What They Found
A profound and poignant film marking the anniversary of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen
Directed by Oscar-winner Sam Mendes, this powerful documentary tells the story of two British soldier-cameramen who filmed the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at the end of World War II.
In April 1945, Sgt. Mike Lewis and Sgt. Bill Laurie, from the British Army’ s Film and Photographic Unit stumbled upon what they were told was a typhus hospital, about 25km from a small town called Celle in Northern Germany, by the name of Bergen-Belsen. Alongside the British Army’ s liberating forces, the full horrors of what was going on inside the camp were revealed to them – and through their footage to the world – for the first time.
By immersing audiences in their eyewitness accounts through the footage they shot, married with audio interviews( recorded by the Imperial War Museum in the 1980s) describing their experiences in detail the film becomes an intimate and personal record of two ordinary men’ s defining experience of the war – and, through them, of the profound trauma and tragedy of the Holocaust.
Duration 1 x 40 mins
Produced by A Lightbox production in association with Neal Street and the Imperial War Museum for the BBC, UK