Original subtitles

This is the story of a film that was never completed.

A film designed to serve as propaganda for the Third Reich,

that empire infatuated with a camera...

that knew so well to document its own evil...

passionately, systematically...

like no other nation before it.

A full decade after the end of the war,

East German archivists began for the first time...

to sort through what remained of Hitler's propaganda machine.

Thousands of films discovered in the exact location in which they had been stashed.

A concrete vault hidden in a forest.

It is also there that one lone copy of a film was found.

Over one hour long, with no soundtrack, no opening or closing credits.

Only a brief title:

The Ghetto.

It was a rough first draft...

of the longest Nazi propaganda film ever shot inside the Warsaw Ghetto,

the largest of the Jewish ghettos established by the Nazis in occupied Roland.

The silent footage juxtaposes meticulously staged scenes...

in which Jews are shown enjoying a life of luxury in the Ghetto...

with images that required no staging at all.

Why was the film crew sent to film the Ghetto...

shortly before it would be wiped out?

And why was work on the film cut short in the early stages of editing?

In the absence of a final version of the film,

the intention of the propagandists can never be determined.

One can only surmise.

Ironically, after the war, this film commissioned by the Nazis...

turned into a trustworthy document for any filmmaker or museum...

seeking to show what really happened... to tell the untellable.

The cinematic deception was forgotten,

and the black-and-white images were engraved in memory as historical truth.

From the frenzy of propaganda, the images alone remain,

concealing many layers of reality.

May 1942.

The Warsaw Ghetto.

Two and a half years have passed since the Ghetto was established.

And in three months, many of those we see here will be sent to their death.

Here are images in which these people are still fighting for their lives.

What the film doesn't tell is that nearly half a million Jews were trapped here...

in a walled-in area of less than three square miles,

in conditions of unparalleled overcrowding,

plagued by hunger and typhus.

The Ghetto housed not only the many Jews of Warsaw,

but also thousands of Jewish refugees...

deported from all corners of the Reich,

with no possessions, no language,

no chance to survive.

Those who were caught smuggling food or attempting to escape...

were immediately captured and shot.

And, as in every other ghetto, here, too, the Nazis had set up a Judenrat...

a Jewish council... appointing as its head Adam Czerniakow,

whose job was to manage for them from inside...

what had essentially become the holding pen before the final destination.

As he fought a losing battle to save all he possibly could,

Czerniakow insisted on documenting the events of his life...

day by day, with urgency, in nine diary notebooks.

And even as time was running out,

he made a point of writing extensively about the shooting of this film...

and of his part in it... an actor playing himself,

unaware how his role will end.

May 3, 1942...

At 10 a.m. The propaganda crew arrived.

They started to take pictures in my office.

First, they staged a scene of rabbis and petitioners entering my office, etc.

Then they removed all the paintings and charts...

and brought in a nine-armed candlestick with all the candles lit.

May 7, 1942...

On the streets, they are filming Jews.

Oh God!

What if I see someone I know?

I keep thinking that among all these people,

I might see my mother walking.

Leszno, the main street, was full of traffic.

I remember that once they filmed people.

Germans would often show up,

usually for unpleasant reasons and usually shooting.

So, when they were filming, it was much more positive.

Anyhow, it was never good news when Germans showed up.

By this time in the Ghetto, I was independent.

I was already 8 or 9 years old.

My mother let me play in the courtyard,

and I went to all sorts of places by myself.

So, yes, I saw them filming.

They filmed beggars and all sorts of passersby.

At the time, I didn't realize that they had deliberate intentions.

But of course they did.

May 14, 1942...

The film crew is still very much in evidence.

They are filming both the luxury and the extreme poverty.

When I returned home at 4 o'clock, I found uniformed filmmakers, etc.

They decided to film in our apartment.

I requested that a couple be engaged as actors.

They placed a sign on the door with something written on it.

Two women and a male "lover" were brought to the apartment...

and they started filming.

In the meantime, an old Jew with a Vandyke beard...

was seized on the street.

He sat in my apartment for hours,

but his photogenic qualities were not used.

I can imagine what happened when he returned home...

and tried to tell his wife that he had earned nothing...

while waiting for three hours to be a "star."

I wonder whether I will ever meet you, my professional colleague.

