- Description
- 06:12:46 Reel 2: "Activities in European Theater of Operations" In Germany, Schweinfurt citizens gather in courtyard. Confiscated art, belongings, etc. German male civilians march in columns in streets to be screened by US counter-intelligence. Cached gold and art treasures emoved from Merkers salt mine. Nordhausen citizens loot shops, walk through streets, stopped by armed US soldiers, forced to surrender stolen goods. French POW camp in Seurst, Germany. The liberated wave out of three story building windows, give hugs, pats, and kisses to liberating soldiers, large crowd, US and French ranking officers shake hands, raising of French and US flag, formerly imprisoned French soldiers saluting/marching out. Scenes of Nordhausen concentration camp with dead and sick prisoners.
06:16:58 "Additional Atrocity Films" Pan of three buildings, ruins, corpses scattered on ground around Nordhausen camp. MS, four emaciated survivors. CU, survivors evacuated by medics and Red Cross; praying, crying man boarding ambulance. 600 male Germans with shovels forced to assist burial. Corpses carried to gravesite. Priest administers last rites. LS, many bodies lined up on ground. CUs, skeletons. Gens. Eisenhower, Bradley, and Patton tour Ohrdruf. Corpses, torture demonstrations. US jeeps enter Penig, tortured/wounded Hungarian women survivors inspected by medics. Red Cross ambulances, survivors on stretchers. Woman helped by two soldiers. Ambulances travel to hospital, helping survivors out of vehicle and into hospital. LS, survivors in litters, in hospital beds. Aerial of barn in Gardelegen. CUs, burnt corpses, survivors. Civilians march with shovels and wooden white crosses to perform burial in mass grave. MS, field of white crosses. Pan, HS Buchenwald camp grounds. Oven with bodies. Mound of bones and ashes. Pan of soldiers looking at pile of naked bodies. CUs, corpses and survivors.
06:23:31 Trench foot wound. Weimar citizens forced to view evidence of atrocities at Buchenwald. Entering camp, survivors stand behind barbed wire in BG. Bodies on truck beds. Parchment display, shrunken heads, tattoos. Pan, Germans react. LS, field, ash on ground, bodies in Leipzig. CUs, bodies, twisted/burnt. Inmates "frozen," shot to death as escaping or electrocuted by fence. Liberated Russian woman stares at bodies behind barbed wire.
06:26:00 "Mediterranean Surrender" Men, women, and boys captured with German army in the Ruhr. German tank battalion surrenders. Troops are greeted at Bologna, Italy. Gen. Clark and the signing of the Italian surrender. 06:30:24 "USA Secretary Stimson and Gen. Marshall make VE Day Statement..." MS, both speak directly into camera from desks.
- Duration
- 00:20:02
- Date
-
Event:
April-May 1945
Production:
1945
- Locale
-
Nordhausen,
Germany
Ohrdruf,
Germany
Penig,
Germany
Weimar,
Germany
Buchenwald,
Germany
Ruhr Valley,
Germany
Italy
Leipzig,
Germany
- Credit
- Accessed at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives & Records Administration
- Contributor
-
Producer:
United States. Army. Signal Corps.