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Long-lost Hitchcock Holocaust film to show at Jewish museum

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“Smiling children through barbed wire,” a still from footage of Bergen-Belsen shot by Sergeant Lewis or Sergeant Lawrie, April 18-20, 1945. The British liberated the concentration camp on April 15.  Images courtesy Imperial War Museums
“Smiling children through barbed wire,” a still from footage of Bergen-Belsen shot by Sergeant Lewis or Sergeant Lawrie, April 18-20, 1945. The British liberated the concentration camp on April 15. Images courtesy Imperial War Museums

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON  |  On Tues., May 19, the Museum of Jewish Heritage will premiere a never-before-seen 1945 documentary directed by Alfred Hitchcock. However, unlike a typical film by the master of suspense, this isn’t a psychological thriller that will leave viewers wondering until the mystery is finally unraveled at the last minute.

Rather, the documentary was made with the opposite intent: to erase any mystery about what really happened in the Nazi death camps, to expose the unvarnished truth about the Holocaust.

It’s called “German Concentration Camps Factual Survey.” In English and German, with English subtitles, it runs 88 minutes.

When the camps were liberated, extensive footage of them was shot by British, American and Russian military cameramen, as well as by newsreel cameramen.

This array of film, in turn, was used by the British Ministry of Information to create a documentary that would condemn the Nazi regime and document the magnitude of its crimes. In short, it was meant to be the film to be shown to German prisoners of war and the German public to shame them into accepting the Allied occupation.

Sidney Bernstein, chief of the film division of the Psychological Warfare Division of the Allied Expeditionary Force, initiated the project and fought for its production. Hitchcock — who was described by Bernstein as the film’s director — spent a month overseeing the editing. Ultimately, though, the film was shelved.

Now, seven decades later, England’s Imperial War Museums has digitally restored the documentary and assembled it for the first time exactly as Bernstein and Hitchcock originally intended.

Bruce Ratner is best known for his development prowess, including building The New York Times building and, in Downtown Brooklyn, MetroTech and the new Barclays Center — home of the basketball Nets, of which he is a part owner. He’s currently constructing three buildings in the Atlantic Yards project — now known as Pacific Park Brooklyn — half of whose total units will be affordable. Work will soon begin on a fourth building, which will be 100 percent affordable. By the end of June, construction will be underway on more than 780 units that are low-, moderate- or middle-income. When fully built, the project will have 2,250 affordable units.

In addition to his development work, Ratner takes immense pride in being chairperson of the board of trustees of the Museum of Jewish Heritage, a position he has held for the past year. The opportunity for the museum to host the East Coast premiere of the forgotten 1945 documentary is a great honor, he said.

“I would say it’s a major moment in Holocaust documentary,” he stated. “When the Russians reported on Auschwitz, it wasn’t believed. This film was meant to prove and show what the German people and what the Nazis had done — and then to tell the people of the world.

“It still shakes the soul, shakes the mind to see this film,” Ratner said. “The ‘Holocaust,’ the word, did not exist as we know it now until the 1970s. Had this documentary been shown at the time, it would have accelerated understanding of the atrocities and extreme brutality of the Nazis.”

As for why the film, in the end, was left on the shelf, he said, there were a number of factors.

“It got delayed, in general, in the summer of 1945,” he said. “They didn’t have the Russian material from Auschwitz.”

But the film’s visceral impact and condemning message were also reasons why it was decided not to show it back then: In short, there was a fear of alienating the Germans and driving them toward the Soviets. Rebuilding became the focus, not de-Nazi-fication.

“Ex-prisoner claps her approval of strictness shown by Tommies,” another still by Sergent Lewis, April 16, 1945, from the documentary, showing the liberation of Bergen-Belsen by the British.
“Ex-prisoner claps her approval of strictness shown by Tommies,” another still by Sergent Lewis, April 16, 1945, from the documentary, showing the liberation of Bergen-Belsen by the British.

“You wanted to win them over, and it was felt that this would not do that,” Ratner explained. “Germany became the focal point of the Cold War.”

Ratner was born in 1945, and growing up, heard family members talking about the Holocaust. His family lost about 120 members across Germany and Eastern Europe in the war. Afterward, his father sponsored many survivors who came over to America.

In 1976, Ratner went to Poland to see Auschwitz for himself.

“It was communist,” he said. “Nobody visited Auschwitz in those days.”

The Nazis murdered about 1 million Jews at the infamous killing camp. Other victims included Gypsies, the disabled, homosexuals, dissidents and non-Jewish Poles and Russians.

“It’s inexplicable,” Ratner said. “That’s why it very much resonates today.”

While the Russians filmed Auschwitz, the British documented Bergen-Belsen, and the Yanks recorded other sites. Other camps shown include Dachau, Buchenwald and Majdanek. In all, the film includes footage from 14 locations (10 camps and four sites of atrocity) discovered in Austria, Germany and Poland.

The combat cameramen who shot the footage used very simple cameras, Ratner noted, but “there were a lot of them.”

Sergeant Mike Lewis filming at Bergen-Belsen.
Sergeant Mike Lewis filming at Bergen-Belsen.

Although Bernstein called Hitchcock the director, a more apt description would be “treatment adviser,” according to a release by the Imperial War Museums, in that Hitchcock was not present for the actual filming or the creation of the rough-cut.

The documentary bears a Hitchcock hallmark, Ratner said, namely, long, wide shots that show the scenes in their full context.

“That was done to prove it wasn’t staged,” he explained.

The movie also uses symbolism to evoke the camps’ horrors.

“Hitchcock was always about symbolism,” Ratner noted. “It’s not like the 15-minute newsreels of the day. It’s done with a certain degree of artistry and care.”

Five rough-cut reels of the film were originally completed, but a planned sixth reel was never made — until now. To create the new, digital version, the restorers went back to the original footage — a total of 100 reels of film — and followed the 1945 film team’s instructions. There is also a new soundtrack, with a narrator reading the original script, plus new sound effects added.

Ratner has seen five of the film’s six reels. Asked how graphic it is, he admitted, “It’s very hard to watch.”

Captioned "Reaction of a Girl," a distressed young woman watches a burial at Bergen-Belsen. From footage shot by Sergeant  Lewis, April 17, 1945.
Captioned “Reaction of a Girl,” a distressed young woman watches a burial at Bergen-Belsen. From footage shot by Sergeant Lewis, April 17, 1945.

Asked what holds more meaning for him, at this point, his development business or his work on behalf of the museum — whose full name is the Museum of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial to the Holocaust — he said the latter.

“The issues surrounding the Holocaust and my heritage, working to educate others from lessons I learned, including the importance of remembrance, these are more important to me than the work I’ve done in development,” Ratner said. “I’ve always cared about issues of discrimination, issues of inhumanity and issues of ethnic cleansing. I am at a point in my life that I can focus on important issues connected to my heritage.”

For now, the plan is to show the long-lost documentary on only one night, Tues., May 19, at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, at 36 Battery Place, at 7:30 p.m.

“They want to be very careful about how this is being released,” Ratner said.

Tickets for the premiere are available by visiting the museum’s Web site, mjhnyc.org, or calling 646-437-4202. Ticket prices are $25, $15 for members and $10 for students.