Did we not both miss our destiny?

What on earth?

Where did one ever see a flower?

We would have eaten the flower.

Who could stay in their private apartment...

with their furniture and their teapot? Who?

Only the privileged, like Czerniakow.

Jewish families weren't allowed to live in more than one room.

So, we took all the belongings we still had...

and squeezed into one room.

At the same time, a family we had never met before...

suddenly took over my parents' bedroom.

When they reduced the area of the Ghetto,

we got expelled from our home,

and we had to find a new place to live within two days.

We found a place and started to take our belongings there.

We were given a room and a kitchen.

And my father hired a man who had a cart with no horse.

Once, as we were pushing the cart...

loaded with our possessions back and forth,

we saw them filming near "Femina."

When we realized that we were in their way,

my father got scared and let go of the reins.

The German jumped on him and beat him...

until he fell down and the cart rolled away.

I started screaming like crazy.

My father was lying on the ground.

"Stop screaming," he said, "or they'll beat you too!"

I put my hand over my mouth and stopped screaming,

and the Germans left us alone and continued filming.

I looked up and saw two men...

standing by a camera tripod.

They were filming outside.

The Ghetto was not a comfortable work environment...

for the S.S. Officers who carried out its step-by-step destruction.

They set up their headquarters outside the Ghetto walls,

in the Brühl Palace, located in the Aryan part of Warsaw.

In May 1942, their commander was the young Kommissar S.S. Officer Heinz Auerswald,

who submitted to his superiors weekly reports.

He described the developments in the Ghetto,

including executions he himself had ordered,

in the passive voice,

as though these things happened by themselves.

Weekly Report, May 5, 1942:

The filming currently underway in the Ghetto continues,

despite the lack of cooperation by the inhabitants.

During the filming in the Ghetto,

there was an upheaval in the Jewish prison.

When the film crew showed up...

with representatives of the Jewish Council,

panic broke out among the prisoners.

Those imprisoned for leaving the Ghetto illegally were convinced...

that they were about to be executed.

Women and children fainted.

Everyone calmed down...

only after the real purpose of the visit became clear.

May 19, 1942...

Waiting for Auerswald's phone call about the film.

In the afternoon, a hall was prepared for filming...

where a ball with champagne is to be held tomorrow at 8:30 p.m.

"The Ladies"are to wear evening dresses.

A messenger arrived with instructions...

that I am to play the role of the host.

I called Auerswald, who forbade me to perform.

He said that I should be at the community center at 7:30,

as something might still change.

This means that the matter has not yet been settled.

Will I have the strength to acquit myself honorably from this affair?

Later I saw a hearse full of flowers...

taken from the cemetery to the ballroom.

The city is full of rumors about deportations.

They are talking about tens of thousands.

Purposeful work under such conditions is admirable,

and yet we do it every day.

For years, researchers tried to discover who had made this film,

but none of the files... not one of the documents they uncovered...

could solve the mystery.

Only later, in the 1960s, a lead was discovered in the Warsaw City Archives.

It was a German entry permit to the Ghetto,

issued at the time of the shooting of the film.

A single document that disclosed one name:

Willy Wist, along with his profession: Cameraman.

Willy Wist, who gave up filming right after the war...

and became a scrap-metal merchant,

took great pains to cover his tracks,

burning copies of films he had shot during the war.

Of all those involved, he was the only one to be exposed.

Years later, when the German courts began to prosecute local war criminals,

including the lawyer, former S.S. Kommissar of the Warsaw Ghetto,

Heinz Auerswald, Wist was among those called on to testify.

Court transcripts record exactly what he was asked and what he replied,

providing for the first time a point of view of the man behind the camera.

Herr Wist, the court would like to know...

whether you were ever assigned to the Warsaw Ghetto during the war.

Yes.

In 1942, I was sent there from Berlin with three other reporters,

cameramen and photographers.

We were stationed in Warsaw.

I worked there as a cameraman.

When exactly was this?

Probably in the winter of'41 -'42.

Herr Wist, allow me to refresh your memory.

This is your entry permit to Warsaw.

It is probably true that I was in Warsaw in May 1942.

I most likely said winter because...

I remember being in Warsaw...

when nature was still hibernating.

