Description
Object description
An Allied documentary about the German concentration camps that was in production at the British Ministry of Information from April to September 1945 and finally completed by IWM in 2014.
Physical description
Digital files.
History note
Work originally started on this film in April 1945 and came to a halt with the film unfinished in September 1945. Production resumed at the MOI/COI in 1946 with the last documented action on 7 May 1946. At this stage, the film consisted of five reels of a planned six reel film. This version was an editor's rough-cut or work print, with some sections of sound but no titles or closing credits. The five reel rough cut, along with 100 reels of rushes and associated production papers, were deposited at the Imperial War Museum in 1952. The film's significance became apparent in the early 1980s and the rough-cut was presented by Kay Gladstone (former IWM Film Curator) at the Belin Film Festival in February 1984, with the allocated title Memory of the Camps. Under this title it was widely screened, and distributed by the Imperial War Museum and WGBH Boston. In 2008 work began at IWM to restore and complete the film, assembling the sixth and final reel by following the directions in the original shot sheet and commentary script of 7 May 1946. A 'work in progress' version of this film was presented at the 2014 Berlin Film Festival and, following a year of festival screenings, a revised version was produced for theatrical screenings through BFI Distribution. This version was premiered at the BFI on 16 April 2015. The 2014 'work in progress' version is mainly distinguished by a series of explanatory prologue slates. For the April 2015 version screened theatrically through BFI Distribution, the prologue slates were replaced with an introductory film ('Intro') of 5 minutes duration. At the end of the film there is also a closing film or 'Outro' (12 minutes), where a group of historians, IWM archivists and curators and Professor Peter Lantos, a survivor of Bergen-Belsen concentration camps, reflect on various aspects of the film's history, significance and problematic nature. A full account of the restoration and completion of this film can be found in the booklet accompanying the BFI/IWM Blu-ray/BFI release of this film (16 April 2017) and in Toby Haggith, 'Restoring & Completing German Concentration Camps Factual Survey (1945/2014), Formerly Known as Memory of the Camps', Journal of Film Preservation, 92, April 2015, pp. 95 - 101.