USHMM-edited version of the German propaganda film on the Warsaw ghetto

Identifier
irn1001069
Language of Description
English
Alt. Identifiers
  • RG-60.2191
Level of Description
Item
Languages
  • Silent
Source
EHRI Partner

Creator(s)

Scope and Content

This footage is from a roughly ninety-minute propaganda film that was never finished or shown publicly. It was created by a German propaganda camera team in the spring of 1942.The Nazi regime created these ghettos and imprisoned Jews within them, subjected them to these conditions of starvation and disease and overcrowding. And yet, with a film like this, they hoped to suggest that these conditions were chosen by the Jews, that they were natural Jewish living conditions. This film is considered propaganda because it is heavily staged, omits selective information, attempts to establish grotesque stereotypes, and exaggerates many elements of reality. This German propaganda film ended up on the shelf, never finished, never shown, never given a sound track that we know of. It seems that the development of the war and of the genocidal acts in 1942 probably made this irrelevant as propaganda. Mass deportations of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto began soon after filming was completed. This is an edited version of Stories 2114 and 2115. Footage shows propaganda scenes of the Warsaw Ghetto in May 1942, including processing new arrivals, Czerniakow in the Jewish Council building, street scenes, Jewish police striking people and moving them along the street, boys brought to prison, women in prison yard, people walking in the streets, and moving and burying corpses in a mass grave. Some scenes are slowed and highlighted to show German propaganda cameramen filming in the ghetto.

Note(s)

  • For more detail, refer to descriptions of Stories 2114 and 2115 on Film ID 2257.

Subjects

Places

Genre

This description is derived directly from structured data provided to EHRI by a partner institution. This collection holding institution considers this description as an accurate reflection of the archival holdings to which it refers at the moment of data transfer.