Advanced Search

Learn About The Holocaust

Special Collections

My Saved Research

Login

Register

Help

Skip to main content

Belsen concentration camp; displaced persons

Film | Accession Number: 1994.119.1 | RG Number: RG-60.2218 | Film ID: 856

Scenes of the Belsen Concentration Camp, and the Belsen Displaced Persons Camp. LS, barracks at far side of road, woods in BG. Displaced persons are fed and treated. MSs, dining hall, with tablecloths, survivors eating soup. INT, hospital barracks, beds filled, woman in lower bunk receiving medical care. German POWs remove dead DPs. Soldiers carrying corpses wrapped in blanket to truck. MLS, truck bed. Another body is carried through doorway. Distributing identity cards to DPs, women clustered around tables outside, writing. CU, "Allied Expeditionary Force / DP index card." MLS, men, women, and children with luggage boarding open truck. MLS, women in open truck waving as it drives away. Buildings are burned/fire-bombed to fight disease. MCU, barracks in flames. MLS, field in flames.

Additional unrelated footage contained in "Activities in European Theatre of Operations" produced by the US Army Signal Corps.
111 SFR 57 Reel 1:
02:33:27 (Kiel) Sunken German ships in the Kiel (Germany) Harbor; the Europa at Bremerhaven, Germany; a midget German submarine at Copenhagen, Denmark.
02:37:05 "The Disney Swish" shows the use of a rocket booster to speed falling bombs.
02:38:21 "Enemy Fortifications" shows camouflaged German pillboxes in Cortina, Italy
02:39:41 "Navy Gunboat LCS(L)3" describes the LCS(L)3 and demonstrates its fire power.
02:42:25 "Air Strikes" B-24s drop radio-controlled azon bombs on Thailand
111 SFR 57 Reel 2:
02:43:45 "Air Strikes continued" Bombs dropped on the Palau Islands. Shows CUs of a plane suffering a direct hit.
02:44:33 "Activities in the Philippines" In the Philippines, Nimitz and MacArthur meet in Manila (May 15); Gen. Kenney meets Mexican pilots. Shows many scenes of captured Japanese airplanes
02:48:13 "Attack on Naha" Naha, Okinawa, is shelled and 6th Marines capture Sugar Loaf Hill and the city. Troops and tanks attack caves and pillboxes with various weapons and explosives. Artillery and planes bombard positions. Shows Gen. Gieger. [ends at 02:54:21]


Film Title
Activities in the European Theatre of Operations
Duration
00:01:35
Date
Event:  1945 May
Production:  1945
Locale
Bergen-Belsen, Germany
Japan
Denmark
Language
English
Genre/Form
Newsreels.
Credit
Accessed at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives & Records Administration

About This Film

Contributor
Producer: United States. Army. Signal Corps.
B&W / Color
Black & White
Image Quality
Fair
Time Code
02:35:29:00 to 02:37:04:00
Film Format
  • Master
    • Master 856 Video: Betacam SP - NTSC - large
    Master 856 Video: Betacam SP - NTSC - large
    Master 856 Video: Betacam SP - NTSC - large
    Master 856 Video: Betacam SP - NTSC - large
  • Preservation
    • Preservation 856 Video: Betacam SP - NTSC - large
    Preservation 856 Video: Betacam SP - NTSC - large
    Preservation 856 Video: Betacam SP - NTSC - large
    Preservation 856 Video: Betacam SP - NTSC - large
Special Collection
Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive

Keywords and Subjects

Administrative History

Legal Status
Permanent Collection
Note
Bergen-Belsen, near Hanover in northwest Germany, was established in March 1943 as a special camp for prominent Jews of belligerent and neutral states, who might be exchanged for German citizens interned abroad. Conditions in the camp were good by concentration camp standards, and most prisoners were not subjected to forced labor. However, beginning in the spring of 1944 the situation deteriorated rapidly. In March Belsen was redesignated an Ehrholungslager [Recovery Camp], where prisoners of other camps who were too sick to work were brought, though none received medical treatment. As the German Army retreated in the face of the advancing Allies, the concentration camps were evacuated and their prisoners sent to Belsen. The facilites in the camp were unable to accommodate the sudden influx of thousands of prisoners and all basic services -- food, water and sanitation -- collapsed, leading to the outbreak of disease. By April 1945 over 60,000 prisoners were incarcerated in Belsen in two camps located 1.5 miles apart. Camp No. 2 was opened only a few weeks before the liberation, on the site of a military hospital and barracks. Members of the British Royal Artillery 63rd Anti-Tank Regiment liberated Belsen on April 15 and arrested its commandant, Josef Kramer. The relief operation which followed was directed by Brigadier H. L. Glyn-Hughes, Deputy Director of Medical Services of the Second Army. Between April 18 and April 28, the dead were buried. At first the SS guards were made to collect and bury the bodies, but eventually the British had to resort to bulldozers to push the thousands of bodies into mass graves. Evacuation of the camp began on April 21. After being deloused inmates were transferred to Camp No. 2, which had been converted into a temporary hospital and rehabilitation camp. As each of the barracks was cleared they were burned down to combat the spread of typhus. On May 19 evacuation was completed and two days later the ceremonial burning of the last barracks brought to an end the first stage of the relief operations. Surviving Jewish DPs were transferred to Camp Three on May 21, 1945 from camps 1 and 2. By mid to late May, Bergen-Belsen assumed the status of a displaced person's camp. In July, 6,000 former inmates were taken by the Red Cross to Sweden for convalescence, while the rest remained in the newly-established DP camp to await repatriation or emigration.
Copied From
35mm b/w print
Film Source
United States. National Archives and Records Administration. Motion Picture Reference
File Number
Legacy Database File: 164
Source Archive Number: 111 SFR 57 R1

Rights and Restrictions

Conditions on Access
You do not require further permission from the Museum to access this archival media.
Copyright
Public Domain
Conditions on Use
To the best of the Museum's knowledge, this material is in the public domain. You do not require further permission from the Museum to reproduce or use this material.

 
Record last modified: 2022-07-28 22:02:34
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn1000184