Holiday celebration; street scenes; shops
Reel 3. Intertitle: "Holiday Celebration". Street scene with townspeople in costume to celebrate the Easter holiday. People walk towards camera in street, dressed nicely. Women with packages pass by. Shops in BG. Men and women in fancy clothing. Umbrellas. LV, men and women walking. Religious procession past shops on square, man in front holds metal post. People walking towards camera. LV, cows, people roaming in streets, children playing. Man leads herd of cows. City streets, square. Family shops/businesses. Pan, signs of shops seen. Huts/houses. People walking/milling about.
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Record last modified: 2022-07-28 22:02:43
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn1002135
Also in Sommer Family Collection
Outtakes of the Sommer Family home movies shot by Louis and Harry Sommer when they visited their family in Humenné, Slovakia from Omaha, Nebraska in March 1932. The five original film reels are labeled: (1) Around Before LS Europe Trip (Film ID 2988); (2) My Trip to Europe - March 29, 1932 (Film ID 412.1); (3) My Trip to Europe Continued (Film ID 412.2); (4) My Trip to Europe Continued (Film ID 413); (5) Louis Sommer's Family Abroad (Film ID 2989). Nearly all 2,000 Jews from Humenné died in the Holocaust. Bernard and Emery Klein rescued the films from their cousin, Beatrice Sommer, in the 1950s. They shared it with The University of Michigan-Dearborn around 1987 and donated the original 16mm films to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2012.
Family poses for the camera
Film
Reel 1. Multiple sequences showing the entire family (including the visiting Louis and Harry Sommer, Hermann Klein, and Jacob Grossman) posing for the camera, probably in Humenne, Slovakia. Family members (well-dressed) take turns walking towards the camera in a street/alley. Dark shots in a field. Man holds up his pocketwatch. More posed shots around an automobile. 00:03:50 The children play near a home. 00:04:52 Family at the farm, landscape, herding sheep. More portraits. Children blow kisses, wave, and try to feed the animals. The family continue to take turns for posed shots.
Tourist views of Carlsbad, Vienna, and Budapest
Film
Reel 5. Children dancing in a circle in Humenne (similar to the beginning of RG-60.0833). 00:00:10 "Carlsbad, Czechoslovakia - The Famous Health Resort" Pan of city buildings in Karlovy Vary in Bohemia. Street scenes with pedestrians. More tourist views of the beautiful city. 00:01:09 "Vienna - Parliament Building and the Ring Strasse" Street scenes with shops, traffic, civilians, and major sites. 00:02:18 "Budapest - The Most Beautiful City in the World" Tourist shots of sights in Budapest. Driver stands beside car loaded with suitcases. More sightseeing in the city. CU, men with headphones, one smokes a cigar. 00:04:03 Nice MS of a group of visitors in the street surrounding a man getting his shoes shined. The group poses in a park before a large estate.
Jewish families pose for camera; street scenes in Humenne
Film
Reel 2. Shows families (the Sommers, the Kleins, the Grosmans) in Humenne. Man greets the camera. Girls at play, dancing in a circle, including Zuzana Sermerova (b. 1924). Family group poses. CU sign, "Garage." Two men peel potatoes. Roof of garage building. Family members pose in front of gate. CU Judith Klein (sister of Bernard and Emery) in a baby carriage. Group of kids wave and walk to camera, CUs. Men walk to camera, one takes off suspenders, walks towards camera. Bernard and Emery sit in the grass with the movie camera case. CU, Judith in carriage. Family in garden; in front of house; in yard. (06:01) Ladislav Grosman with cap and knickers walks towards the camera with his sister. Other family members walk forward. They play ball, bicycle in BG, and pose with Judith in carriage. (08:51) Automobile. Street with shops. Man exits Klein shop, smoking a pipe. Elderly woman exits the family shop and walks towards the camera, and then in the garden. Klein family at house/garden. (10:57) Boys in hats (Bernard and Emery Klein) pose for the camera, joined by their mother Helen Klein, and a cousin [hatchmarks along right side of frame]. Waving at camera. A group of women singing (silent). Kissing. Family and friends pose again in the yard.
