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Map
This map shows the concentration camps and death camps documented by Allied cameramen in the 1945 film, "Memory Of The Camps"
Frequently Asked Questions
Explore the history of this film through a series of questions and answers that FRONTLINE has compiled. Topics include why the film was made, and why it wasn't released.
"Memory Of The Camps" - A landmark historical film discovered by FRONTLINE in a museum vault decades ago has been called “Hitchcock’s lost Holocaust film.” First broadcast by the series in 1985, the documentary shows the first horrifying footage shot as Allied troops entered the Nazi death camps. Drawing on initial editing done by famed director Alfred Hitchcock before the film was shelved 70 years ago, FRONTLINE reconstituted the forgotten reels and script and showed them in public for the first time 30 years ago.
A review that appeared for FRONTLINE's original broadcast in May 1985:
"Far more than any fiction, or even documentary, of the Holocaust can depict, 'Memory of the Camps' conveys the horror of the moment, the reality, more than the banality, of evil...
This ghastly, unimaginable record of the absolute schecklichkeit that saw millions, half of them Jews, perish under the most sadistic conditions, is a story not of life but of death, unrelenting, brutal, graceless death.
The narration, written by Colin Wills, in collaboration, with Richard Crossman, is read by Trevor Howard... Mr. Howard's lean and laconic, even languid delivery -- with a powerful, yet understated wonderment at how such things could come to pass -- is a perfect contrast to the scenes we witness. Were he more dramatic, more preachy, the viewer indeed could not stand to watch at all.
This is a season for monuments, for remembrance. 'Memory of the Camps' is a filmed monument that does more than tell the story of what it is recalling. It is the story itself." - New York Times + Richard F. Shepard
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"Memory of the Camps" - Preview"
"A landmark historical film discovered by FRONTLINE in a museum vault decades ago has been called “Hitchcock’s lost Holocaust film.” First broadcast by the series in 1985
