Frontline (1983–…): Season 3, Episode 18 - Memory of the Camps - full transcript

NARRATOR: 70 years ago,
in April 1945,

camera crews with
the British and American armies

entered the Nazi death camps

and filmed the horror
they found there.

The edited film remained
unfinished,

with missing soundtracks,

stored for decades
in the archives

of the Imperial War Museum
in London.

The film's directors, including
Alfred Hitchcock, had developed

a script to go
with the pictures.

So in 1985,
Frontline reconstituted the film



as closely as possible

to what we believe
the producers intended.

They made it as a document
to serve our collective memory.

At least six million people died

in Nazi Germany's
system of camps.

More than three million
were Jews.

(militaristic music playing,
crowd clamoring)

(Trevor Howard narrating)

(crowd cheering)

CROWD:
Heil! Heil! Heil!

(military band music resumes
amid crowd clamor)

(crowd clamoring)

(tower bells chiming)

Neat and tidy orchards, well-
stocked farms lined the wayside



and the British soldier did not
fail to admire the place

and its inhabitants-- at least
until he began to feel a smell.

It came from
a concentration camp,

a waste ringed with barbed wire
and overlooked by watchtowers.

Coming in from
the flowering countryside

in spite of the frightful smell,

things didn't seem so bad
at first;

children smiled
through the barbed wire

and women laughed and waved
their hands.

But Belsen camp was vast, and
inside was a different story.

They had not eaten for six days,

and every soldier's stock
of food was called into use.

Water, too, had been cut off

and so the water cart was the
most important thing to arrive.

Most of the people seemed to be
listless, beyond hope

and astonishment.

Hunger had probably affected
them that way.

We discovered that among this
stench of disease and decay

was something a bit worse
than hunger.

Moving vaguely on rickety
skeleton legs,

they were too ill to eat.

How grateful they were
for a kindly word or gesture!

What misery, to live amongst
such unmentionable filth

with scarcely the strength
to pick the lice

which inevitably swarmed
over them.

They seemed accustomed
to the smell and the horror.

They had seen
all there was to see.

Huts were almost impossible
to go near; they were full

of tangled masses of people who
had died slowly and painfully

of starvation and disease,
writhing in agony,

helpless in puddles
of excrement.

It was difficult to imagine
those orchards now,

those rich fields where
the stolid cattle cropped

the juicy grass, for here,
a few minutes away,

inside the barbed wire, was
nothing but filth and death.

Dead prisoners hurled out
and stacked in twisted heaps.

Dead women like marble statues
in the mire.

This was what these inmates had
to live among-- and die among.

The dead which lay there were
not numbered in hundreds,

but in thousands; not one
or two thousand, but 30,000.

Here is a pit where the
inmates, in order to earn food,

had to drag the bodies
of their comrades,

but they were too weak to keep
up with the rate

at which they were dying,

so the pit remains
only half filled.

The S.S. guards in charge
of the camp were captured

and lined up for examination.

Their papers were gone through
to confirm their status,

their authority.

Each with his death's head
badge.

Each justified by German law.

They were unashamed, well-fed,
well-dressed and cheerful.

There were women also
on guard in Belsen.

Volunteers who came of their own
free will, to do their bit.

Not sickly pale with hollow
faces and hungry eyes,

but well-fed and well-kept
with a strutting arrogance.

The commandant of the camp,
Josef Kramer, was removed

for trial as a war criminal
by an Allied military court.

There was an urgent need to get
rid of as many bodies

as possible,
as quickly as possible,

so all the S.S.
were set to work.

500 Hungarian troops, captured
with the S.S., were started

on a grave-digging operation.

The S.S. themselves were made
to do the unpleasant job

they had forced
the inmates to do.

This, after all, was nothing
to these men.

They, the "Master Race,"
had been taught to be hard.

They could kill in cold blood;

and it seemed to the British
soldier fit and proper

that the killers should bury
the nameless, hopeless creatures

they had starved to death.

The faces of the bystanders
showed just a little of the hate

that Germany has inspired--
and some of the anguish, too.

(no audio)

(no audio)

(no audio)

Meanwhile, back at the camp,

those who were still living
were being attended to.

Supplies of hot soup were
prepared

and those who could eat unaided
were fed as quickly as possible.