Did you or your colleagues have any idea...

what awaited you in the Warsaw Ghetto?

On our way to Warsaw, we cameramen...

had no idea what awaited us there.

Like many times before,

we were simply told curtly that we should film there.

I clearly remember filming trade on the streets.

We also filmed...

street scenes...

and overcrowded houses.

In this context, I remember being told to film...

a large pile of feces in the courtyard of one of the buildings.

I remember thinking to myself...

that either because of the winter...

or because of the overcrowding,

the sanitary installations had stopped working.

Do you see the garbage?

People would throw their garbage out of their windows...

because they were too weak to go downstairs.

Hungry people become apathetic. They don't care anymore.

The piles of garbage are real.

I was ten years old at the time.

I was actually the dominant figure of my family.

Mother would send me to the Warsaw municipal garbage dump,

and when I'd return home,

I saw how they were eating what I had brought.

May 5, 1942...

In the afternoon, the filmmakers were busy...

in the bedroom of Zabludowsky's neighbors.

They brought in a woman who had to put on lipstick in front of a mirror.

In addition to all this, there are persistent rumors about deportations,

which appear not to be unfounded.

Kommissar Auerswald ordered us to provide a contingent of 900 people...

to leave tomorrow for an unknown camp.

Have you met the Kommissar in charge of the Jewish quarter, Dr. Auerswald?

I am not familiar with this name. I had nothing to do with his department.

Herr Wist, could you tell us, to the best of your knowledge,

whether the purpose of the film was ever mentioned?

I never knew what the purpose of the films we shot was.

However, it was absolutely clear to me that they were intended for propaganda,

particularly because we were focusing on the extreme differences...

between the rich and the poor Jews

Oy, I remember that woman.

She used to walk around with her baby in her arms,

screaming, and asking for a piece of bread.

I was 13 years old.

I used to smuggle Kosher meat into the Warsaw Ghetto...

by tram, through houses near the Ghetto borders,

through holes in the wall.

I was always on the move,

so I saw everything that was going on.

They filmed all the time.

For example, they brought geese to the market...

to prove that Jews were living in reasonable conditions.

This is horse meat.

Not everyone could afford it.

People who had goods or money...

were able to buy food up until the very end,

albeit at exorbitant prices.

There were 20, or possibly 50 people...

who could afford it.

However, most people had nothing to eat,

nothing to wear, or to heat with because they had sold everything.

They were waiting to die.

People from respectable families...

would take their loved ones, who had died, out to the pavement.

In the morning, you woke up to find a corpse every 100 meters.

I was 18 years old and I worked at the post office.

One day I was walking on Leszno Street...

when, suddenly, a big jeep with Germans in it...

pulled up next to the café.

A young woman was lying next to the café.

Sixty years later, I still remember...

what she looked like, though not her face.

I could see exactly what they were doing.

They didn't touch anyone.

They filmed the cafe and the woman and they laughed.

She was a young woman.

By then it was obvious who was starving.

You could see it on their faces.

Financial Report:

During March 1942, the following were brought in:

2. 18 kgs flour per head,

0. 199 kg sugar (white and yellow) per head,

1/5 egg per head,

0.93 kg fresh vegetables per head,

0.077 kg salt (white and grey) per head.

Since 1/5th of an egg per month amounts to only 2.4 eggs per year,

it is evident that the population resorts to free trade...

in order to ensure a minimum level of nourishment.

Smuggling along the Ghetto walls has been greatly reduced lately.

A number of Jews caught smuggling were shot,

as a consequence, the smuggling was reduced.

This is Rubinstein! For heaven's sake!

"Alle gleich," everyone's equal, he used to yell.

Do you see how people were lying on the street?

People lived here.

They lived here until they died.

What's the point of showing this?

To show contrasts? There were many contrasts in the Ghetto.

Many people kept clean and preserved their dignity.

We used to shower and brush our teeth every day.

Our mother took good care of us,

even though the conditions were impossible.

People who are not starving to death...

don't surrender their humanity.

People made jokes in the Ghetto and laughed.

Sometimes we would even sing.

People did what they could.

That was the tremendous contrast...

and paradox that the Germans had created.

Herr Wist, were you aware of the restlessness among the Jews..

when the camera crews showed up accompanied by the S. S?

