Original subtitles

[man] "I, George C. Stevens,

Lieutenant Colonel, Army of the United States,

hereby certify that from 1 March 1945

to 8th May 1945,

I was on active duty with the United States Army Signal Corps,

attached to Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Forces,

and among my official duties

was the direction of the photographing of Nazi concentration camps

and prison camps as liberated by Allied forces.

The motion pictures which will be shown following this affidavit

were taken by official Allied photographic teams

in the course of their military duties,

each team being composed of military personnel

under the direction of a commissioned officer.

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 exposures were made.

The accompanying narration is a true statement

of the facts and circumstances

under which these pictures were made.

George C. Stevens, Lieutenant Colonel, A.U.S.

Sworn to before me this second day of October, 1945,

James B. Donovan, Commander, United States Naval Reserve.

[man] I, E. R. Kellogg, Lieutenant, United States Navy,

hereby certify that from 1929 to 1941,

I was employed at 20th Century-Fox Studios in Hollywood, California,

as a director of photographic effects,

and am familiar with all photographic techniques.

Since the 6th of September, 1941,

to the present date of the 27th of August, 1945,

I have been on active duty with the United States Navy.

I have carefully examined the motion picture film

to be shown following this affidavit,

and I certify that the images of these excerpts from the original negative

have not been retouched, distorted, or otherwise altered in any respects,

and are true copies of the originals

held in the vaults of the United States Army Signal Corps.

These excerpts comprise 6,000 feet of film,

selected from 80,000 feet,

all of which I have reviewed,

and all of which is similar in character to these excerpts.

E. R. Kellogg, Lieutenant, United States Navy,

sworn to before me this 27th day of August, 1945,

John Ford, Captain, United States Navy.

[narrator] These are the locations of the largest concentration and prison camps

maintained throughout Germany and Occupied Europe

under the Nazi regime.

These film report, covering a representative group of such camps,

illustrates the general conditions which prevail.

More than 200 political prisoners were burned to death

at this concentration camp near Leipzig.

Others among the original total of 350 inmates

were shot down by German elite guards

as they dashed from the prison huts

to celebrate the arrival of American troops outside the city.

The atrocity story is told by the few who managed to survive.

They relate how 12 S.S. troopers and a Gestapo agent

lured 220 starving prisoners into a big wooden building at this camp,

sprayed the structure with an inflammable liquid,

and then applied the torch.

Machine guns set up at various vantage points

mowed down many victims who ran from the burning building.

Some miraculously escaped the hail of bullets,

but were electrocuted by the live wires of a fence

which was the final hurdle for those fleeing the flames.

The Leipzig victims were Russians, Czechs, Poles and French.

The dead are viewed by Russian women, liberated from slave labor.

At Penig, German, a concentration camp was overrun by the 6th Armored Division,

containing mainly Hungarians

who were people of wealth and esteem in their native country.

Among them were young girls of only 16 years of age.

The women show the scars of miserable existence under Nazi prison rule.

American doctors examine the victims.

Some have gangrenous wounds.

Others suffer from fever, tuberculosis,

typhus and additional communicable diseases.

All existed under appalling conditions in vermin-infested quarters

and with little or nothing to eat.

As soon as our troops arrived,

arrangements were made to remove these people from the miserable surroundings.

Under supervision of the American Red Cross,

the stricken inmates are removed

to a hospital which belonged to the German Air Force.

Nazis who formerly maltreated them

are forced to help look after the patients.

The staff of German nurses is also forced to attend the victims.

The were able to smile for the first time in years.

At this concentration camp in the Gotha area,

the Germans starved, clubbed, and burned to death

more than 4,000 political prisoners over a period of eight months.

A few captives survived by hiding in the woods.

The camp is chosen for a High Command inspection,

led by General Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Also present are Generals Omar N. Bradley

and George S. Patton.

The 4th Armored Division of General Patton's Third Army

liberated this camp early in April.