There had been no water supply
for six days.

The Germans pleaded
it had been cut.

We laid on water in a few hours
and before 12 hours had passed

had sufficient to enable them
to wash.

Soap was provided, the first
they had seen for months,

and an orgy of washing ensued.

A mobile bath unit was set up

and provided hot water
for baths.

Inmates thought
there was a snag at first--

expected to be beaten for going
near it, probably,

but when they learned that the
dream was true... hot water!

And these are the people

the Nazis said delighted
in being dirty.

But the job of clearing up
Belsen was a big one.

(people shouting angrily)

The burgermeisters
and civil officials

of the neighborhood were brought
to witness the scenes

that had been caused as part
of the Nazi scheme of things.

This is not what they expected.

(people shouting)

It had been happening for years,

but they shrugged their
shoulders and beat their brows

and tried to say it had been
none of their business.

But they were mostly silent.

(no audio)

HOWARD: The S.S. men are not
so spick-and-span now.

Seven days of being shouted
and cursed at

and handling corpses by the
hundred are beginning to tell.

After seven dreadful days,
the funerals still go on.

There seems to be no end.

HOWARD: They were given an
address by a British officer

through a loud speaker van.

(no audio)

(no audio)

HOWARD: One might ask why
all the inmates surviving

were not removed out of the camp
altogether to a large town,

for example,
where there would be feeding

and housing facilities;

the answer is simply
the dread word "typhus."

A mobile bacteriological unit
and all medical aid possible

together with 90 medical
students from London hospitals

were rushed to the spot
to deal with it.

Lack of soap and water brought
lice to the inmates,

and lice carry typhus.

To get rid of typhus, one must
first get rid of lice,

so contaminated patients were
removed from their huts

and put through
a "laundry" process.

DDT was dusted over them
and they were washed clean,

wrapped in blankets, and removed
in clean ambulances

by teams working in relays
in a miracle of relief work.

Two miles away from the camp

was found a large S.S. Panzer
training school

and hospital well stocked
with medical supplies.

Strange that these should not
have been used by the Germans

for the inmates.

Scores still died every day.

They were too far gone, many
of them, to digest any food

and there was a desperate
shortage of nursing staff.

Still, one could be thankful
that they were not simply being

left to rot away with neglect.

There were children, too,
in Belsen camp,

though what crime
they had committed

was difficult to imagine.

Most of them had been saved
by the women inmates

who gave up what little food
they could get to the children.

Meals for these children had
always been few and far between,

so they ate what food we gave
them with infinite care.

Nothing could be
more dreadful now

than to lose a piece of potato
or a drop of soup.

Clothes was another
urgent problem,

so an outfitting department
was set up,

and clothes gathered from shops
in the surrounding towns

were soon being tried on
and gossiped over

as women love to do.

There was something symbolic
about new clothes.

New clothes meant renewed hope.

They donned them with pride.

Now he can look forward to
growing up to useful manhood.

There were more than 200
children under 12 years old

found still alive
in Belsen camp.

To these children,
clean, dry clothes

and kind words from a stranger

were strange, undreamed of,
mysterious things.

Some had been born
behind the barbed wire.

In what circumstances, one dare
not try to imagine.

Where are their parents?

Here, perhaps?

Or here?

Or down here in this pit?

Today is
the 24th of April 1945.

My name is Gunner Illingworth
and I live at Cheshire.

I am present in Belsen camp
doing guard duty

over the S.S. men.

The things in this camp are
beyond describing.

When you actually see them
for yourself,

you know what
you're fighting for here.

A picture in the paper cannot
describe it at all.

The things they have committed,

well, nobody would think
they were human at all.

We actually know now what has
been going on in these camps,

and I know, personally,
what I'm fighting for.

I am the Reverend T.J.
Stretch, attached as padre

to the formation
concerning this camp.

My home is at Fishguard.

My parish is at Holy Trinity
Church Aberystwyth.

I've been here eight days and
never in my life have I seen

such damnable ghastliness.

This morning we buried
over 5,000 bodies.

We don't know who they are.

Behind me you can see a pit

which will contain
another 5,000.

There are two others like it
in preparation.

All these deaths have been
caused by systematic starvation

and typhus and disease,
which have been spread

because of the treatment meted
out to these poor people

by their S.S. guards
and their S.S. chief.

