Capturing Belsen
Explore the archive of Sergeant Mike Lewis, a Jewish film cameraman who captured evidence of the horrors perpetrated at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
Liberators and the Liberated (1945-04-15/1945-04-15) by Moore, AlanSydney Jewish Museum
Liberation
As Allied forces advanced into Germany from late 1944, Bergen-Belsen concentration camp became a collection point for tens of thousands of Jewish prisoners evacuated from other camps; many of them survivors of ‘death marches’.
By the time British and Canadian forces entered Bergen-Belsen on April 15, 1945, there were 60,000 people starving, sick and dying in the camp. 10,000 unburied bodies lay strewn on the ground. The "living are barely indistinguishable from the dead". Helen Lewis (daughter)
Bergen-Belsen emerged in 1945 as a symbol of Nazi terror and the Holocaust. Film footage captured the horrific landscape of death.
Cameraman Sergeant Mike Lewis
Son of Jewish Polish refugees who had migrated to Britain before WWI, was part of the British Army Film and Photographic Unit (AFPU) who filmed the liberation of Bergen-Belsen. He and his wife followed his daughters to Australia in his later years.
Capturing the Evidence Mike LewisSydney Jewish Museum
The first AFPU team to arrive on April 15 consisted of Sergeants Lewis and Bill Lawrie (film), and Sergeant Harry Oakes and Lieutenant Martin Wilson (stills). They continued coverage until 26 April 1945, when another team took over.
Lewis was profoundly affected by his experience of war as a soldier of the ranks, and having documented the liberation of Bergen-Belsen. He kept an archive of material related to his role in capturing evidence of the “horror camp”.
Capturing the Evidence The Visual War DiarySydney Jewish Museum
The Lewis Visual War Diary
Lewis recorded his experiences at Bergen-Belsen through testimony as well as creating an album of photographs that he pasted in a scrapbook in a chronological narrative. Still photographs stood in for sequences of film that he took.
Entering the camp, the liberators were told to expect political prisoners, criminals and typhus cases. Lewis was shocked to discover that the prisoners suffering inhuman conditions were ordinary people; Jews who in another time might have been the leading members of society.
Guards were made to bury the dead, loading them onto trucks to be taken to mass burial pits. The copies of stills that Lewis kept in his war diary correspond to his film, such as this image of a line of bodies waiting beside the truck, and nurses rushing to treat the dying.
“And it became difficult to bury the dead, the thousands of dead. And so a bulldozer was brought in, to bulldoze the dead into a huge pit. And the blade sometimes didn't catch the bodies cleanly. And they split open. And the smell was terrible.”
“I soaked a handkerchief in petrol and put it over my mouth as I sat in front of the bulldozer. And I couldn't stand the smell of petrol. And I didn't know whether to try to bear the smell of petrol, or to take it off and stand the smell of death.” Mike Lewis, 1981
“I did not speak to them, if one could converse with them because of the language problem. Because what does one say to people who have been through hell? And probably that hell would continue even though they have survived the camp, in their awful memories.”
Capturing the Evidence Belsen Camera ReportSydney Jewish Museum
The Cameramen submitted their film reels and dope sheets (caption sheets) to the British Army Film and Photographic Centre for processing and review. Material reports from the AFPC then provided feedback and instruction.
The reports regarding Lewis’ material, such as this one, acknowledge the extreme importance of his footage and already note that it should be used crucially as evidence of Nazi atrocities.
The film taken by Lewis and Lawrie was used in the Belsen war crimes trial at Lüneburg in September 1945, and was the first use of film as corroboratory evidence. A compilation, supported by affidavits from the cameramen, was screened in the courtroom.
Lewis viewed the rough film shortly after it was cut together and never wished to see it again. Stripped of sound and particularly of smell, the film did not convey the horror of Belsen as he saw it; a memory that never left him.
"There was a stench of human excrement, a stench of death. And the death of all human dignity and hope... the massive scale of death and stench and what had happened to people. I think I was too - perhaps we all were - overwhelmed by feelings to think clearly about it."
Letter to Mike Lewis from Rosie Bruell and Elizabeth Peer
The sisters, survivors of Belsen, were compelled to write to Lewis after seeing an interview with him after the film's release in 1984: “We thank you for showing the world and telling about the real truth… you have condemned those who say it was all lies.”
Blanket made of Hair (1945/1945)Sydney Jewish Museum
Olga Horak was liberated in Bergen-Belsen
"I was sick with typhus and my weight was 29kg. People did not know how to respond; some laughed, some cried, some screamed. It should have been a happy day but for me it was one of the saddest...
Tragically my mother died that day while standing at a table, waiting to get a displaced person’s card. They carried her out on a stretcher and I never saw her again. I was determined to survive in order to bear witness."
Discover Olga Horak's story and explore other artefacts from Bergen-Belsen in the Sydney Jewish Museum collection or visit our online catalogue.
The Lewis archive was donated by his youngest daughter Dr Helen Lewis. Helen discovered images of Bergen-Belsen among her father's things when she was a young girl. Later in life, reliving the immense impact of that discovery inspired her to research and write about her father’s experiences.
The Dead Still Cry Out: The Story of a Combat Cameraman https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/the-dead-still-cry-out
· Winner, Mark and Evette Moran Nib Literary Award, 2018
· Shortlisted, Nib Military History Prize, 2018
· Longlisted, Colin Roderick Award, 2019
Constant Witness: reframing images of the Second World War http://hdl.handle.net/10453/36977
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