Hitchcock’s forgotten Holocaust film revealed
Francine Wolfisz is the Features Editor for Jewish News.
A film about the Holocaust, on which Alfred Hitchcock was an adviser, will be released at last, reports Francine Wolfisz.
He was called the master of horror and carved a career out of exploring the darkest depths of the human mind. But there was one true-life atrocity which even Alfred Hitchcock could not bear to watch on the silver screen: the Holocaust.
Now a forgotten documentary about Nazi death camps, on which Hitchcock was asked to collaborate before the project was shelved for political reasons, is to be screened for the first time after being restored by the Imperial War Museum.
In 1945, the much-lauded director of such thriller classics as Psycho, Rear Window and Vertigo was persuaded by his friend, the Jewish director Sidney Bernstein, to leave Hollywood for England and collaborate on a documentary about German wartime atrocities.
Much of the footage was shot by British and Soviet army film units during the liberation of Bergen-Belsen just months before and, as a “treatment adviser”, Hitchcock had been brought in to help organise the material.
Dr Toby Haggith, senior curator at the Imperial War Museum, says the film was commissioned for propaganda purposes. “Once they discovered the camps, the Americans and British were keen to release a film quickly that would show the camps and get the German people to accept their responsibility for the atrocities,” he told the Independent. But the footage was unlike anything the renowned American director had seen before. It was reportedly so horrific that Hitchcock was traumatised and stayed away from the studios for a week.
His contribution to this powerful work is unmistakable, however. In an interview before he died, Bernstein explained how Hitchcock sought to present the footage with the maximum impact. And while he did not travel to Dachau, Belsen and Buchenwald, Hitchcock did provide instruction to the camera crews on taking wide, establishing shots and unbroken panoramas, which would help to prove that the harrowing scenes had not been staged. Bernstein said: “He took a circle round each camp, different villages, different places and the numbers of people – so they must have known about it…
Otherwise you could show a concentration camp as you see them now and it could be anywhere, miles from humanity. He brought that into the film.” According to Peter Tanner, one of the film’s editors, Hitchcock’s concern was that “we should try to prevent people thinking any of this was faked…so Hitch was careful to try to get material which could not possibly be seen to be faked.” In the event, the documentary was never screened for fears it would harm Britain’s post-war relationship with Germany.
The project was canned and five reels deposited at the Imperial War Museum, where they lay undisturbed for decades. In the ensuing years, Hitchcock’s contribution to a film on the Holocaust became a lesser-known fact, though his “Jewish” connections have been well- documented. He had several close and long-standing Jewish collaborators, including his friend and agent, Lew Wasserman, costume designer Edith Head, screenwriter Ben Hecht, composer Bernard Herrmann, producer David O Selznick and graphic designer Saul Bass, responsible for coming up with the shot-by-shot storyboard of the famous shower scene in Psycho.
Hitchcock’s long career saw him pick up many prestigious awards, including two Golden Globes, five Academy Award nominations (although never a win) for best director and a knighthood just before his death in 1980, aged 80. But his little-known film about the Nazi camps was not to remain forgotten. Some 40 years after being consigned to the museum vaults, the footage was stumbled across by a researcher and an incomplete version shown at the Berlin Film Festival in 1984.
It was also broadcast on American PBS in 1985 under the title Memory of the Camps. Now the film, the title of which has not yet been revealed, will finally be shown as intended. Using digital technology, the museum has restored the work and pieced together extra material from a missing sixth reel. It will be shown at film festivals and cinemas this year and on British TV next year to mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Europe.
An accompanying documentary, Night Will Fall, is also being made with Andre Singer, executive producer of The Act of Killing, as director and Stephen Frears as directorial adviser.
Haggith says the restored work will show the true horrors of the Holocaust, but also offer a glimpse of life beginning anew. “It’s an alienating film in terms of its subject matter but also one that has deep humanity and empathy about it. Rather than coming away feeling totally depressed and beaten, people will find there are elements of hope.”
Thank you for helping to make Jewish News the leading source of news and opinion for the UK Jewish community. Today we're asking for your invaluable help to continue putting our community first in everything we do.
For as little as £5 a month you can help sustain the vital work we do in celebrating and standing up for Jewish life in Britain.
Jewish News holds our community together and keeps us connected. Like a synagogue, it’s where people turn to feel part of something bigger. It also proudly shows the rest of Britain the vibrancy and rich culture of modern Jewish life.
You can make a quick and easy one-off or monthly contribution of £5, £10, £20 or any other sum you’re comfortable with.
100% of your donation will help us continue celebrating our community, in all its dynamic diversity...
Engaging
Being a community platform means so much more than producing a newspaper and website. One of our proudest roles is media partnering with our invaluable charities to amplify the outstanding work they do to help us all.
Celebrating
There’s no shortage of oys in the world but Jewish News takes every opportunity to celebrate the joys too, through projects like Night of Heroes, 40 Under 40 and other compelling countdowns that make the community kvell with pride.
Pioneering
In the first collaboration between media outlets from different faiths, Jewish News worked with British Muslim TV and Church Times to produce a list of young activists leading the way on interfaith understanding.
Campaigning
Royal Mail issued a stamp honouring Holocaust hero Sir Nicholas Winton after a Jewish News campaign attracted more than 100,000 backers. Jewish Newsalso produces special editions of the paper highlighting pressing issues including mental health and Holocaust remembrance.
Easy access
In an age when news is readily accessible, Jewish News provides high-quality content free online and offline, removing any financial barriers to connecting people.
Voice of our community to wider society
The Jewish News team regularly appears on TV, radio and on the pages of the national press to comment on stories about the Jewish community. Easy access to the paper on the streets of London also means Jewish News provides an invaluable window into the community for the country at large.
We hope you agree all this is worth preserving.
