I George C.
Stevens Lieutenant Colonel army of the United States hereby certify that from one
March nine hundred forty five way from
a nine hundred forty five 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 for the graphic 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 for it. 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 US sworn to before me the second day of October nineteen forty five
James D.
Donovan command United States Naval Reserve. I
archaeologic Lieutenant United States Navy thereby certify that from nineteen
twenty nine to nineteen forty one I was employed at twentieth Century Fox Studios
in Hollywood California as
a director of photographic effect and I am familiar with all photographic
techniques since the specter of September nineteenth twenty one to the present day
of the twenty seventh of August nineteenth forty five I have been on active duty
with the United States Navy I have carefully examined the Motion Picture of 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 respect and are true copies of the original held in the vault of the United
States Army as they go Corps these acts are comprised like found in feet of film
selected from eighty thousand feet all of which I have reviewed and all of which is
similar in character to the actor in our count on Lieutenant United States Navy
one two before me the twenty seventh day of August nineteen forty five John Ford
Captain United States Navy. These are the locations of the largest
concentration and for them maintained throughout Germany in occupied Europe under
the not the regime. The only part covering
a representative group of camp illustrates the general conditions which prevailed.
More than two hundred political prisoners were burned to death at this
concentration camp near likes of others among the original total of three hundred
fifty inmates were shot down by German only guards as they dashed from the prison
heights 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 twelve S.S.
Troopers and the Gestapo agent lured two hundred twenty starving prisoners into
a big wooden building at this camp sprayed the structure with an unfathomable
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
a hail of bullets but were electrocuted by the live wires of
a fence which was the final hurdle for those fleeing the flames.
The lives his victims were Russians Czechs Poles and French the dead are viewed by
Russian women liberated from slave labor.
That tiny Germany in
a concentration camp was overrun by the sixth Armored Division containing mainly
Hungary and who are people of wealth and esteem in their native country among them
where young girls of only sixteen years of age the women show the scars of
miserable existence under Nazi prison rule American doctors examine the victims.
Some have gangland as will.
Others suffer from fever tuberculosis typhus and additional communicable disease
all existed under appalling conditions and Burman 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 Mao treated
them are forced to help look after the patients.
The staff of German nurses is also forced to attend the victims.
The women are able to smile for the first time in years.
At this concentration camp in the go to area the Germans starved clubbed and burned
to death more than four thousand political prisoners over a period of eight months
a few kept him survived by hiding in the wood the camp is chosen for
a high command inspection led by General Dwight D.
Eisenhower also present our generals Omar and Bradley and George S.
Patton the Fourth Armored Division of General Patton's Third Army liberated this
camp early in April the general's.
They see the wood shed where
a line covered bodies are stacked in layers in the stench is overpowering.
Former inmates demonstrate how they were tortured by the Nazis. The.
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 spokesman 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
a heap to top the grill. Another
group to visit the order of campers composed of local townspeople including
prominent Nazi party members they will be taken on
a forced tour of the camp site by Colonel Haydn Cedars commander of the four
armored divisions combat command which captured or group.
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 of the camp.
First the visitors Buz some thirty freshly killed bodies lying in the courtyard of
the camp where they've been shot down the evening preceding the entry of American
tanks.
These two are identified as slave labor bosses whom are treated 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 in order if.
They are taken to the crematory two miles outside the camp where the list to be
atrocities is read for all to hear four thousand or group 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 border group 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
and this has been the headquarters for the systematic murder of thirty five
thousand Poles Russians and Germans sent here mainly for political and religious
considerations there was still alive are examined by Major Hermann Bowker of the
American war crimes investigation team the townspeople on how to mark Germany
called this place the house of shutters.
Meanwhile at the graveyard attached to the institution bodies are exit for autopsy
twenty thousand are buried here fifteen thousand who died in
a lethal gas chamber were cremated and their ashes interred.
Death books for. Around hidden in the wine cellar about him our institution
revealed part of the story of the mass killings of rocky contain thousands of death
certificates profession nationality unknown was written after each.
Of corpses are lined up pending the. Officers.
Major broker performs the autopsy
a detailed listing is made of all clinical data. Interrogating
the institution head doctor on the taller man was the top Nazi in charge of the
place the other man entering the room as chief Mayo 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 seventeen at the time died from the morphine injection the
investigating officers were told that the Nazis never bothered to determine whether
a victim may have survived the overdose Instead all were hustled off to the
graveyard and buried in piles of twenty to twenty four.
The prisoners are removed to await trial Ottomar judge told investigators that when
the ten thousand victims died the institution heads and Nazi officials staged
a celebration.
