Sarah Racimora was born in Radom in 1940. She was smuggled into Pionki, deported to Auschwitz in August 1944, and liberated in Auschwitz at the age of 4.
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]
Tomy Shacham and Eva Mozes Kor are interviewed in the 2015 British documentary,"Night Will Fal". 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.
"Filmdokument" 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 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 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"
Auschwitz liberated