On the one hand, I was unable to have much contact with the Jews..

because the S.S. Immediately pushed them away.

On the other hand, they brought us Jews...

they deemed appropriate for filming.

I do not know which department these S.S. Men belonged to...

or who their commander was.

I'd like to point out that the Jews were frightened of the S.S.

There were no incidents during the filming.

While the Nazis recorded their own version of history,

Jews were risking their lives by creating in secret...

their own chronicle of life in the Ghetto,

using pen and paper instead of a camera.

Historian Emanuel Ringelblum,

courageous enough at the war's outset to predict how it would end,

had begun organizing a vast underground archive,

documenting the daily struggle and annihilation...

of one of Europe's largest Jewish communities.

Recognizing that a scholarly narrative could never capture...

the many facets of this tragedy,

he called on anyone capable of resistance to keep a personal journal.

Right up to his final days in his place of hiding,

he carried out the task of compiling dozens of individual voices...

into a multilayered portrait...

the final portrait.

Everyone wrote: Journalists, writers, teachers, public figures,

the young and even children.

Everyone was aware of the value of the work being done...

and its importance for future generations.

Our guiding principle was that the work should be multifaceted.

Our second principle was objectivity.

We aspired to present the whole truth, as bitter as it may be.

Some of my friends who know about my secret diary...

have suggested that, given their despair, I should stop writing.

"Why are you doing this? What for? Will you ever publish it?

"Will your words ever reach the ears of future generations?"

Nevertheless, I don't listen to them.

I feel that continuing the diary...

until I am no longer physically and emotionally capable...

is a historical mission that must not be underestimated.

My powers of creation have not yet been silenced,

even though I haven't eaten anything in five days.

They continue filming everything inside the Ghetto.

All the scenes are being staged.

On Smocza Street, they assembled a crowd of Jews..

and ordered the Jewish policemen to disperse them.

To achieve a more "natural"effect,

guns were fired in the air to induce people to flee in panic.

Forty-five years passed from the moment...

the unfinished propaganda film was discovered...

until chance revealed another film reel, containing outtakes...

frames from the raw footage left on the cutting-room floor.

Images that were never meant to be seen...

now revealed repeated attempts to stage moments over and over again...

until a take seemed credible enough.

They reveal the multiple angles from which these scenes were filmed,

as well as the cameramen themselves,

inadvertently captured in one another's lens.

Do you know who told you and the other reporters what to film?

We were brought to the various locations by a man wearing an S. A...

or brown party uniform.

We called him "Goldpheasant."

Can you recall his name and rank?

I have no idea what his name was.

Judging from his appearance, he must have held an important position.

I believe he was in charge of propaganda matters in Warsaw.

Could you describe what kind of contact you had...

with this so-called "Goldpheasant?"

"Goldpheasant" sent us...

to various scenes or groups of people.

He never gave us any explanation concerning the meaning of our filming.

He simply said that he wanted us to film this or that.

As far as I could tell, he knew nothing about film.

We constantly had to point out that under the given light conditions,

we couldn't deliver reasonable pictures.

We didn't have a chance to express ourselves.

We were sent by "Goldpheasant"...

to locations, to people, or groups of people.

You were not given a chance to express yourselves freely?

No, we were not.

I know for a fact that the film was processed in Berlin.

We were never told what happened with it after that.

Today they set up a film session in Szulc's restaurant.

They rounded up well-dressed, typical Jews,

seated them at the tables, and ordered that they be served...

at the expense of the Jewish community:

Fish, geese, liquor, pastries and other delicacies.

The Jews ate and the Germans filmed.

It is not hard to imagine the motivation behind this:

Let the world see the paradise in which the Jews are living.

These despicable scenes went on for hours.

Yesterday morning, the Germans took all the waitresses outside.

The girls were lined up on the street...

and were instructed to look happy and attractive.

At the same time, they grabbed beggar-children...

and told them to walk by the elegant waitresses...

with their hands out, into which nothing was put.

This was recorded on film, to show that while the Jews live in luxury,

they share nothing with the hungry.

My mother also wore her beautiful coat,

maybe even a hat. So what?

Does that mean that life goes on as usual?

After the filming, these people vanished...

after being loaded onto trucks or caught in some other way.

Perhaps they believed that being filmed would save them,

but no way!