This is bringing down President in Belgium it offers evidence of Nazi brutality
imposed on Belgian Patriots during the period of German occupation.
Many of the hardships remain untouched such as the blood stained coffins.
Demonstrating how the victims were tied up for administering vicious beating.
A barbed wire stick was used on the backs of the men.
Another method for running
a patriotic helpless while he was attacked by his gestapo guards.
And Nazis also would tire
a man in chains in this manner and then apply the turn to get.
A bro in made from screw and how it was you.
A victim shows scars caused by repeated beatings.
Others show what happened to them as
a result of both beatings and cigarette burns. About
demonstrates the manner in which as crutch was split by the Nazis.
A woman discloses the results of
a beating. The
Harlem concentration camp near Hanover out of ten thousand Polish men brought here
ten months prior to April one thousand nine hundred five only two hundred remain
prisoners who could walk were removed before American troops entered Hanover the
others were left to starve and die I mean get relief was provided by the man with
the arrival of a Red Cross club Mobley
a man broke into tears when they were given hot soup either 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 tortured soul on 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 are too far gone when the Americans
took over.
And I am G.
Sergeant checks the list of inmates. The victims relate the
atrocities story and photographs are made for further documentation about heroes
committed at the Hanover camp.
The concentration camp was overrun by American troops in April the prisoners were
mainly Poles and Russians now treated and starved. Savage watchdogs were used to
help guard the can. German civilians are forced to 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
villagers could not tolerate the stench of the death and they themselves moved the
bodies to this site now they again must examine the corpses this time under armed
persuasion.
Victims bear the marks of violent deaths.
American troops view the evidence of Nazi barbarism.
The slave labor camp Nordhaus and liberated by the third Armored Division First are
at least three thousand political prisoners here at the brutal hands of S.S.
Troops and hardened German criminals who are the camp guard going out in
a minute depository for slaves found unfit to work in the underground the bomb
plants and in other German camps in.
The Med the corpses are human skeletons too weak to move.
One of our medical battalions work two days and nights binding wounds and giving
medication for advanced cases of starvation and tuberculosis are often no cure
survivors are shown being evacuated for treatment in allied hospitals.
The victims are mainly POWs and Russian with considerable numbers of French and
other nationalities also included in the camp rosters.
Burgermeister of Nordhaus in that order to provide six hundred German male
civilians who will inter the twenty five hundred M.
Very bodies became.
A priest of ministers last rites for the dead while the corpses are being carried
to the hillside or bury.
Them the actual burial in common graves of the twenty five hundred North housing
victims.
I'm a tenant in your great jacket Taylor U.S.
Navy and I would California believe it or not the first time I've ever been in the
movies I've been working overseas in occupied countries in the Balkans read too
much. And are over forty four I was the first Allied officer to
come out of Austria. I was up to December first by the way to stop all the
early people. Even though I was in uniforms really beaten and considered as
a nun prisoner of war taken to piano prison for I was held for months when the
Russians neared the end of. I was taken to the my house and concentration larger
than extermination camps the worst in Germany. Where we have been
starving and beaten. And killed. Fortunately my
parents had come. To American officers the police have been executed
here during the Instagram one for us they were Officer and their dog tag
taker is the Army officer or could buy gas in the market.
Or anywhere. Five or six ways by gas prices shooting by beating it
is beating with. By. Exposure and
it is ending on no make it forty eight hours having water going and going on them
in the middle of winter starvation. Dark and pushing. Over one
hundred but with. This. This is all true has been seen in years you know being
recorded. Again and you know in the form of paper and uniforms
but it was taken away from me in the presence of one over the USA. I have
been condemned to death as another American also in the. Course where the
Armored Division was going through
a. Pictorial
evidence of the almost unprecedented crimes perpetrated by the Nazis of the book
involved concentration camps the story and 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 deprived mint in Washington it states that one thousand
boys under fourteen years of age are included among the twenty thousand still alive
at the camp but the survivors are males only and at the recent death rate was about
two hundred
a day nationalities
and prison numbers are tattooed on the stomachs of the inmates
The report lists the surviving inmates as representing every European nationality
it says the camp was founded when the Nazi party first came into power in one
thousand nine hundred three and has been in continuous operation ever since
although its largest populations date from the beginning of the present war run
last month with the camps normal complement at eighty thousand
and the official report the broken board camp is termed an extermination factory I
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 run upon the other were
found outside the crematory the Nazis maintained
a building at the camp for medical experiments and over sections with prisoners as
guinea pigs medical scientist came from Berlin periodically to reinforce the
experimental step in particular new toxins and to toxins were tried out on
prisoners few who entered the experimental buildings every marriage to live
one of the weapons used by S.S.