HOWARD: We shall never know
who they were

or from what homes
they were torn.

Whether they were Catholics,
Lutherans, or Jews, we only know

they were born, they suffered
and died in agony

in Belsen camp.

(no audio)

And so they lie, Jews,
Lutherans, and Catholics--

indistinguishable,

cheek-to-cheek
in a common grave.

The living have been taken
to a cleaner place.

The typhus-infected huts
are set afire.

Soon the fire will die, the
smoke and ashes will drift away

and grass will cover the place.

The barbed wire goes down.

The striped livery goes with it.

Do not imagine
this was the only black spot

that was uncovered in Germany.

There were over 300 others.

No German can say he did not
know about them.

The whole world had heard of
Dachau, for it was publicized

by the Nazis as a model camp

ever since its inception
way back in 1933.

On the 28th of February
of that year,

the Presidential Emergency
Decree

suspended the basic civil rights
of the German people

for an indeterminate period and
so eliminated legal safeguards

against arbitrary imprisonment.

Here were 32,000 men of every
European nationality,

including 5,660 Germans.

From the outside one might,
at a casual glance,

have seen nothing remarkable
or horrifying,

but Dachau was crammed
with three or four times

the number it was designed for.

(no audio)

(no audio)

Here, as at Belsen,
men knew hunger...

men became weak...

men fell sick, until they died
where they lay on the floor.

In Hut 30 alone, there is
recorded, for example, 72 deaths

within 24 hours.

Every day the dead were taken
from the huts.

Here, as at Belsen, there were
many who were too weak

to be saved, too sick to eat.

Typhus was taking its toll

and truckloads of wretchedness
had to be somehow dealt with

in the already overflowing
hospitals.

Dachau had its own brothel

for the use of guards
and favored prisoners.

As the women died, they were
replaced by a fresh contingent

from the women's camp
at Ravensbrueck.

This was not used as a bath
house, but as a death chamber.

Batches of prisoners were
marched in here to die.

When the chamber was full,
the doors were shut and sealed,

a man at the controls let in
the poison gas

and another batch of helpless
victims screamed their lives out

beyond the grill.

The gas chamber was conveniently
placed next to the mortuary,

and next to that was
the crematorium.

These great ovens were
constructed exclusively

for the burning
of large numbers of corpses.

In the last three months,
official records show

that 10,615 people
were disposed of here.

Their clothes were turned over

to the Deutsche Textil und
Bekleidungswerke G.M.B.H.,

a private corporation

whose stockholders
were S.S. officials,

which reclaimed and repaired
the garments--

with the use of unpaid
prison labor--

and then resold them to the camp
clothing depot

for the use of new prisoners.

The prisoners arrived often
in railway trucks.

But there had been no hurry
to unload this one.

They went away, leaving the
prisoners to die of hunger

and cold and typhus.

We found them like this,

frozen stiff in the snow
alongside a public road.

By some miracle, 17 men
were still alive.

All the rest, about 3,000,
were dead.

Germans knew about Dachau,
but did not care.

In Buchenwald, there were
about 80,000,

of whom 34,000 were employed
outside the camp

in an armaments factory.

During the first week of April,
25,000 were removed

by the Germans to other camps

because of the approach
of the Allied forces.

When the camp was liberated
on April 13th,

20,000 inmates remained.

African Negroes, Albanians,
Austrians, Belgians, Brazilians,

Bulgarians, Canadians, Chinese,
Croats, Czechs, Danes, French,

Germans, British, Greeks, Dutch,
Italians, Yugoslavs, Latvians,

Letts, Norwegians, Mexicans,
Poles, Rumanians, Spaniards,

Swiss, Americans, and Russians.

55,000 of them died
because of this place.

People were tattooed across
the belly with slave numbers

and forced to work
on starvation diet.

People were coldly
and systematically tortured.

Here, Schoker, the camp
commandant, said,

"I want at least 600 Jewish
deaths reported

in the camp office every day."

Thugs were appointed as
overseers or block leaders.

There was no efficient
distribution of food.

One prisoner collected
the rations for ten or 15 men.

Hunger and hopelessness turned
some of them into beasts.

Sometimes, a prisoner carrying
rations back to the hut

was waylaid and robbed
by other prisoners.

