Overview
- Description
- (LIB 6557) Interview of Prisoners, Dachau, Germany, May 5, 1945. MCUs, American officer (off screen) interviews prisoners of different nationalities including Dr. Mieczyslaw (Mietek) Dortheimer, Mr. Baum, Edmond Michelet and Prof. Popovitch (Yugoslavian). Each relates in English his experiences at the camp and the conditions which led to their being taken prisoners.
- Duration
- 00:11:05
- Date
-
Event:
1945 May 05
- Locale
-
Dachau,
Germany
- Credit
- Accessed at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives & Records Administration
- Contributor
-
Producer:
United States. Army. Signal Corps.
Camera Operator: Bushweller
Sound Contributor: Hines
Subject: Mieczyslaw Dortheimer
- Biography
-
Dr. Mieczyslaw (Mietek) Dortheimer, born in 1911 in Krakow, Poland, set out to be a lawyer after graduating from Krakow’s Jagiellonian University. When the Nazis marched into Krakow, he fled with his wife and father to Lwow. His father later moved to the Warsaw Ghetto and was subsequently gassed at Treblinka. Later, Dortheimer worked in Tarnow as a factory administrator, on false papers. After the Tarnow ghetto liquidation, with help from his brother-in-law who was in the resistance, Dortheimer managed a saw-mill in the small town of Suchedniow. In January 1944, Dortheimer, his brother-in-law and wife were arrested and interrogated for two months in Radom prison, where it was discovered they were Jewish. In June 1944 they were ‘death marched’ 100km to Tomaszow and crammed onto cattle-cars for Auschwitz. From Auschwitz, Dortheimer was sent to the Natzweiler sub-camp Vaihingen-Enz, and months later to Dachau, where he contracted Typhoid shortly before liberation. Fluent in five languages, Dr. Dortheimer became Chairman of the Jewish Information Office in Dachau and interviewed Nazi war criminals for the Dachau trials as Administrative Director of the War Crimes Branch, (employed by US Army). He emigrated to Australia with his wife and two children in September 1948. After starting out as a laborer on a chicken farm, he built a successful importing business in Melbourne, where he died in 1984.
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Genre/Form
- Unedited.
- B&W / Color
- Black & White
- Image Quality
- Fair
- Time Code
- 01:01:22:00 to 01:12:27:00
- Film Format
- Master
Master 897 Video: Betacam SP - NTSC - small
Master 897 Video: Betacam SP - NTSC - small
Master 897 Video: Betacam SP - NTSC - small
Master 897 Video: Betacam SP - NTSC - small- Preservation
Preservation 897 Video: Betacam SP - NTSC - small
Preservation 897 Video: Betacam SP - NTSC - small
Preservation 897 Video: Betacam SP - NTSC - small
Preservation 897 Video: Betacam SP - NTSC - small
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- You do not require further permission from the Museum to access this archival media.
- Copyright
- Public Domain
- Conditions on Use
- To the best of the Museum's knowledge, this material is in the public domain. You do not require further permission from the Museum to reproduce or use this material.
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Film Provenance
- The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum purchased this from the National Archives and Records Administration in September 1994.
- Note
- Date indicated on slate as 6/5/45. This may be a mistake or indicate May 6 or June 5. It is likely that this footage was shot on May 5, see Story 2037.
See related footage in Story 2037 on Film ID 846.
For more information about Dr. Dortheimer, refer to https://narratively.com/searching-for-the-nazi-who-saved-my-mothers-life/ - Film Source
- United States. National Archives and Records Administration. Motion Picture Reference
- File Number
- Legacy Database File: 1362
Source Archive Number: 111 ADC 4548 - Special Collection
-
Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2024-02-21 07:50:27
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn1000758
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