Nazi Concentration Camps

2022. NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMPS (1945-USA). Directed by GEORGE STEVENS. This sobering visual record of Nazi concentration camp atrocities is most definilely not for the squeamish. Back in 1945, it served to notify the world of the unspeakable horrors of life and death within the confines of Hitler’s death camps. It consists of film selected from the approximately 80,000 feet shot as the Allies liberated concentration camps across Europe. Officially, the footage is a “documentary report compiled from films made by military photographers serving with the Allied armies as they advanced into Germany.” It opens with the reading of an affidavit signed by famed Hollywood director George Stevens, who then was a Lieutenant Colonel on active duty with the U.S. Army Signal Corps. One of Stevens’ responsibilities was the direction of the photography of Nazi prison and concentration camps as they were liberated. The images shown are as vivid and graphic as you will ever see. There are corpses by the hundreds along with shot of the damaged bodies of survivors, former inmates demonstrate how they were tortured by their captors. A narrator describes in grim detail the unconscionable manner in which inmates were treated. He reveals the numbers of people killed, and how they were killed. As Stevens declared in his affidavit, “To the best of my knowledge and belief, these motion pictures constitute a true representation of the individuals and scenes photographed. They have not been altered in any respect since the exposure were made.” All of this footage serves as a disturbing reminder of the result of genocide not just during the Second World War but at any time in history. 59 minutes. Documentary