The generals view the rack that was used by the Nazis to whip the inmates.

They see the woodshed where lime- covered bodies are stacked in layers,

and the stench is overpowering.

Former inmates demonstrate how they were tortured by the Nazis.

American Congressmen invited to view the atrocities

were told by General Eisenhower,

"Nothing is covered up. We have nothing to conceal.

The barbarous treatment these people received

in the German concentration camps is almost unbelievable.

I want you to see for yourselves and be the spokesmen for the United States."

The General and his party next see the crude woodland crematory,

actually a grill made of railway tracks.

Here, the bodies of victims were cremated.

Charred remains of several inmates still lay heaped atop the grill.

Another group to visit the Ohrdruf camp is composed of local townspeople,

including prominent Nazi party members.

They'll be taken on a forced tour of the camp site

by Colonel Hayden Sears,

commander of the 4th Armored Division's Combat Command A,

which captured Ohrdruf.

A German medical major is compelled to accompany the townspeople.

Colonel Sears stands by

as the Nazis are informed that they must see all the horrors at the camp.

First, the visitors view some 30 freshly killed bodies

lying in the courtyard of the camp where they'd been shot

on the evening preceding the entry of American tanks.

These two are identified as slave labor bosses

who maltreated, tortured and killed their workers.

Next, to the woodshed, which the Nazis are reluctant to enter.

But Colonel Sears demands that they get a close-up look

at the most gruesome of sights.

The labor bosses enter.

According to reports, the local Nazis continued their tour of the camp

without apparent emotion.

All denied knowledge of what had taken place at Ohrdruf.

They are taken to the crematory, two miles outside the camp,

where the list of the atrocities is read for all to hear.

The 4,000 Ohrdruf victims are said to include

Poles, Czechs, Russians, Belgians, Frenchmen,

German Jews and German political prisoners.

A day before these Nazis visited the camp,

the Burgomeister of Ohrdruf was forced to view the horrors.

He and his wife were later found dead in their home,

apparently suicides.

American officers arrive at a Nazi institution

seized by First Army troops.

Under the guise of an insane asylum,

this has been the headquarters for the systematic murder of 35,000 Poles,

Russians and Germans sent here mainly

for political and religious considerations.

Those still alive are examined by Major Herman Bolker

of the American War Crimes Investigation Team.

The townspeople in Hadamar, Germany,

called this place the House of Shutters.

Meanwhile, at the graveyard attached to the institution,

bodies are exhumed for autopsy.

Twenty thousand are buried here.

Fifteen thousand who died in a lethal gas chamber

were cremated and their ashes interred.

Death books found hidden in the wine cellar of the Hadamar Institution

revealed part of the story of the mass killings.

The bulky volumes contained thousands of death certificates.

"Profession unknown, nationality unknown" was written after each name.

The corpses are lined up pending the arrival of W.C.I.T. officers.

Major Bolker performs the autopsy.

A detailed listing is made of all clinical data.

Interrogating the institution heads.

Dr. Whalmann, the taller man, was the top Nazi in charge of the place.

The other man entering the room is Karl Willig, chief male nurse.

He admits to killing inmates with overdoses of morphine.

The testimony of other witnesses substantiated the fact

that morphine was issued at the institution

without attempt at making a record.

As many as 17 at a time died from the morphine injections.

The investigating officers were told that the Nazis never bothered to determine

whether a victim may have survived the over dosage.

Instead, all were hustled off to the graveyard

and buried in piles of 20 to 24.

The prisoners are removed to await trial.

A Hadamar judge told the investigators that when the 10,000 victim died,

the institution heads and Nazi officials staged a celebration.

This is Breendonk Prison in Belgium.

It offers evidence of Nazi brutality imposed on Belgian patriots

during the period of German occupation.

Many of the horror exhibits remain untouched,

such as the bloodstained coffins.

