Unseen 1945 concentration camp film to air as Hong Kong remembers Holocaust
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 27 January, 2015, 1:08pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 27 January, 2015, 1:08pm
Danny Lee [email protected]
Night Will Fall chronicles the making of previously unseen footage from Nazi concentration camps. Photo: SCMP Pictures
Unseen film footage shot inside second world war concentration camps in 1945 will form the centrepiece of Hong Kong’s efforts to commemorate victims of the Nazi genocide on International Holocaust Remembrance Day today.
Tonight, hundreds of guests will gather at the Jewish Community Centre in Mid-Levels to hear from people intimately involved in the frontline war effort on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp. Liberators and Holocaust survivors will share stories and light six candles to commemorate the more than 6 million victims.
The raw footage forms part of director Andre Singer’s documentary Night Will Fall, which will be aired for the first time in Asia at the event as part of a global debut which includes screenings on HBO in the United States, Channel 4 in Britain and a handful of other European countries.
The footage, filmed by allied soldiers under the guidance of legendary director Alfred Hitchcock after the camps were liberated, reveals the bleak conditions victims endured. It was kept hidden until the 1980s because it was deemed too sensitive to release immediately after the war.
Britain initially intended to use the footage as evidence of war crimes but did not want to further demoralise the German people as they rebuilt the country. London was also wary of stirring Zionist sentiment among Jewish refugees who wanted to settle in Palestine.
Retired US army sergeant Rick Carrier was just 20 years old when he helped liberate Buchenwald concentration camp, one of the largest built on German soil during the second world war.
The 90-year-old, who will give a keynote speech tonight, said that he still cries when he recalls the experience.
“When I found Buchenwald, I saw everything in there in infinite detail, not only the picture of them, but the smell and sound of it, and the environment of it,” he said.
Simon Goldberg, director of education at the Hong Kong Holocaust and Tolerance Centre, said tonight’s commemoration will be the centre’s highest-profile yet, with a theme on learning.
“We’re highlighting both the experiences of the liberators, and the example of the legacy that they left behind, and we’re also using this as an opportunity to talk about the consequences of genocide,” he said.
“This event is to get much deeper into a conversation about the meaning of the history. Not just about lighting six candles for six million people, but to have the event serve as a launch pad for discussion, reflection and action.
“The ultimate goal is this will inspire aspects of people’s citizenship and we’ve focused much more on that element than we have in the past.”
Former chief executive Tung Chee-hwa will be among the guests, along with consuls general from Israel, the US, Britain, Germany, Poland and Russia.
