VIDEO
Liberation 1945: Testimony. Videocassette. © United States Holocaust Memorial Council, Wentworth Films, Inc. 1995. Running Time: Approximately 1 hour, 12 minutes.
REVIEW
Liberation 1945: Testimony is a gripping film, told by the people who lived to experience the bittersweet moment of liberation. With a little narration but a multitude of first-person testimony, viewing this film is akin to having a sit down discussion with the people who lived history. The video contains archival footage (Caution – some of which is particularly brutal) and captions that bridge the various topics of discussion. One improvement I would have made, however, is to move the labels that identify the various speakers (name, birth date, military rank and affiliation, camp of incarceration and resettlement, etc.) from the end of the film to the body – identifying each person and their perspective on the liberation experience as they speak for the first time. The video was made to accompany an exhibit at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; a variation called “Focus On Liberation” is its current name. It is available online at:
http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/liberation/
The filmmakers deal with six major topics. “The End Of War Approaches” is the first. Survivors describe their elation at seeing Allied tanks and airplanes, but temper that joy with tales of not eating for ten days and of the realization of their horrible losses. One man comments at the beginning of the second section, “The Moment Of Liberation”:
“After four years, you have memories of your parents and eating the Passover meal. But you wonder if you can sit at a table, how to sit properly and use a fork.”
Prisoners from Dachau recount the day the Americans arrived, and of seeing their fellow prisoners with guns. An anecdote is told of American GI’s telling the remaining German guards to stand down; those too slow were allegedly shot on sight. Another tells that the soldiers distributed food, bread, and also radioed ahead because they hadn’t known how bad it was. It was sad, they say, to see living corpses dying on their day of liberation because those inmates were so far gone even the piece of bread couldn’t save them. At the conclusion of this introductory section, three former prisoners recount their emotions on the day of their freedom:
“We wanted to hug and kiss the American GI’s.”
“Why did you let us wait so long?”
“We had no right to dance – tremendous elation, but tremendous sadness as well…”
The third title screen is called “Allied Soldiers Open the Camps”. One former soldier tells us that he didn’t know anything about concentration camps, other than he’d just heard the term. When he and his comrades saw all of the dead and starving people, they didn’t know what to do. A few of the other interviewees say nothing, other than they can’t put the words together to describe what they saw. Another says:
“It is beyond my comprehension how man can be so inhuman to his own kind; things we don’t even see in the world of nature…”
A soldier near the end of this segment remembers:
“I think we spent more time looking at the stacks of dead bodies than we did at taking immediate care of the living.”
Revenge killings are also discussed. Experiences here vary. An American officer tells that upon entering the camp they killed every German – no prisoners were taken. In defense of that action, he says, “But you had to kill them, because they wouldn’t surrender.”
“In the Liberated Camps” is the fourth section. American officers tell of their tribulations in slowly grasping the magnitude of their duties. One officer says he ordered enough food for 20,000, a whole medical battalion, and engineers to purify the water. A nurse relates the obstacles to patient care centering around the ordinarily simple task of moving patients – their skin was so thin, it took three staff to move an emaciated person so the skin wouldn’t tear. Survivors tell of smelling fresh air for the first time in months or years; some relate being sprayed with DDT and the joyful feeling of the lice-induced itching finally ceasing.
Medical priority is spoken of here as well. One nurse relates the fact that there was no medication for typhus, only supportive care. That was made difficult because the survivors generally couldn’t swallow, so liquids had to be administered with droppers. And hypodermics were for the most part out of the question, as more than likely there was nowhere to stick the needle. Germans who were captured were made to wear white and care for the sick; others, including some civilians, were made to bury the dead.
“Life in DP Camps After the War” (the fifth segment) is actually introduced at the end of the previous section. Many of the camps were converted to temporary assembly points, from which pillaging of the local villages took place. It was the opinion of many Allied soldiers that since the locals didn’t see fit to care for the prisoners in the prisoners’ time of greatest need, they could do so now that liberation had occurred. Other sites for displaced persons (DP) camps included military barracks and “requisitioned” properties. One of the highlights for me personally in watching this film is the recurring testimony of Nesse Godin, who currently volunteers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. I had the privilege of hearing her tell her story to a group of secondary school teachers, of which I was a part, in 2002. She says that she and her mother and another survivor shared two beds that were in the kitchen – ten other families in the building shared that same kitchen, so there was absolutely no privacy. Nesse states:
“When you compare that situation to concentration camps, labor camps, ghettos – this was heaven. When you compare it to normal life, it was still a camp.”
Many refugees took the care packages they were sent from Jewish relief agencies and bartered part of the provisions with local Germans. As this economy began to flourish, so did the return to “normal” life. Many DP camps became semi-permanent settlements – as such, schools and other institutions as well as intellectual and cultural activities began to blossom. Many camps became culturally self-administered.