Demonstrating how the victims were tied up

for administering vicious beatings.

A barbed wire stick was used on the backs of the men.

Another method for rendering a patriot helpless

while he was attacked by his Gestapo guards.

The Nazis also would tie a man in chains in this manner,

and then apply the tourniquet.

A Berlin-made thumbscrew, and how it was used.

A victim shows scars caused by repeated beatings.

Others show what happened to them

as results of both beatings and cigarette burns.

A Belgian demonstrates the manner

in which his crotch was split by the Nazis.

A woman discloses the results of a beating.

The Harlan Concentration Camp near Hanover.

Out of 10,000 Polish men brought here ten months prior to April, 1945,

only 200 remained.

Prisoners who could walk were removed before American troops entered Hanover.

The others were left to starve and die.

Immediate relief was provided for the men

with the arrival of a Red Cross Clubmobile.

The men broke into tears when they were given hot soup,

other food, and cigarettes and clothing.

When questioned, most of these men could not remember

when they'd last eaten a decent meal.

Many had been beaten and tortured so long, their minds had failed.

Some of the inmates are too weak to leave their bunks, or even eat.

Others bunk together to keep their frail bodies warm.

The deaths continue even after liberation of the camp.

Some were too far gone when the Americans took over.

An A.M.G. sergeant checks the list of inmates.

The victims relate the atrocity story

and photographs are made for further documentation

of the horrors committed at the Hanover camp.

This concentration camp was overrun by American troops in April.

The prisoners were mainly Poles and Russians.

Maltreated and starved, 1,700 were housed in tents

which contained only 100 bunks.

While our forces were nearing Arnstedt,

the Nazis removed most of the captives.

They shot those who were too weak to get away fast enough.

Savage watchdogs were used to help guard the camp.

German civilians are forced to help dig up the bodies.

This is the second burial ground for the victims.

The spot where they were originally buried after the massacre

was apparently too close to the town.

The Arnstedt villagers could not tolerate the stench of the dead,

and they themselves moved the bodies to this site.

Now they again must exhume the corpses,

this time under armed persuasion.

Victims bear the marks of violent deaths.

American troops view the evidence of Nazi barbarism.

Slave labor camp at Nordhausen,

liberated by the 3d Armored Division, First Army.

At least 3,000 political prisoners died here

at the brutal hands of S.S. troops and pardoned German criminals

who were the camp guards.

Nordhausen had been a depository for slaves found unfit for work

in the underground V-bomb plants

and in other German camps and factories.

Amid the corpses are human skeletons too weak to move.

Men of our medical battalions worked two days and nights

binding wounds and giving medications,

but for advanced cases of starvation and tuberculosis,

there were often no cures.

The survivors are shown being evacuated for treatment in Allied hospitals.

The victims are mainly Poles and Russians,

with considerable numbers of French and other nationalities

also included in the camp roster.

The Burgomeister of Nordhausen is ordered to provide

600 German male civilians

who will inter the 2,500 unburied bodies at the camp.

A priest administers last rites for the dead

while the corpses are being carried to the hillside for burial.

Then the actual burial in common graves of the 2,500 Nordhausen victims.

I'm Lieutenant Senior Grade Jack H. Taylor, U.S. Navy,

of Hollywood, California.

Believe it or not, this is the first time I've ever been in the movies.

I've been working overseas in occupied countries,

in the Balkans, for 18 months.

In October '44, I was the first Allied officer to drop into Austria.

I was captured December 1st by the Gestapo,

severely beaten-- even though I was in uniform--

severely beaten and considered as a non-prisoner of war.

I was taken to Vienna Prison, where I was held for four months.

When the Russians neared Vienna,

I was taken to the Mauthausen Concentration Lager,

an extermination camp,

the worst in Germany,

where we have been starving and-- and beaten

and killed.

Uh, fortunately, my turn hadn't come.

Uh...

two American officers at least have been executed here.