Family business; market; shops
Film
Reel 3. Marketplace in Humenne with tents and shops. The Klein family's shop was located across from this market. Peasants from the local villages traveled to Humenne on Mondays and Fridays to sell their wares. Local policemen pose for the camera with one of the American relatives (Louis or Harry Sommer in a dark suit and hat). Cousins stand before their leather goods shop owned by uncle Jacob Grossman. Pan up to sign on store: "Jakob Grossmann. Obchod Kozou." Carts with horses and people pass through streets of village. 01:15:32 Hermann Klein's brick-making factory. Smoke stack. Pan up and down, sign on family store: "Moric Sommer." People in street, in front of store. Cows let out of wagon by men. Cut to market scenes. Well-dressed man at entrance to store. Cows in street/market. Full of people. Tents/market. Cart pulled by cow passes. Tents. People selling and buying material. Overview, pan, square. Lots of people. CU, family truck, "Hermann Klein." One American uncle walks along the town street towards the camera, followed by others. MS, shop from a distance (could be one of the family businesses). Cart with hay passes. Two men and women stand in front of shop with "Thymolin" advertisement.
Jewish families before the Holocaust in Slovakia
Film
Reel 3. Women from the Sommer, Klein, and Grosman families gather for the camera. Intertitle: "My Home Folks - Mother, Sister, Their Family and Friends." Family (well-dressed) walk and pose for camera. Pan of entire family (including the visiting Americans, Hermann Klein, and Jacob Grosman (the father of Ladislav at 01:03 in a light-colored suit)). Children playing on swing. Posing in front of the family shop and walking down the street towards the camera. 01:23:58 Another family on the main street.
Family poses for camera; city square
Film
Reel 4. Women and children from the Sommer and Klein families in alley and doorway of house; they walk towards the camera. Some gather in BG (VQ: fuzzy). Children and women in a group. CU, children slowly walk towards camera. 02:00:43 Pan (left to right), men posing (all in suits, hats, overcoats), glimpse of an automobile next to them. Women and children at family's storefront; pan (left to right) of sign, "Houstinec, Sommer." Man and boy alley (same as before) walk towards camera in an alley. Other members of the family walk towards camera as well, including women, children, and cameraman. 02:01:49 Pan (up and down) of windows on a building. Children pose in a field, horses and trees are visible. Other family members also in field. Family poses for the camera in streets lining the city square. Women walk past and towards the camera; shops and square in BG. More family members walk towards camera and wave. 02:03:47 Peasant women and children in field; huts in BG. Women with kerchiefs are dressed in white, posing with a cow. In town, the Klein and Sommer family members in an alley (repeat sequence of walking towards the camera). They smile and laugh.
Train station in Humenne; village square
Film
Reel 5. Brief pan of Budapest (gray, repeated in RG-60.1451). Intertitle: "Humenne -- My Home Town, A Typical Slovakia Village." Trains, people board and deboard. Train station. Boy on peasant cart with cows and a wagon in the main square of Humenne. People gathered in the town square for market days (on Mondays and Fridays). Lots of people, carts, wagons, activity, shops, and houses in BG. Hotel, pan through marketplace. Peasants selling boots, coffee house, man with bales of hay. Horses. People and shops on square. Tea house. Carts with a wagon (possibly with Hermann Klein on board). Horse pulling cart. Automobiles in BG. Men talking.
Market; shops
Film
Reel 5. Intertitle: "Market Days - Monday and Friday." Crowds mill about town square (fuzzy) on market day. 02:07:03 One of the visiting Americans (Louis or Harry Sommer) buys a chicken from a vendor. Carts, cows, automobiles at the marketplace on the main square (across from the Klein family's shop). People walk towards camera. Buying and selling material. Shops in BG. Carts pass, followed by women. 02:07:50 Brief scene of Sommer and Klein family members walking towards the camera in alley. Crowds in town square for market days, walking toward and past camera. "Jakob Grossman", a leather goods shop, from a distance with a cart with hay in front of the store. The American relative in a dark suit walks towards the camera in front of another shop, "Bernath Handler." Townspeople in front of shops in Humenne. Square, shops, cats, cows, people. Well-dressed men on streets, three women in white dresses pass. The family's "Hermann Klein" truck parked on the main street. Walking in the town streets again, well-dressed.
