In this video, David Mark describes how he and other inmates were taken to Bergen-Belsen and abandoned by the Germans. David had to scrounge for food from nearby German houses. Source: Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives, 1981
[00:00-00:06]
Video begins with inter-title in white text on black screen while instrumental music plays and fades into the next frame: David Mark was transferred to the Bergen-Belsen camp shortly before it was liberated by the Allies in 1945.
[00:07-00:19]
Cut to Holocaust survivor David Mark, sitting in front of a grey background, and looking to the left of the camera. The camera shows his face and shoulders as he speaks during an interview conducted in Halifax in 1981.
>> David Mark: And they took us into Bergen-Belsen. Bergen-Belsen was a German military camp.
[00:12-00:17]
The name “David Mark” and the location of the filmed interview, “Halifax”, appear in white text above David's left shoulder.
>> And they more or less left us to be on our own. No food, no nothing.
[00:20-00:26]
Cut to black-and-white photograph of a field outdoors with rows of barracks and a large barbed wire fence. The photo caption appears in white text in the top-left corner of the frame, “Bergen-Belsen concentration camp after liberation, 1945”.
[00:27-01:42]
Cut to David Mark in front of the camera.
>> We didn't know what was happening. Because the Germans were there for a while, and if you wanted to go outside, you were able to go outside. But most of us weren't strong enough to go outside because we hadn't had anything to eat for days and days. And when we came to find out that there were no Germans guarding us or anything, myself and a cousin of mine that had also survived Auschwitz with me, we went into a small town, and we went into a German house and demanded food. Can you imagine a 15-year-old child telling these German people that we want food. We knew enough German that we asked them and they told us to look around to see. They were very, very frightened. And we went up to a second floor, an attic, and we found some bread, and we found some other provisions, some canned goods. And after that, I came to find out that my sister was also in Bergen-Belsen. And then I found out that she was there and I shared my good fortune and some of the food that I brought back with me, and I gave her some of the food that I was able to scrounge.
[01:43-01:49]
Cut to black-and-white photograph of a young woman wearing a dress, smiling at the camera with her hands in her pockets. The photo caption appears in white text in the bottom-right corner, “David's sister Ruchel, late 1930s”.
>> Interviewer: And liberation?
[01:50-01:55]
Cut to same black-and-white photograph of a field outdoors with rows of barracks and a large barbed wire fence. The photo caption appears in white text in the top-left corner of the frame, “Bergen-Belsen concentration camp after liberation, 1945”.
>> David Mark: Liberation came not much after that. We were liberated by the British army.
[01:56-02:09]
Cut to David Mark in front of the camera.
>> As soon as they came into camp, that's when they took charge of the whole thing and they started to give us food. But they were very careful of what they gave us the first couple of days, because most of us were in the typhus stage. Dysentery was very rampant.
[02:10-02:19]
Music plays for the remainder of the video. Three credit pages appear in white text on black screen: Interview conducted by Josh Freed, Holocaust Documentation Project, Halifax, 1981, Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives
Images: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park; USC Shoah Foundation
Directing: Helgi Piccinin; Editing and Colorization: Michaël Gravel, Helgi Piccinin; Audio Mix and Original Music: Pierre-Luc Lecours. [Logo for Chaire de recherche du Canada en patrimoine ethnologique]
Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre, copyright 2017.
--
End of transcript.