A Holocaust survivor returns to Bergen Belsen 20 years later
Notes from the NFB/ONF online catalog:
A Jewish Holocaust survivor takes a holiday from his glazier's shop to join an emotional pilgrimage to Bergen-Belsen. In traveling through new Germany, this man remembers. Scenes still vivid in his mind are recalled in flashback. The memorandum was Hitler's dealing with the solution to the "Jewish problem."
- Film Title
-
Pour Memoire [Memorandum]
- Duration
- 00:58:17
- Date
-
Production:
1965
- Locale
-
Canada
Bergen-Belsen, Germany
- Language
-
French
- Genre/Form
-
Documentary.
- Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, gift of Hadassah Rosensaft
-
Record last modified: 2022-07-28 21:56:26
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn1003157
Also in Hadassah Rosensaft Film Collection
16 mm films, as well as letters, documents, photographs, and scrapbooks, were collected by Josef and Hadassah Rosensaft through the years since their liberation from Bergen-Belsen. The footage shows coverage of liberation at Belsen as filmed by the British and covered by newsreel companies. Materials were donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives by Hadassah Rosensaft in October 1989. Alternative accession numbers for this collection besides 1991.012 are 1989.0401 or 1989.126.
Auschwitz liberated
Film
"Filmdokumente" on the German concentration camps, made under Soviet auspices with narration in English. This film was taken by a Soviet military film crew upon liberating Auschwitz in January 1945. eople in camp in winter with snow on the ground. CUs, prisoners behind wire (women and children). LSs, AVs, the camp covered with snow. Map of Auschwitz, plans for the crematorium. INT, women in rows of bunks. "Arbeit Macht Frei" gate. Barbed wire. INT, gas chamber. CUs women in the bunks. CUs albums of photographs (showing different nationalities). VS groups of survivors behind wires, worn faces, dead in the street, men with blankets over their heads. The evacuation of the camp - prisoners are helped and carried out; crowds march out (many wearing striped uniforms); horses and wagons carry the sick; children are led out by nuns and others, including child survivor Tomy Shacham at 04:10:04 wearing a uniform with extra-long arms and Eva Mozes Kor and her twin sister Miriam leading the group at 04:10:15. CUs, children, showing numbers on their arms. The girl in the center of the frame not wearing a uniform but a regular jacket is Sarah Racimora. The boy to her right is Rene (Guttman) Slotkin. HAS, procession of children moving in barbed wire enclosure. CUs, charred heads and remains of bodies in the ovens. CUs, cans of gas and other chemicals, bodies in a deep trench, one woman with an embryo beside her. Russian commission examines a deep grave filled with bodies. Prisoners demonstrate a scaffold, including the trap and noose. CUs, prisoners who were professors and doctors. Shots of storehouse: human hair in bundles, piles of false teeth, razors, brushes, eyeglasses, shoes and clothing. Russian soldiers hold up some children's clothing. Suitcases from all countries are also piled up. VS, women weep beside grave. A band plays the funeral march. Choir boys follow the band. Many coffins are carried to large grave as hundreds attend ceremonies. Priests and flag bearers attend. Women weep as the huge grave is covered. Doctors examine some of the survivors: an emaciated youth, children with bad feet, men with swollen ankles, all evidences of brutality. Some still photographs of formerly healthy children in contrast with conditions in the camp. Still photos of Nazis. ROLLING CREDITS at end: "Three Allied Powers will follow them over to the ends of the world and will hand them over to prosecution so that justice be served. Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill."
Belsen: Medics moving typhus patients
Film
Medics loading trucks with people suffering from typhus. Red Cross truck. Women walking in a forest.
Burning the barracks at Belsen
Film
Burning barracks. Brief shot of British flag on flagpole. Crowd of survivors watching barracks on fire.
Belsen: Jewish Thanksgiving Service
Film
Jewish religious service outdoors. Sunny day, large gathering, organized event, lots of people. Young women with arms around each other, staring without apparent emotion. Rabbi holds up Torah. Makeshift ark, tapestry. VLS from above of gathering, big circle of people crowded together, outer ring of people stand on benches. Long line of little kids coming together, join and enter circle. CU, Rabbi reading. More CU of women, very serious, sad, clinging to each other.
Belsen: corpses
Film
Women survivors, dressed. VAR MLS women hanging around, eating. CUs faces of female corpses, some mangled. VCU, face of female, hollowed, glassy eyed.
