Julien Hequembourg Bryan (1899-1974) was an American documentarian and filmmaker. Bryan traveled widely taking 35mm film that he sold to motion picture companies. In the 1930s, he conducted extensive lecture tours, during which he showed film footage he shot in the former USSR. Between 1935 and 1938, he captured unique records of ordinary people and life in Nazi Germany and in Poland, including Jewish areas of Warsaw and Krakow and anti-Jewish signs in Germany. His footage appeared in March of Time theatrical newsreels. His photographs appeared in Life Magazine. He was in Warsaw in September 1939 when Germany invaded and remained throughout the German siege of the city, photographing and filming what would become America's first cinematic glimpse of the start of WWII. He recorded this experience in both the book Siege (New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1940) and the short film Siege (RKO Radio Pictures, 1940) nominated for an Academy Award in 1940. In 1946, Bryan photographed the efforts of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency in postwar Europe.
Detailed preservation notes from the film lab are available in Film and Video department files. Additional photographs are available in the USHMM Photo Archives. See also Film ID 2267 for matching footage.
Extreme long shots: German planes flying over Warsaw- these are the shots that Julien Bryan talks about in his book"Sieg". These are the shots that he took while standing on the roof of the American Embassy in Warsaw, Poland in September of 1939 as the Germans began their air attack of the city. The shots are composed of mostly gray sky with the occasional plane passing through the frame, this is not the most dynamic looking footage, but it documents the beginning of the German air attack and the very beginning of World War II.
German siege of Warsaw, Poland, Sept. 1939