Majdanek: objects of former inmates
Creator(s)
- David Haspel & Associates
- Roman Karmen (Camera Operator)
- A. Sofjin (Camera Operator)
- W. Stadtland (Camera Operator)
Biographical History
Roman Karmen was born in 1906 in Odessa. He enrolled in the Gerasimov Institute for of Cinematography in Moscow in 1929. Throughout the 1930s, Karmen worked at the Central Studio of Documentary Film and as a correspondent for Soviet newspapers. He covered the Civil War in Spain in 1936-39. During World War II, Karmen was present on the front lines, documenting the Leningrad blockade, the surrender of German field marshal Friedrich Paulus in Volgograd, and the liberation of the Majdanek concentration camp in Lublin. Karmen made the film "The Judgment of the Peoples" about the Nuremberg trials. Karmen later filmed in Vietnam, India, and South America. The Soviet Union awarded Karmen the Lenin Prize, the highest Soviet honor, for his 1953 film "Story of the Capsian Oil Workers." Karmen died in 1978 in Moscow.
Scope and Content
Pan, pile of corpses outside gas chamber/crematoria, bones on the ground. CUs, cremation ovens. Family photographs of a victim. More shots of ovens and bones. CUs, women weeping. Pan down, from one woman to a pile of bones. Tall chimney and burial grounds are shown. Bones. A vegetable garden. Men inside barracks. CUs, shoes salvaged by the Nazis. Victims' belongings including: clothing, gloves, toys, eyeglasses, scissors. The Russian commission continues questioning. CUs, passports, indicating prisoners from Poland, Holland, France, and other countries. CUs, survivors. Commission. Prisoners (POWs?) walking inside camp. 00:39:52 Title reading, "Im befreiten Lublin: Trauerfeier fuer die Ermerdeten vom Maidanek" Ceremony for the dead, a woman is shown kneeling, priest officiates, children listen. A monument is dedicated, large crowd stands at attention. Soldiers, huge crowd (rally size), nuns. HAS, crowd.
Note(s)
Reel 2 of NARA #238.5. "Filmdokumente" on the German concentration camps, made under Russian auspices with narration in German. See also Story 2333, Film ID 895 for duplicate footage. See Story 29, Film ID 5 for duplicate (although shorter) footage. The original ADC shot card at NARA incorrectly titles this film:"Prosecution Exhibit #228-229, Concentration Camps, Maidanek, 1944" 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 Majdanek was presented as evidence on February 19, 1946 (Day 62 of the trial) under Document USSR-81.
USHMM replaced the online streaming video with a new, higher resolution digital file produced for the VHH project. The 16mm film source from NARA was scanned by the Austrian Filmmuseum in 2021.
Subjects
- VICTIMS' PROPERTY
- MAJDANEK
- CHIMNEYS
- PHOTOGRAPHS
- SOLDIERS/MILITARY (SOVIET)
- SURVIVORS
- CREMATORIA
- POLES
- CONCENTRATION CAMPS
- CROWDS
- PASSPORTS
- CONCENTRATION CAMPS (LIBERATION)
- SHOES
- BURIALS
- CHILDREN
- MEMORIALS
- EYEGLASSES
- CLERGY
- CLOTHES
- POLAND
- SURVIVORS (POLISH)
- SOLDIERS/MILITARY (POLISH)
- WOMEN
- GRAVES
- GAS CHAMBERS
- CORPSES
- CEREMONIES
Places
- Majdanek, Poland
- Lublin, Poland
Genre
- Documentary.
- Film