Repatriation is looked at both in this segment, as well as the final – “DPs Make New Lives”. One survivor says that there were really only two options for the former prisoners: return to the country of origin or stay in the camps and declare oneself stateless. Most chose to do the latter. We are told that the French Jews were the first to be repatriated; for the easterners, that wasn’t an option.
“Their neighbors had taken over their homes and businesses.”
“It seemed people resented the fact that some Jews survived.”
The film concludes with two different types of love stories, and leaves the viewer feeling uplifted, as distinct from the final film in the “Hitler’s Holocaust” series, Final Toll. One lady recounts:
“Boys would rush up and kiss girls and say, ‘Oh, I’m sorry – you looked like my sister or my cousin!’ Sure…”
Nesse Godin tells of her mother telling her to find a man and start her life:
“I don’t remember kissing Jack before we got married. I don’t remember being in love. We needed each other. But now we have been married a long time, and we are deeply in love.”
And finally, a different type of love affair: David ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency in Palestine visited many DP camps in the fall of 1945. One survivor who emigrated to Israel commented:
“For the first time, these people who had gone through Hell knew they were free. And for those who wanted to go to Palestine, Palestine had come to them.”
And although the weight of the previous hour-plus’ testimony still weighs heavily on the mind, it is a time for reflection not without a smile crossing the lips…
PASSAGE/QUOTE FOR CLASSROOM USAGE
Very early in the video, a survivor makes the following statement:
“The Soviets said, ‘You are free’, but what do you do with it – where do you go?”
Stop the film at this point, and write on the chalkboard, Liberation: What Now? Have your students form cooperative learning groups and generate a list of all of the concerns with which a liberated survivor would now have to occupy him or herself. After 10 minutes or so, come together as a large group and have students call out their ideas, compiling a big list for all to see. Then resume the film and see how many of the students’ suppositions turn out to be mentioned by the various survivors, liberators, and DP camp staff.
RATIONALE FOR USAGE/UNIT RELEVANCE
Any discussion of victims, survivors, liberators, and/or the postwar world will greatly benefit from this film as a resource. The days of liberation are looked at from many different perspectives; however, in speaking of the opening of the eastern camps, only survivor testimony is presented. For reminiscences of Soviet soldiers who might have been involved, see the last film in the “Hitler’s Holocaust” series, Final Toll.
CLASSROOM METHOD OF USAGE
The film is divided into subsections:
As such, the teacher should feel free to select any or all material deemed appropriate to the discussion at hand. There is no fault in showing the video completely through, however. Perhaps the only drawback to that strategy would be the length of the film, which is longer than most schools’ class periods.
Any of the above segments can be discussed before or after it is shown. If the teacher has previewed the film before using it in class, a suggestion might be to point out one or two of the commentators and have your students follow their testimony throughout the film, building a log of that person’s experiences.
STUDY QUESTIONS/DISCUSSION GUIDE
Since much of the discussion in this video concerns the life in and shortly after the camp liberation experience, including resettlement into the displaced persons camps, I feel it would be a wonderful idea to assist your students in grasping what it might have been like to have been in charge of one of those DP camps. As the film has testimony from some of the Allied officers who had a say in the day-to-day running of the camps, your students, too, can get a feel for the decisions that had to be made.
There is a very worthwhile exercise/simulation available from Doctors Without Borders, the world’s largest private humanitarian organization. It is available from their website at:
http://www.refugeecamp.org/refugeecamp.htm
For more information on the organization, you can access the group’s main site, found at:
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org
The refugee camp simulation is based on events that occurred during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. The premise is that people fleeing the violence have stormed across your border, and you are now responsible for providing their basic necessities: shelter, food, medicines, sanitation, and safety. Although this is a more modern activity, its applications to the events of postwar Europe are real. I have used this curriculum many times in the past, and forming cooperative learning groups seems to be the best strategy toward mastery of the material. All worksheets, materials for overhead transparencies, and complete lesson plans are included in the simulation, which is ready for printing. There are approximately seven activities your students will need to accomplish in forming and maintaining their camps. All they really need to have is some paper and perhaps some colored pencils. Everything else is paper and pen activities. If at all possible, commit a week to this exercise.
If, however, you are pressed for time or can only commit a day or two to this discussion, I would strongly suggest you familiarize yourself with the material anyway, and engage your students in conversation about the ramifications – personally, socially, medically, and from a capital outlay standpoint – of dealing with a very large number of displaced persons. Only after students have a grasp for the planning and 24-hour care required to pull off something of this magnitude will they appreciate the duress that not only the refugees from Nazism endured, but of their caregivers as well.