Belsen Concentration Camp: survivors and burial
Creator(s)
- Michael Lewis (Camera Operator)
- Imperial War Museums
Scope and Content
Low pile of naked corpses. In BG, survivors busy, smoke, trees. SS men march through the frame. More captured Germans enter gate. LS German soldiers unloading trucks (out of focus). From above, large crowd of female survivors, some smile at the camera for group portrait. MS of women sitting in compound, behind them is pile of boots and shoes, one woman takes some from the pile. VAR MLS of women hanging around, eating. More shots of corpses, mangled face, eye sockets; VCU, face of female, hollowed, glassy eyed. LS, wall, edge of pit, 10 feet down, shadows into pit. People looking down into it, bodies, limbs, ribs, male corpse. Soldiers and women at "canteen" / water truck, British soldiers smile into camera as they fill buckets brought by women prisoners. MCUs of men through barbed wire eating soup and bread. British soldier distributes food with former prisoners. Prisoner cuts of fragment of bread for companion. Young man sitting in hay, idly scratches neck. LS, one man picks his way through field of bodies/clothes. Nazis, including a man in a white coat, standing under guard, British frisk SS men. Female guards leaving building, boots, marching, stout. Lined up men march past camera, women follow. SS men pick up corpses from where they lie in a row on the ground. MCU as SS men load female corpses onto lorry. British troops stand in circle in background, holding rifles. CU, Nazis standing in truck with corpses, almost stonefaced, dropping bodies from edge of pit. Background of one shot shows Army photographer. Cut to line of British Army vehicles going down camp road. MCU as SS men push stalled lorry along, urged by British soldiers. SS unload more corpses. MS, women stand together watching the burial detail. MS as crowd shakes their fists at passing burial lorry.
Note(s)
For some duplicate (although poorer quality) footage, see Stories 2644, 2646, 2648, and 2654 on Film ID 165.
Subjects
- SURVIVORS
- MARCHING
- GUNS
- BERGEN-BELSEN
- GUARDS
- SS (SCHUTZSTAFFEL)
- GERMANY
- EATING
- PITS
- MASS GRAVES
- SOLDIERS/MILITARY (GERMAN)
- SMOKE
- CONCENTRATION CAMPS
- TRUCKS
- CONCENTRATION CAMPS (LIBERATION)
- SOLDIERS/MILITARY (BRITISH)
- CROWDS
- GRAVES
- BURIALS
- BREAD
- LIBERATION
- POWS (GERMAN)
- BARBED WIRE
- FOOD
- CLOTHES
- WOMEN
- SOUP
- CORPSES
Places
- Belsen, Germany
Genre
- Film
- Unedited.