Farming, church service, soccer, orchestra, theater at Camp Westerbork

http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/units/us-005578-irn1000924 an entity of type: Record

rico:history

Lagerkommandantur Westerbork Rudolf Breslauer (1903-1944) was a photographer and lithographer by trade, educated at the Academy for Art Photography in Germany. He was married to Bella Weihsmann and had three children: Stephan, Mischa, and Ursula. They fled Leipzig and settled in the Netherlands in 1938. In the summer of 1940, non-Dutch Jews were forced to leave Leiden because the city was near the sea. The Breslauers moved to a boarding house in Alphen aan de Rijn and left for Utrecht shortly thereafter. On February 11, 1942, they were sent to Westerbork, where Rudolf Breslauer was ordered to make passport photos of incoming camp prisoners and film daily life in Westerbork. In the spring of 1944, the camp commander commissioned Breslauer to make what would later be known as the Westerbork-film. In September 1944, Breslauer and his family were deported to Theresienstadt with other privileged prisoners and subsequently deported to Auschwitz in October 1944. Only Ursula survived the camp.

rico:identifier

irn1000924

rico:title

Farming, church service, soccer, orchestra, theater at Camp Westerbork

rico:scopeAndContent

MS, horse, pasture. CU, feeding horse. Little boy sitting on horse without saddle. WS, horse running through field. CU, sheep. 02:30:11 Moving train, shot from inside, piles of bricks in open wagons. Farming: young man plowing by hand. Horse-pulled plower. Pan of group of young men and women in black uniforms preparing soil for seeds, using cylindrical wooden tool. Women with yutta bags around their necks, filled with flower bulbs, throwing bulbs into pepared holes. CU, slow motion of working with wooden rower. 02:36:02: WS, same group of people resting, laying down in meadow. Pan, people resting, lying on the ground. More planting. 02:37:00 Wagons filled with bricks. Man getting manure in horse-pulled cart. 02:39:32 CU, brick water canal system. Pan of brick canal, water getting through. 02:39:56 WS, group of men leaving barrack carrying large saws and hatchets. Pulling logs, cutting trees, sawing off branches. Women painting W (for Westerbork?) on logs. 02:46:40 Religious service, Christian? Priest dressed in black reading from Bible? Two candles burning and wooden cross on table. 02:46:49 WS, soccer match in field between barracks, enthusiastic audience. Women exercising in circle, with camp watchtower nearby. 02:51:00 WS and pan, view of orchestra pit, with two piano players, rows of violin players, saxophone, trumpet. 02:52:06 WS, two male comedians with hats and walking sticks, laughing and kicking each other. Theater and cabaret performances: woman in maid uniform performing skit. Comedians performing (slapstick), peeking behind stage curtain, laughing. Woman singing and playing violin. Couple in formal evening attire, dancing. Women dancing, striptease, playing toy saxophone. Woman sitting on piano singing, woman in camp uniform and wooden cart passing by (part of the performance). Theater play dealing with life in camp. 02:56:30 Stage curtain closing, actors bowing.

ehri:notes

This film was commissioned by camp commander Konrad Gemmeker to convince the Gestapo headquarters of Westerbork's vital production value. The Jewish prisoner Werner (Rudolf) Breslauer documented activities at the transit camp with a 16mm film camera. Discovered after liberation, the footage contains some of the most famous and often reproduced images of deportation. The Westerbork-film was nominated for inclusion in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register of documentary heritage in 2017.

See also Story 2105, Film ID 2242 for duplicate footage of farming scenes, soccer match, and vaudeville scenes. See Story 2106, Film ID 2242 for duplicate footage of religious services.

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