Liberation of Auschwitz

http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/units/us-005578-irn1000918 an entity of type: Record

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1945 January

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Liberation of Auschwitz

"Filmdokument" on the German concentration camps, made under Soviet auspices with narration in Russian. This film was taken by a Soviet military film crew upon liberating Auschwitz in January 1945. People 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 Fre" 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 wearing a uniform with extra-long arms and Eva Mozes Kor and her twin sister Miriam leading the group.

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The Soviet film about the liberation of Auschwitz was shot over a period of several months beginning on January 27, 1945, the day of liberation. It consists of both staged and unrehearsed footage of Auschwitz survivors (adults and children) taken in the first hours and days of their liberation, as well as scenes of their evacuation, which took place weeks or months later. The film includes the first inspection of the camp by Soviet war crimes investigators, as well as the initial medical examination of the survivors by Soviet physicians. It also records the public burial ceremony that took place on February 28, 1945 for Auschwitz victims who died just before and after the liberation. The order to make the film was issued by Mikhael Oschurkow, head of the photography unit, and was carried out by Alexander Voronzow and others in his group. Eighteen minutes of the film was introduced as evidence at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. Another segment of the film disappeared for forty years before resurfacing in Moscow in 1986. [Source: Alexander Voronzow interview, Chronos-Films, The Liberation of Auschwitz, 1986]

It is possible this film copy was obtained from the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum before the USHMM opened. There are no burn-in time codes on the VHS user copy. This footage matches the NARA reel 111 ADC 8556 exactly. See also Story 26, Film ID 5 and Story 37, Film ID 6 for duplicate footage. See also Story 2769, Film ID 167 for duplicate footage of the entire film --"Oswiece" "Auschwit"] -- in English. See also Story 3249, Film ID 2534. The Soviet film on atrocities - Film Documents of the Atrocities committed by German Fascists in the USSR (Kinodokumenty O Zverstvakh Nemetsko-Fashiskikh Zakhvatchikov) - with scenes of Auschwitz was presented as evidence on February 19, 1946 (Day 62 of the trial) under Document USSR-81. Tomy Shacham and Eva Mozes Kor are interviewed in the 2015 British documentary,"Night Will Fal".

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