane filmed from vehicle on dirt road. Title: "Trees blown over from blast” Soldiers examine wreckage. “German field piece” Machine and camouflaged fence. 01:04:30 Title card: “Jewish girls from Italy, Belgium, Greece.” Female Jewish survivors near Rostow showing their prisoner tattoos. Girls in dresses, smiling showing their arms with concentration camp identification tattoos. “Rastow” sign. Men relaxing in front of building in camp. Title “USO Show” Makeshift stage in field, USO show for American soldiers: musical performance with horn and accordion; comedy sketches. 01:08:38 Title: “Americans were held prisoners here until we came” American soldiers, “USA” labeled military equipment, Red Cross. Title card: “Road Block" Vehicle on on route to Schwerin, Germany, American soldiers mingling, some wearing white armbands. 01:10:13 Title card: “Soldiers, civilians, refugees line the roads” “Entering Schwerin. Our forward elements met the Russ[ians]. A climactic period!”. In Schwerin, a brigade of trucks, Red Cross on horseback, horse and carriages move through town. Small boats docked in body of water. 01:11:37 Title card: “Castle converted by Germans into hospital”. Castle grounds with people and horse-drawn carts. Plaque for WWI soldiers “1914-1918 Unseren Gefallenen”. 01:13:23 Scenes at an unidentified forced labor camp: farm, laborers, men, women, children. 01:13:23 Title card: “Polish nurse” Nurse with armband and upside-down triangle numbered 2153. “Aftl. Arztin” Title card: “Dress of the forced laborers were these blue & grey striped prison uniforms” Polish women (former prisoners) in striped dresses. One has a "P" pin on her dress. 01:14:13 Title card: “Some liberated Russians, Mongols” Soviet men in coats with handprinted label “S.U.” Vehicle on fire in field, Red Cross truck passing by. Farmhouse. Title card: “A beautiful fresh manure pile right at the front door of this farmhouse.”
GIs in Paris, Brussels, and Düren
Film
(b/w) American soldiers in Paris, sightseeing, street scenes, local civilians, opera house, Avenue des Champs Elysses, Arc de Triomphe, the Unknown soldiers' tomb. 01:04:59 Title card: “Maastricht, Holland.” Street scenes, soldiers in field. 01:05:26 Sightseeing in Brussels, street cars. Title card: “The King’s Memorial to his wife” 01:07:59 Title card: “US Army Pro. Station in rear” Well-dressed women, ornate buildings in city. 01:08:36 Sign for American soldiers, “Warning Curfew in Brussels”. Building destruction. Title card: “Bomb crater”. 01:10:54 Title card: “Duren, 40,000-complete ruins!” Bombed out city of Düren, Germany, taken by the 8th Infantry on February 25, 1945. Ruins, GIs. Title card: “Four engine bombers”. (color) Snow covered, destroyed buildings, civilians. CUs of Red Cross medics and other American soldiers holding and showing-off hand pistols. 01:14:32 (b/w) Title card: “Infantry advancing!” Active war zone, soldiers in field. Title card: “Mortars in combat.”
