Night Will Fall Page #2

if you know what I mean.

This was something

completely separate.

It was another world. Uh...

I don't think if we...

if you had become

too involved, I think you

would probably have gone mad.

We were there for

about two weeks filming

all these sights, which no film

which I've seen

since that really conveys

the feeling of despair

and horror that can be done

to people who are Europeans

of another faith

for no other reason,

and I thought as time

went by it might leave me.

I wanted to forget,

um, but it never does leave you.

I find it hard

to describe adequately

the horrible things

that I've seen and heard...

but here unadorned

are the facts.

I passed through the barrier

and found myself

in the world of a nightmare.

Dead bodies, some

of them in decay,

lay strewn about the road

and along the rutted tracks.

On each side of the road

were brown wooden huts.

There were faces at the windows,

the bony emaciated faces

of starving women

too weak to come outside,

propping themselves

against the glass to see

the daylight before they die,

and they were dying

every hour and every minute.

It was so horrific that

the BBC initially waited

before they broadcast it

because they had doubts

whether my father had

actually accurately

described what he'd seen,

and they checked

and then put it out.

It's the moment

when he describes

"people no longer behave

like human beings"

that you realize what

he's actually saying,

what the implied message

of this is

"This isn't just Germany,

this isn't just

"the people in those camps.

"This could be any

of you anywhere

if civilization breaks

down in this way."

The day after

the report, Churchill declared,

"No words can express

the horror which is felt

"by His Majesty's government

and their principal allies

"at the proof of these

frightful crimes

now daily coming into view."

The success of cinema

in the 1930s

had underlined the power

of the moving image.

Keen to exploit its

potential role in war,

Britain and America set up

a joint film department.

Its brief was to produce

short propaganda films,

initially to support

the war effort

and later to assist

the task of dealing

with a defeated Germany

once the war was won.

In Britain, this unit was headed

by leading film producer,

Sidney Bernstein.

The day following

Churchill's statement,

Bernstein set out

for Bergen-Belsen.

By the time he arrived,

the army film cameramen

had been at work for a week.

The film shot

at Bergen-Belsen

by the British cameramen

reveal every level of humanity

to a much greater extent

than any other

of the film evidence.

It feels as if

the whole human story is there.

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