Here is the insignia of one, a U.S. Naval officer,

and here is his dog tag.

Here is the Army officer,

executed by gas in this lager.

Uh...

[man] How many ways did they execute these men?

Five or six ways: by gas, by shooting,

by beating-- that is, beating with clubs--

uh...

by exposure--

that is, standing out in the snow naked for 48 hours

and having cold water thrown on them in the middle of winter,

starvation...

dogs,

and pushing over a hundred-foot cliff.

This is all true, has been seen, and is now being recorded.

[man] Where did you get that uniform you have on?

This uniform, uh, I came here in uniform,

but it was taken away from me, and this was substituted

with my number and "U.S.A."

I have been condemned to death

as another American also in this camp,

but, fortunately, the 11th Armored Division

has come through and saved us in time.

[narrator] Pictorial evidence of the almost unprecedented crimes

perpetrated by the Nazis at the Buchenwald concentration camp.

The story in written form is contained in the official report

of the Prisoner of War and Displaced Persons Division

of the United States Group Control Council,

which has been forwarded from Supreme Allied Headquarters

to the War Department in Washington.

It states that 1,000 boys under 14 years of age

are included among the 20,000 still alive at the camp,

that the survivors are males only,

and that the recent death rate was about 200 a day.

Nationalities and prison numbers are tattooed on the stomachs of the inmates.

The report lists surviving inmates as representing every European nationality.

It says the camp was founded when the Nazi party

first came into power in 1933,

and has been in continuous operation ever since,

although its largest populations date from the beginning of the present war.

One estimate put the camp's normal complement at 80,000.

In the official report, the Buchenwald camp

is termed an extermination factory.

The means of extermination:

starvation, complicated by hard work, abuse, beatings and tortures,

incredibly crowded sleeping conditions and sicknesses of all types.

By these means, the report continues,

many tens of thousands of the best leadership personnel of Europe

have been exterminated.

Bodies stacked one upon the other

were found outside the crematory.

The Nazis maintained a building at the camp

for medical experiments and vivisections,

with prisoners as guinea pigs.

Medical scientists came from Berlin periodically

to reinforce the experimental staff.

In particular, new toxins and antitoxins were tried out on prisoners.

Few who entered the experimental buildings ever emerged alive.

One of the weapons used by S.S. guards.

The body disposal plant.

Inside are the ovens which gave the crematorium

a maximum disposal capacity of about 400 bodies per 10-hour day.

Gold-filled teeth were extracted from bodies before incineration.

The ovens, of extremely modern design and heated by coke,

were made by a concern which customarily manufactures baking ovens.

The firm's name is clearly inscribed.

All bodies were finally reduced to bone ash.

Twelve hundred civilians walk from the neighboring city of Weimar

to begin a forced tour of the camp.

There are many smiling faces and, according to observers,

at first the Germans act as though

this were something being staged for their benefit

One of the first thing that the German civilians see

as they reach the interior of the camp is the parchment display.

On a table for all to gaze upon

is a lampshade made of human skin,

made at the request of an S.S. officer's wife.

Large pieces of skin have been used for painting pictures,

many of an obscene nature.

There are two heads which have been shrunk to 1/5th of their normal size.

These and other exhibits of Nazi origin are shown to the townspeople.

The camera records the changes in facial expressions

as the Weimar citizens leave the parchment display.

The tour continues with a forced inspection

of the camp's living quarters,

where the stench, filth and misery defy description.

They see the result of lack of care in the bad case of trench foot.

Other evidences of horror, brutality and human indecency are shown,

and these people are compelled to see what their own government had perpetrated.

Correspondents assigned to the Buchenwald story

have given wide notice to the well-fed, well-dressed appearance

of the German civilian population of the Weimar area.

[narrator] Dachau, factory of horrors.

Dachau, near München, one of the oldest of the Nazi prison camps.

