Description
Synopsis:
About the crimes of the Nazis in the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Second World War. In Auschwitz, which existed from 1940 to 1945, between 1.5 and 4 million people were killed according to various estimates. January 27, 1945 – the day of the liberation of the prisoners by troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front – was established by the UN as the International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Holocaust. The cameraman of the Central Documentary Film Studio, Alexander Vorontsov, was one of the first to film the released captives. This footage, as well as footage captured by other front-line cameramen of the TSSDF, formed the basis of the charges against Nazi criminals at the Nuremberg trials.
About the Director:
Elizaveta Svilova (1900-1975) was the wife of, and co-author with, Dziga Vertov. From 1914-1918 she was a film editor in the laboratory of the Pathé brothers, with V.R. Gardin and others, and from 1919 was an editor at the Moskinokomitet of the People’s Commissariat for Education. 1922-1924 she was at Goskino, in 1924-1927 at Sovkino, then at VUFKU, thereafter joining the Mezhrabpomfilm film studio in 1932, and 1936-1956 she was with the TsSDF. Starting in 1921, she worked to identify the negatives of film documents about V.I. Lenin, and in the 1920s she was a member of the group of “kinokov”. In 1922-1925 she participated in the editing of the Kino-Pravda newsreel. Her film “The Atrocities of the Fascists” featured as an indictment at the Nuremberg Trials. In 1940-1956 she edited many issues of “Soyuzkinozhurnal”, “USSR on the screen”, “Soviet Kazakhstan”, “News of the day”, “Pioneer”, “Moscow newsreel” and “Foreign newsreel”. In the last years of her life, she contributed to the publication of the creative heritage of Dziga Vertov, and participated in the compilation of the collection “Dziga Vertov in the memoirs of contemporaries” (Moscow, 1976).
Awards and prizes include the Stalin Prize of the first degree for the film “Berlin” (1945), Medal “For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.” (1946), and Order of the Badge of Honor (1950).