Belsen: corpses
Film
CUs of female corpses (bodies and faces), bloody. Mangled pile of bodies. (GRAPHIC FOOTAGE)
Belsen after liberation
Film
CU, women's bodies in pile. CUs, faces of female corpses (GRAPHIC FOOTAGE). SS women with white armbands leaving building, gather in a group. CU, SS men marching off to work group.
Belsen: Nazis bury the dead
Film
Nazi men dragging corpses by the feet to a mass grave/pit, more bodies in the grave, preparing for burial. Supervised by armed British solders in FG.
Belsen: Nazis bury the dead
Film
LS bulldozer digging grave, many SS men surround bulldozer, also digging with shovels. VLS, large group of SS men digging. MLS, naked corpses lined up on the ground, to be loaded onto truck.
Belsen: Loading women's corpses onto truck
Film
Germans/Nazis heaving women's brittle flattened bodies on back of flatbed truck. (GRAPHIC FOOTAGE)
Belsen: Nazis unload corpses
Film
Nazi women unload bodies from truck into pit. Nazi woman, scowling, unloading/dropping bodies off truck and into a pit. In BG, pit getting full. Women walking along pit, heaving bodies in (little scratches), dragging woman with shirt.
Belsen: Nazis bury the dead
Film
Nazis (stonefaced) dropping women's and men's bodies from edge of pit.
Burning the barracks at Belsen
Film
Huts/barracks burned by "flame throwing" from military tank (to prevent the spread of typhus). Conflagration. Building engulfed in flames and thick black smoke. Soldiers. Panoramic shots of smoke and burning camp.
Belsen: Kramer; corpses
Film
CUs, camp commandant Josef Kramer under armed guard. Canadian military soldier with a cap, Jack Marcovitch, on Kramer's left side. SS men unloading naked corpses (women) from truck into a pit. SS women on truck with corpses, dragging naked corpses to pit. CUs of bodies.
Belsen: Medics moving typhus patients
Film
Medics loading trucks with people suffering from typhus. Red Cross truck. Women walking in a forest.
Belsen: Kramer; corpses
Film
CUs, camp commandant Josef Kramer under armed guard. Canadian military soldier with a cap, Jack Marcovitch, on Kramer's left side. SS men unloading naked corpses (women) from truck into a pit. SS women on truck with corpses, dragging naked corpses to pit. CUs of bodies.
Belsen after liberation
Film
CU, pan up to clothed corpses scattered on the ground, group of survivors in BG. MLS, makeshift tent with survivors. CUs, survivors.
Belsen: Survivors eating
Film
Man sits alone eating soup, another eating bread. MS, through barbed wire. Survivors, some organize others. Young man sitting in hay, idly scratches neck. General LSs of camp with debris.
British Pathe Newsreel -- Auschwitz
Film
Liberation of Auschwitz, showing atrocities. Survivors, soldiers, pit of corpses. Hair in paper bags ready to be shipped. Piles of teeth, utensils, eyeglasses, children's clothing, shoes, brushes, suitcases. Pit of corpses.
British Pathé Newsreel -- Atrocities at Buchenwald and Belsen
Film
Title: "Germany Atrocities - Germany's crimes are no longer hidden from sight. At last the eyes of the world are opened. We believe it our duty to screen these pictures as a warning to future generations..." Title: "Here is a woman who went to Buchenwald Mrs. Mavis Tate M.P." Members of Parliament visiting Buchenwald, Mrs. Tate speaking, "We saw and we know..." Liberation of Buchenwald, survivors, showing tattooed arms. Piles of bodies on wooded truck, MPs in BG. CUs corpses. CUs, British representatives. Piles of corpses. British delegation looking at papers. Ovens, burned bodies inside, demonstrations of use. Men (survivors) in black jackets carrying casket on shoulders. LS, survivors looking directly into camera. VAR CUs, men in stripes, boy, man with deformed face, emaciated. Survivor attacking SS guard, hitting guard's quarters (barracks) window with cane. German civilians marching to woods with shovels, digging mass grave, burying corpses. 01:02:50 Belsen at liberation. British troops on trucks liberating camps. VAR shots, corpses and survivors scattered, some in uniforms. 01:03:27 Emaciated man folds clothing. Female SS guards exit wooden barracks, marching to see destruction. 01:03.:58 Josef Kramer, Belsen guard. 01:04:21 LS, burnt corpses, atrocities. LS, pit with mass grave. "The End/Pathe-Gazette"