It is known that from 1941 to 1944,

up to 30,000 people were entombed here at one time,

and 30,000 were present when the Allies reached Dachau.

The Nazis said it was a prison for political dissenters,

habitual criminals, and religious enthusiasts.

When these scenes were filmed,

over 1,6000 priests, representing many denominations,

still remained alive.

They came from Germany, Poland,

Czechoslovakia, France and Holland.

Incoming prison trains arrived,

carrying more dead than living.

Those strong enough to travel were brought to Dachau

from outlying points

which were threatened by the Allied advance.

This is how they looked when they arrived.

Some survived,

and when the rescuers arrived they administered what aid they could.

Others died after the liberation.

They were buried by their fellow prisoners.

As in the case of other camps,

local townspeople were brought in to view the dead at Dachau.

This is what the liberators found inside the building.

Hanging in orderly rows were the clothes of prisoners

who had been suffocated in a lethal gas chamber.

They had been persuaded to remove their clothing

under the pretext of taking a shower

for which towels and soap were provided.

This is the brausebad, the shower bath.

Inside the shower bath, the gas vents.

On the ceiling, the dummy shower heads.

In the engineer's room, the intake and outlet pipes.

Push buttons to control inflow and outtake of gas.

A hand valve to regulate pressure.

Cyanide powder was used to generate the lethal smoke.

From the gas chamber, the bodies were removed to the crematory.

Here is what the camera crew found inside.

These are the survivors.

I am the officer commanding

the regiment of Royal artillery guarding this camp.

Our most unpleasant task

has been making the S.S., of which there are about 50,

bury the dead.

Up to press, we have buried about 17,000 people...

and we expect to bury about half as much again.

When we came here,

conditions were indescribable.

The people had had no food for six days,

and were eating turnips.

The cookhouses have now been organized,

and, although they have to be guarded

so that everybody gets a fair share of the food,

things are now going fairly well.

The officers and men

regard this job

as a duty that has to be performed,

and none of us are likely to forget what the German people have done here.

[off-camera woman gives instructions in German]

[woman speaking German]

[narrator] Speech of the woman doctor at concentration camp Bergen-Belsen,

24th of April, 1945.

This is the doctor in charge of the female section

of the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen.

She was a prisoner at this camp.

[woman speaking German]

She says there were no covers, straw stacks or beds of any kind.

Persons had to lie directly on the ground.

They were given 1/12th of a loaf of bread and some watery soup daily.

Almost 75% of the people were bloated from hunger.

An epidemic of typhus broke out.

Two hundred and fifty women and thousands of men died daily.

In the men's camp, they cut out liver, heart and other parts of the dead

and ate them.

[woman speaking German]

No medicines were available

because the S.S. men had collected everything.

Two days before the British army came,

the first Red Cross food was distributed.

Two months before, 150 kilograms of chocolate

had been sent to the children of the camp.

Ten kilograms were distributed.

The rest the commandant kept for himself

and used it as barter to his personal advantage.

[woman speaking German]

[clears throat]

[speaking German]

She adds that various medical experiments

were made on the prisoners.

Doctors gave some of them intravenous injections

of 20 cubic centimeters of benzene,

which caused the victims to die.

She concludes by saying that sterilizations

and other gynecological experiments were performed on 19-year-old girls.

[woman speaking German]

Kramer, camp commandant, is taken into custody.

Such was the speed of the Allied advance

that the guards were taken before they had time to flee.

Inside Belsen, the same story: starvation and sickness.

Liberated prisoners could not control their emotion.

Despite German attempts to cover up,

we found these in the open fields.

Clear-cut evidence of beatings and outright murder was on every hand.

Nameless victims were numbered for records which the Germans destroyed.

S.S. guards were impressed to clean up the camp area.

German woman guards were ordered to bury the dead.

Sanitary conditions were so appalling

that heavy equipment had to be brought in to speed the work of cleaning up.

This was Bergen-Belsen.

[no audible narration]