German Concentration Camps Factual Survey

German Concentration Camps Factual Survey
Image: Army Film and Photographic Unit cameraman Sergeant Mike Lewis, filming at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on 24 April 1945. His footage appears in German Concentration Camps Factual Survey. © Imperial War Museums (IWM FLM 1232)

The German Concentration Camps Factual Survey is an official documentary which illustrates the atrocities committed against the Jews during World War II, highlighting horrific footage from the camps immediately after liberation.

Eddie Tamir, director of The Jewish International Film Festival (JIFF) is one of the few people in Australia who has seen this documentary.

“This is clearly the most gruesome and graphic documentary of human suffering in existence,” Tamir explains, “in which footage of persecution and genocide during one of the darkest chapters in history will take audiences one step closer to the unimaginable.”

Filmed by Allied cameramen in 1944 and 1945, the decision was made to incorporate this powerful and damning footage into a film and to be shown to German prisoners of war as a means of condemning Hitler and his Third Reich. A small panel of experts was assembled to work on the project, including famed director Alfred Hitchcock who was hired as an adviser.

The project was shelved and only now, 70 years on, has the film been completed, digitally enhanced and containing re-recordings of the original commentary as well as the addition of the missing sixth reel.

“Dr Toby Haggith, the Imperial War Museum’s Senior Curator, will introduce and host post-screening Q&As which will add perspective to the event. This documentary is of great historical significance, restored with care by the IWM and is mandatory viewing,” says Tamir. (MM)

Aug 19 & 20, Event Cinemas, Westfield Bondi Junction, Level 6, 500 Oxford St, $25, jiff.com.au

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