Their fate was the same as everyone else's.

Weekly Report, May 19, 1942...

There are rumors that gas was used for the first time in this war,

on the German side.

Rumors about new resettlements from Warsaw have been circulating for days...

and have created an enormous panic.

As usual, the "rumor-makers" know from a "reliable source"...

that the German authorities intend to resettle the Jews of Warsaw...

in the East.

The next morning at 8 a.m., all the actors were ordered to appear...

at the New Azazel Theater.

During the rehearsals with the actors on the stage,

a group of soldiers picked up people.

People started running and panic ensued,

in the midst of which the Germans treated everyone to heavy beatings.

Since no one knew why they were being held there,

you could hear the sighs and groans...

of the children who were picked up together with their parents.

After each actor finished his part,

the audience had to yell "Bravo!"

The audience in the theater was held...

until the filming was finished at 8 p. M...

without food or any opportunity to take care of their bodily needs.

When an actor sang happy songs,

the audience was ordered to roar with laughter.

Woe to anyone who didn't laugh properly.

His fate was doomed.

They laughed as they had never laughed before.

The Germans ordered all the actors to overact as much as possible.

David Seiderman sang "My Yiddisher Mame."

Ruth Zandberg, who accompanied him on the piano, wept bitterly.

Her mother, Yiddish actress Zusha Zandberg, had just died of typhus.

The scope of the film is quite broad.

The filmmakers are interested in every aspect of Jewish life in the Ghetto.

It isn't hard to guess their intentions...

for this "artistic"project.

They aim to capture very "objectively"...

aspects of the so-called Jewish folk character.

In front of our eyes unfolds the prologue to a great tragedy.

Even though we don't know its name, we can sense what it's about.

The name of the prologue: "A Jewfilm."

A group of artists arrived from Germany...

with a list of scenes which the community must prepare for them.

At that point, even the blind could see where things stood.

The community had to prepare a circumcision ceremony, a wedding,

the Sabbath, both in the synagogue and the cemetery, and holidays.

This clearly had one intention:

To prove to the "righteous gentiles" in Hitler's camp that they are right,

that there is only one way to deal with the Jews: Annihilation.

I'd like to read you excerpts from the diary...

of the Chairman of the Judenrat, in Warsaw, Adam Czerniakow.

Czerniakow wrote daily entries in his diary mentioning the filming.

The diary of the Chairman of the Judenrat survived?

Yes. I'll read you the following entry from May 1942.

You may interrupt and add details.

Czerniakow writes:

May 12, 1942...

Yesterday, they filmed a demonstration of a circumcision.

They insisted that the circumcision take place...

in a private apartment instead of a hospital.

Since the "actor"weighs less than 2 kgs,

there is a danger that he might not live very long.

I cannot recall this event.

It may have been filmed by other members of the crew.

Babies were born. Woe to those babies.

It was the end for them and the end for their families.

Apparently, my mother also got pregnant.

I remember my mother coming back from somewhere...

and lying down in bed for two days.

I guessed that...

she must have had an abortion.

And I think to myself how lucky we were...

that this happened in the spring of'42.

If it had been three months later, when the deportation started,

we might have all been sent to our death because of that baby.

This week they invented a new way to torture us.

First, they rounded up dozens of pretty young women...

and brought them to a Jewish ritual bath.

Then, men were rounded up and brought to the same ritual bath.

While one Nazi whipped the heads of those who were captured,

his colleague stood in a corner with film equipment.

This is not slander. Here is the film.

I now recall...

that one day we were told to shoot inside a ritual bath.

We were then brought to a rather old building...

which had a bath on the ground floor or in the cellar.

Several naked women hesitantly stepped into the bath.

There were about 8 of them,

standing up to their hips in water.

One was an old Jewish woman, who I believe was also in the water.

She murmured something which I understood to be prayers.

These were women who were somewhat better fed.

It was difficult to film in the bath because we didn't have enough light.

Today the Germans set up an original film scene...

at the corner of Nowolipki and Smocza Streets.

They used the finest hearse we have,

which was taken by the Germans for the purpose of the film.

They want to prove that Jews not only live a comfortable life,

but also die with dignity and even get a luxurious burial.

No good will come to us from this film craziness.

