Soviet film of atrocities shown at Nuremberg Trials
Creator(s)
- Alexander Vorontsov (Camera Operator)
- Central Studio for Documentary Film, Moscow (Producer)
- Roman Karmen (Camera Operator)
- Mémorial de la Shoah, Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine
- Kenan Kutub-Sade (Camera Operator)
- Elizaveta Svilova (Director)
- International Court of Justice
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.
Elizaveta Svilova began film editing for Pathe at age 14. By 1918, she was editing feature films at Goskino, the Soviet state cinema, and from 1922 to 1924 she was their chief editor. She met Dziga Vertov while working as a film editor and they married in 1924. After her husband fell out of favor in the Soviet film industry, Svilova continued to work in film and support the both of them. She appeared in and edited the sensational experimental film "Man with a Movie Camera" (1929) and is best known for pioneering montage documentary. Her directorial debut was in 1942 with "For You at the Front." She edited the first film of Auschwitz, taken at the liberation of the camp in January 1945, for the Central Studio for Documentary Film (Moscow). Her 1946 film on German-Fascist Atrocities was presented as evidence by the Soviet prosecution team at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946. She later co-directed a film about the trials condemning Nazi atrocities called "People's Trial." From her husband's death in 1954 until her own in 1975, Svilova was active in the publication and dissemination of his theoretical work, maintaining archival prints of Vertov's work and ensuring his legacy would not be forgotten.
Scope and Content
7 reels. This Soviet-made film was screened on February 19, 1946 on the 62nd day of the Nuremberg Trial and submitted as evidence relevant to the indictment for "crimes against humanity." The one-hour film with voiceover commentary shows visual evidence of the extermination camps of Auschwitz and Majdanek and appeals to spectators' emotions by emphasizing individual victims. The central argument of the film is that the Germans were the executioners of peaceful Soviet citizens. At the time, it made a very strong impression on both the accused and press. The film is a re-edited compilation of footage collected by the Soviet film team over four years (primarily used for propagandistic ends in wartime Soviet newsreels and documentaries). It was prepared in emergency by the Soviet prosecution team and minister of cinema following the projection of Nazi Concentration Camps presented by the Americans on November 29, 1945. Begins with CUs of evidentiary documents. Atrocities, corpses, women weeping, Soviet soldiers. Exhumation of mass grave, Russians weeping. Corpses at camp.Human remains. Doctors, exhumation, skulls. Human remains at camp, beach. Reburying children in coffins, women weeping. Watchtower, barbed wire, corpses. Gravesite in forest. Fires. Klooga: corpses, CU of victim with number and Star of David. Lublin, INTs corpses. Civilians view bodies and camp barracks. MS, survivors. Aerial views of Majdanek, barracks. Skulls and bones, crematorium. Victims' belongings (shoes, passports, etc.) Pan of survivors behind barbed wire. Aerial views of Auschwitz, maps, women in bunks, barbed wire, emaciated corpses, survivors in striped uniforms. Twins walking between barbed wire fences at Auschwitz, children show tattooed numbers to camera. Zyklon B cans. Demonstration at gallows. Mass gravesite. Doctors examine baby. MSs, victims' clothing, shoes. More victims' belongings, hair. Doctors examining survivors, interviewing nurses. Cemetery. Decapitated bodies, guillotine. Corpses in coffins. Torture instruments.
Note(s)
Refer to RG-60.4642 for another copy of this film from the Library of Congress.
Subjects
- TORTURE
- WAR CRIMINALS/WAR CRIMES TRIALS
- AUSCHWITZ
- BARBED WIRE
- EXHUMATIONS
- VICTIMS' PROPERTY
- MASS GRAVES
- CHILDREN
- BARRACKS
- SURVIVORS
- HUMAN HAIR
- MAJDANEK
- BURIALS
- LIBERATION
- ATROCITIES
- ZYKLON B
- DOCTORS
- CONCENTRATION CAMPS (LIBERATION)
- NUREMBERG (INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL)
- DOCUMENTS
- CEMETERIES
- SHOES
- SOLDIERS/MILITARY (SOVIET)
- SOVIET UNION
- SOVIETS
- CORPSES
- SNOW
Places
- Lublin, Poland
- Auschwitz, Poland
- Klooga, Estonia
- , Soviet Union
- Majdanek, Poland
Genre
- Documentary.
- Film