Sometimes, he ate the best part
of the food himself.

Sometimes, he sold it.

Corruption was fostered, for it
gave another excuse for killing.

All this seemed so remote
from humanity, so far beyond

the behavior of man.

British Members of Parliament
came, and saw,

and were sick at heart.

It had to be seen
to be believed.

German citizens were brought in
from Weimar.

They had to see, too, to see
what they had been fighting for,

and we had been fighting
against.

They came cheerfully,
like sightseers

to a chamber of horrors,

for here indeed
were some real horrors.

If a prisoner had a curiously
tattooed skin,

it was taken from him.

We can only hope he was dead
when it was done.

The skin was tanned and made
into lampshades, et cetera.

These shrunken heads belonged
to two Polish prisoners

who had escaped and been
recaptured.

Some of the visitors did not
care for the sight

and were assisted
by ex-prisoners.

Ebensee is a holiday resort
in the mountains.

The air is clean and pure.

It cures sickness and there is
a sweetness about the place:

a gentle peace.

In this place the Luftwaffe or
S.S. Panzer officer on leave

relaxes, eats well,
breathes deeply, finds romance.

Everything is charming
and picturesque.

But the concentration camp had
become an integral part

of the German economic system,
so it was here, too.

They were able to see
the mountains,

but what use are mountains
without food?

Prisoners at Dachau
and Buchenwald

dreaded being sent here.

To them, this place did not mean
recuperation, only starvation,

tuberculosis through slavery
in an underground factory,

and finally left to cough one's
life out unaided and crowded

in the filth and stench
of a hut, unfit for dogs,

but for some reason
called a hospital.

The daily collection of corpses
was disposed of

through this chimney.

Mauthausen.

First used in 1938, this camp
was the center of a group

of subsidiary camps.

40,000 people had died here
since the beginning of the year.

Here the gas chamber held 200 at
a time and the crematorium dealt

with 300 per day-- every day.

Ludwigslust.

In the north of Germany,
it was the same story.

The few who remained alive

were staggering,
on the verge of death.

They were the survivors
and these were the rest--

hurriedly murdered lest they be
set free to live a normal life.

The authorities in the camps
took special measures

to make sure that a man would
neither live normally

nor die normally,

neither should he sleep
normally.

He was surrounded by barbed wire

and he had to sleep
on barbed wire.

Ohrdruf.

Here was carnage and desolation.

Prisoners had been dragged
from the sacks of straw

in the hovels called hospitals,
shot and hastily disposed of

by the first means to hand.

There must have been
some feeling of guilt

or presumably there would not
have been an attempt

to destroy the evidence.

In the outskirts of Leipzig,
an effort was made

to prevent 300 forced workers in
a factory from being set free

by advancing Allied troops.

300 were locked in a mess hut
and burned.

This is where it stood.

Some of the desperate,
screaming prisoners broke out.

Flame throwers and machine guns
were waiting to receive them.

This was a woman.

Some almost reached
the barbed wire.

Some got there and stayed there,
for it was electrified.

This was a Polish engineer.

Gardelegen.

American troops advancing did
not know that in this barn

the Germans had locked
1,800 prisoners

and set burning straw alight
to suffocate them.

In the morning
before retreating,

they had poured petrol
on the bodies

in an attempt to burn
what remained.

It still smoldered when
the American troops arrived.

This man was shot because he
gasped for air, trying to escape

while the rest of him burned
in the barn.

Auschwitz.

The most up-to-date institution
was better equipped for killing.

Transports of prisoners from all
over occupied Europe were sent

for extermination in one of
the special Vernichtungslager.

Here, four million people
were murdered.

As many men, women, and children

as you could pack
into a great city.

HOWARD:
The dead have been buried.

It remains for us to care
for these, the living.

It remains for us to hope

that Germans may help to mend
what they have broken

and cleanse
what they have befouled.

Thousands of German people were
made to see for themselves,

to bury the dead,
to file past the victims.

This was the end of the journey
they had so confidently begun

in 1933.

12 years?

No, in terms of barbarity
and brutality,

they had traveled backwards
for 12,000 years.

Unless the world learns the
lesson these pictures teach,

night will fall.

But, by God's grace,
we who live will learn.

for more on the making
of tonight's film

and new research on the camps.