But Jews don't bury their dead in a coffin!

In the spring of'42,

there were corpses on the sidewalks.

Someone like me, who could still walk,

had to make her way between the corpses.

I hurried along the walls like a mouse,

and suddenly a car pulled up.

Two Germans stepped out...

and a third pointed a camera at the corpses.

I hid.

People who still looked more or less human...

were kindly asked to walk by the corpses with their heads held high.

They walked by and came back,

and walked by again and came back again.

It's true that we had to walk by.

No one looked, it was impossible.

We became indifferent to the suffering of others...

because otherwise, it was impossible to live.

It was so terrifying because I could be the next in line.

When it was already dark...

and I was walking down Karmelitzka street,

which was crowded with people,

I tripped on something...

and lost my balance.

When I opened my eyes, I saw that I had fallen on a corpse.

My face was nearly touching his,

and I was shaking.

Then suddenly,

it was as if all the corpses which I had previously avoided looking at,

were there, in the face of this one man.

It was a human being.

I got home and I told my mother what had happened.

It was only then that I started to cry,

I cried a lot.

I had always been so optimistic and strong,

but suddenly it all broke down.

My mother took out some bread and spread some jam on it for me.

She gave me a slice of bread.

A slice of comfort.

May 1942.

The Warsaw Ghetto.

This was filmed by one of Willy Wist's colleagues,

who had new film stock in color,

as well as his own personal camera.

It seems that he found time to record personal memento of Ghetto life,

as well as of the making of the film,

including the large crowd scenes staged by the film crew.

Here is the funeral procession.

And here, the market.

And for a brief second, one of the cameramen...

can be seen caught in the frame.

Can you recall anything else about the filming in the Ghetto?

In the Warsaw Ghetto, I remember seeing...

a Jew going around with a handcart carrying corpses.

I saw how he picked up a corpse in front of one of the houses...

and continued to the cemetery.

I remember seeing an arm and a leg hanging down.

At the entrance to the cemetery, there was some sort of shack...

in which corpses were piled up.

There were some 40 or 50 corpses which still had to be buried.

I filmed this shack from the outside.

Today, I cannot watch this.

I am no longer immune.

Today I am human, today I can cry.

I am so happy that I can cry...

now that I'm human.

I recall that I had to film a mass grave...

with many layers of corpses.

I cannot say how many layers there were...

beneath the layer which I could see.

I remember the corpses being eased into the grave on a slide.

Two Jewish workers were standing inside the grave,

arranging the corpses next to one another.

I have a vague memory that the corpses were strewn with chloride.

Although I believe that the corpses were naked,

I am not certain about this.

The people were all skin and bones.

At the time, my impression was that the people had died of starvation.

These impressions in Warsaw had a profound impact on me,

although later,

I got to see quite a lot.

They preoccupied my thoughts for quite some time.

Herr Wist, during the filming,

you were really unaware of the plans to resettle and physically annihilate...

thewish population in the near future?

I can only say that at the time, I definitely knew nothing...

of the horrible fate awaiting thews of Warsaw.

It was only after the war that I learned...

about the planned extermination of thews in the Treblinka death camp.

During the filming in the Warsaw Ghetto,

I often had the opportunity to talk to thews...

who had been sent there from Germany.

From these conversations,

my impression was that they were full of hope...

and that they expected...

to be resettled in Madagascar or elsewhere.

They regarded their stay in Warsaw as temporary.

I am absolutely convinced that at the time they had no idea...

what their real fate would be.

Although at the time, the malnourishment of the population...

in Warsaw was appalling,

I never thought that these people...

would be systematically murdered.

After 30 days of shooting,

the film crew packed up its cameras and lighting equipment and was gone.

Less than two months later,

S.S. Officers appeared in the office of Czerniakow,

the head of the Judenrat, instructing him to draw up a list...

of many thousands Jews for immediate deportation to Treblinka.

Czerniakow was most likely aware that Treblinka was no more than a mass grave.

The following day, when the quotas oews were significantly raised,

he swallowed the cyanide capsule he had kept since the start of the war,

and in the silence of his death, signaled his people: "This is the end."

These were also the days during which the propaganda film was being edited.

Soon it would be buried in the stacks of the archive.

On its box, a single title:

The Ghetto.