Belsen: Nazis bury the dead

Film | Digitized | RG Number: RG-60.4367 | Film ID: 2805

Overview

Description: 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.
Duration: 00:00:59
Date: Event: 1945 April
Locale: Bergen-Belsen, Germany
Credit: Accessed at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Imperial War Museums

Physical Details

Language: Silent
Genre/Form: Unedited.
B&W / Color: Black & White
Image Quality: Good
Time Code: 01:09:24:00 to 01:10:23:00
Film Format: Master
Master 2805 Film: positive - 16 mm - b&w - silent - print - A-wind
Master 2805 Video: Digital Betacam - NTSC - small
Master 2805 Film: positive - 16 mm - b&w - silent - print - A-wind
Master 2805 Video: Digital Betacam - NTSC - small
Master 2805 Film: positive - 16 mm - b&w - silent - print - A-wind
Master 2805 Video: Digital Betacam - NTSC - small
Master 2805 Film: positive - 16 mm - b&w - silent - print - A-wind
Master 2805 Video: Digital Betacam - NTSC - small
Preservation
Preservation 2805 Video: Betacam SP - NTSC - small
Preservation 2805 Video: Betacam SP - NTSC - small
Preservation 2805 Video: Betacam SP - NTSC - small
Preservation 2805 Video: Betacam SP - NTSC - small

Rights & Restrictions

Conditions on Access: You do not require further permission from the Museum to access this archival media.
Copyright: Imperial War Museums
Conditions on Use: For licensing enquiries and requests, contact Imperial War Museums (IWM) at filmcommercial@iwm.org.uk. IWM also offers limited services for non-commercial parties, such as for museums, armed forces, veterans and their immediate family, family history researchers, and students. For such purposes, contact film@iwm.org.uk.
Copyright Holder: Imperial War Museums

Keywords & Subjects

Keyword: BERGEN-BELSEN BULLDOZERS CONCENTRATION CAMPS CONCENTRATION CAMPS (LIBERATION) CORPSES GERMANY GRAVES LIBERATION MASS GRAVES NAZI PARTY SHOVELS SS (SCHUTZSTAFFEL) TRUCKS

Administrative Notes

Legal Status: Permanent Collection - not accessioned
Note: See also Story 2651, Film ID 165 for another video transfer of this film, created in 1987.

Original MARS accession number: 145x-12
Film Source: Rosensaft, The Honorable Hadassah
File Number: Legacy Database File: 4672
Special Collection: Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive

Record last modified:: 2024-02-21 07:57:06
This page:: http://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn1003831

Download & Licensing

Request Copy
See Rights and Restrictions
Terms of Use
This record is digitized but cannot be downloaded online.

In-Person Research

Available for Research
Plan a Research Visit

Contact Us

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."

A Holocaust survivor returns to Bergen Belsen 20 years later

Film

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."

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"

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: 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: corpses

Film

LS bodies, limbs, ribs, male corpse in pit.

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: corpses

Film

CUs of female corpses (bodies and faces), bloody. Mangled pile of bodies. (GRAPHIC FOOTAGE)

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.

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: 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: 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.