Guards. The body disposal plant
and side are they are ones which gave the crematorium
a maximum disposal capacity of about four hundred bodies per ten hour day gold for
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 banking opens the firm's name is clearly
inscribed to
all bodies were finally reduced to bone ash
twelve hundred civilians walk from the neighboring city of Weimar to begin
a force 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 things that the German civilians see as they reached the interior
of the camp is the parchment displayed on a table for all to gaze upon is
a lamp shade made of human skin made at the request of an S.S.
Officers why large pieces of skin have been used for painting pictures many of an
obscene nature
there are two heads which have been shrunk to one for their normal sides 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 camps living quarters where the stench filth and measure
a defied description they see the
result of lack of care and
a bad case of trench foot either
evidences of horror of brutality and human decency are shown and these people are
compelled to see what their own government had perpetrated
the respondents assigned to the broken story have given ride notice to the well fed
well dressed appearance of
a German civilian population of the Weimar area. Back
real. God you mention one of the older the not the prison.
It is known that the nineteen body wandered nineteen body for up to thirty thousand
people weren't room to go at one time. And very volatile were present when they
reached. The Nazis said it was a prison for political dissenters
a virtual criminals and religious and.
When these scenes were filmed over sixteen hundred priests representing many
denominations still remained alive they came from Germany Poland
Czechoslovakia France and Holland
incoming president rains arrived carrying more dead than living. Strong enough to
travel were brought to Dhaka 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 had minute did whatever they could
others died after the liberation
they were buried by their fellow prisoners
as in the case of other camps townspeople were brought into view of the dead.
This is what the liberators found inside the building
hanging an orderly rolls where the crumbs of those 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 browser the shower bath and shower bath the
gas van on the ceiling
the dummy shower head in the engineers
room then taken out by. The control in
blowing out of gas. And a valve to write
a light pressure. On it was
used to generate the label smoke from the gas
chamber the bodies were removed to the crematory
there is what the camera crew found inside
these other survivors.
I am the officer commanding the regiment of raw lottery guarding this cap.
Has been making the ash out of which that out about fifty dead
up to probably offended about seventeen thousand people and that we expect to be
the battery about half as much again when we carry. Conditions
where indescribable the people who had had no food for six days
eating turn to cook have now been organized
and although they have to be guarded so that everybody gets
a fair share of the food things now 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. That I didn't hear and found.
Fish shape and. Don't allow you to that woman doctor
a concentration camp. On
a part of April nineteen forty five and that this is the doctor in charge of the
female section of the concentration camp back in Belgrade that you are the prisoner
at this county seat and that's my hype. And I knew some of.
Our. Own. He says that there were no covers drawn stacks
or bags of any kind presents are delighted the regular on the ground. They were
given one twelfth of
a lump of bread and some watery soup daily. Almost seventy five percent of the
people were bloated from hunger. An epidemic of typhus broke out two hundred and
fifty women thousands of men died daily in the men's camp they come out
live or are in other parts of
a dad and I. Think funding to.
One hundred. Trying to maybe comment.
The system in this country yeah. That's what branches would.
Get on trafficking big issue. No medicines were
available because they manage collected every. Two days before the British
army came the first Red Cross food was attributed to
a month before one hundred fifty kilograms of chocolate had been sent to the
children of the camp. Or distributed around the commandant Cup for himself
and that of barter to. Understanding.
Their can and I only. Made one proposition even at thirty.
Three spring. Thank you May fifth to may have been.
Mentioned you start. At thirty here for hour and.
Then you are going on from here to give. She added various medical
experiments were made on the present doctors gave some of them intravenous
injection of twenty cubic centimeters of benzene which caused the victims to die.
They conclude by saying that down as Asians and other gynecological experiments
were performed on nineteen year old girls. The. Common.
Kramer camp commandant was taken into custody
that's where the fate of the Allied advance but the guys were taken before they had
time to flee
inside the same story. Of Asian and second.
Liberated prisoners could not control their emotions
despite German attempts to cover up we've found beeves in the open field
clear cut evidence of beatings and I'll drive murder was on every.
Name as victims were numbered for records which the German destroyed.
As guards were impressed to clean up the camp area
German woman guards were ordered to bury the dead
sanitary conditions was so appalling that heavy equipment had to be brought in to
speed the work of the cleaning up
this was back in Dallas.