The Hollywood Directors Who Filmed Concentration Camp Liberations
Image by Getty
Three iconic Hollywood directors — John Ford, George Stevens, and Samuel Fuller — may have created their most important work for the U.S. Armed Forces and Secret Services during World War II. As a new temporary exhibit at the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust (LAMOTH) reveals, the filmmakers documented conditions in newly liberated Nazi concentration camps in the closing days of the war, horrors that indelibly shaped their subsequent work.
Hyperallergic reports that while the exhibit contains a few artifacts, including Samuel Fuller’s camera and helmet, it is mostly comprised of looped footage captured by the directors in the camps, alongside scripts from newsreels that used the footage.
Also included are excerpts from the directors’ films that illustrate the influence of World War II and the Holocaust on their work. Shown, for example, is a clip from Fuller’s classic war epic “The Big Red One” (1980), which culminates in the liberation of Falkenau Concentration Camp in Czechoslovakia. Stevens, meanwhile, was presumably influenced by his experience to direct “The Diary of Anne Frank” (1959), a stark shift from lighthearted fare he had directed before the war.
“Filming the Camps” will be open until April 30 at LAMOTH.
Sam Bromer is the Forward’s culture intern. Contact him at [email protected] or on Twitter, @sam_bromer
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
