Relocation of displaced persons
Creator(s)
- Sam Bryan and International Film Foundation
- Julien H. Bryan (Producer)
- Julien H. Bryan (Director)
- International Relief Organization (UNRRA) (Producer)
- Mendel Good (Subject)
Biographical History
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.
Mendel (Aftergut) Good was born on March 26, 1925 (Nowy-Sacz, Poland). Parents, Bernard and Deborah Aftergut had four children, Shmuel, Mendel, Abraham and Sarah. German troops entered their Polish city in September 1939. Mendel was 14. Mendel survived the war in ghettos and camps; including Plaszow, then Mauthausen and Melk, a Death March and was finally liberated in Ebensee by American troops. After close to three years in Austrian hospitals regaining his health, Mendel arrived in Canada in September 1948 as a garment worker. Of his 100 family members who were in Poland in 1939, he was the sole survivor. Mendel had been in Ottawa, Canada only a few months when he met and fell in love with Valerie Blau (December 8, 1929 (Tarpa, Hungary) – August 21, 2016). Together, they built a new life in Ottawa, raised three children and watched their family grow to four generations. For more detailed information, refer to: Shoah Foundation interview with Mendel Good (Aftergut) or the Crestwood high school project with numerous short videos: https://www.crestwood.on.ca/ohp/good-mendel
Scope and Content
INT, MS, IRO refugee processing center. Several displaced persons gather around the Canadian representatives at their desk at the processing center (staged). The two representatives answer questions from the group, made up mostly of young men, and a few young women. MCU, two young refugees talk to the representatives. EXT, LS, DP camp Ebelsberg in Linz, Austria. Refugees gather with their belongings to begin their journey to Canada. VS, refugees helping each other close and label their luggage for the journey. The refugees load into open trucks in order to make the trip to the train station, includes Mendel Good (Aftergut). At the train station all the belongings are loaded into the railcars. Children getting into the railcars with their families to begin a new life. The refugees speak to each other, to the IRO staff that are helping them, and to the camera. Several CUs of crates bearing the names of individuals and their final destinations.
Note(s)
Detailed preservation notes from the film lab are available in Film and Video department files. Additional photographs are available in the USHMM Photo Archives.
Mendel Good (Aftergut) appears in this film footage at (counter) 5:23, 6:19, 6:35, 6:53.
Subjects
- TRAIN STATIONS
- LUGGAGE
- CHILDREN (JEWISH)
- DISPLACED PERSONS (DP)
- POSTWAR
- BABIES
- CHILDREN
- POLES
- TRUCKS
- REFUGEES
- UNRRA
- JEWS
- UNITED STATES
- BRYAN, JULIEN
- BABY CARRIAGES
- EMIGRES/EMIGRATION
- TRAINS
- YUGOSLAVIA
- REFUGEE CAMPS
- WOMEN
Places
- Linz, Austria
Genre
- Outtakes.
- Film