Images from the Westerborkfilm have been used countless times in documentaries and films about the Second World War.
Here Westerborkfilm images – clips – screening semi-permanent ten years ago (Feb. 2013) in a museum introduction film (on holocaust, genocides, discrimination, diversity, rights) on one of the huge columns in the entrance hall of the Kazerne Dossin museum in Mechelen, Belgium (a few months after opening of the new Kazerne Dossin building). Note, shortly after this outbound deportation transport to Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz, had left the Westerbork transit camp on May 19, 1944, the train paused at the nearby railway station of the dutch town Assen, where train cars were added from Belgian Transport XXV (25) with 508 deportees, Jews and the Roma deportee Stevo Caroli, from transit camp Kazerne Dossin (Dossin barracks) in Mechelen, and this combined transport with Jews, Sinti and Roma, including Settela Steinbach, continues to the east…to the Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz concentration camps. Stevo Caroli survives Auschwitz-Birkenau. After returning to Belgium, Stevo Caroli’s request for a certificate, necessary for the compensation for political deportees or work refusers, is refused by the Belgian Aliens Police for racial reasons ( kazernedossin.memorial/biografie/stevo-karoli/ ).
The new 2021 Westerbork Film is missing part of the image in every frame …
The new high quality restored Westerbork film, presented first May 2021 by the Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision and the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, has numerous advantages over the previous well known first edition of the Westerborkfilm made in 1986 in 4 acts by the dutch Rijksvoorlichtingsdienst (RVD ; the Dutch National Centre for Information) .
The full 1986 film including all 4 acts , was first published in 2019 at Settela•Com (Ref 1), with annotations for the various scenes. That 1986 Westerborkfilm however does not include all of the footage shot by Rudolf Breslauer, Spring 1944 in Camp Westerbork, in the Netherlands.
Footage not used in the 1986 Westerbork film compilation was presented in a series of posts published later in 2019 at Settela•Com.
Next, a film compilation of all that known footage was posted online as the WESTERBORK FILMS COLLECTION – UNESCO ALBUM (Ref 2). That film compilation was also made available for download 20 January 2020 by Michel van der Burg | Miracles.Media via the Open Images bank of Sound & Vision (Ref 3). That compilation was prepared without checking / deleting duplicate copies of footage, and thus contains redundant footage.
The 2021 restored Westerbork film is a major upgrade from the 1986 Westerborkfilm edition. Important advantages of the 2021 Westerbork film are , (i) new high quality 4K scans were made of the footage, (ii) containing a complete selection of all known footage, (iii) using only the best copies of all footage found in the archives, (iv) based on an extensive new inventory of all known archives, with the discovery of 2 canisters with ‘camera-original’ footage, and a hitherto unknown clip, and (v) with conservative, digital, restoration applied. Details on that new restored Westerbork film were discussed July 2021 with the co-publication of an important part of the 2021 Westerbork film : the new high quality deportation footage — a film compilation of scans of the newly discovered original camera negative film used by Rudolf Breslauer 19 May 1944 in Camp Westerbork, in the Netherlands (Ref 4).
The complete Westerbork Film 2021 was published too at Settela•Com on May 7, 2022 with all scenes annotated (Ref 5), together with a short introductory film : Westerborkfilm Introduction (Ref 6).
Note that additional digital restoration has been applied by Sound & Vision for the publicly made available so-called ‘display edition’ of this new 2021 Westerbork film according to Conservator Valentine Kuypers | Sound and Vision (Ref 7) – as discussed previously at Settela•Com (Ref 4).
Missing Part Images
It should be noted that the released 2021 ‘display edition’ of the Westerbork film – due to the applied image stabilization – does show less of the actual image in each frame as compared to the 1986 edition.
Below some examples illustrating the crop in the display edition.
2021 edition | not showing ‘nazi with bike’ | 20230519 | Settela•Com
2021 edition – not showing ‘nazi with bike’ in same scene, near identical frame — though he shows up in later frames a few seconds later, walking away ) – https://youtu.be/ZiLNDziwEtc?t=882
Settela’s car (not) showing 74p•
Next a comparison of the frame displaying “74 p.” (chalked on the car with Settela). The dot is shown in the 1986 film. That dot is missing in the 2021 film due to the cropped image resulting from the image stabilization.
Of note : first news clips presented by Sound & Vision announcing the new restored film , are apparently not based on the ‘display edition’, and do show that dot in the original 4K scan.
The full image — including the dot ’74 p.” — was shown in a first news item Sep 12, 2019 on the daily dutch ‘Nieuwsuur’ national news show , on colorized high quality deportation footage, that mentioning the new original footage. Item “Iconische beelden Tweede Wereldoorlog na 75 jaar in kleur” ; URL https://nos.nl/nieuwsuur/artikel/2301340-iconische-beelden-tweede-wereldoorlog-na-75-jaar-in-kleur
Jan 2020 Sound & Vision publicly showed and announced the newly discovered camera original footage via the daily dutch news show NOS (Ref 8) showing the images with no crop — including the dot ’74 p.” and presented an 8 min film compilation a few days later via their Vimeo channel also (at 0021) shwoing 74 Pers • (with dot) . URL https://vimeo.com/386667241
In 2021 Sound & Vision apparently started using the ‘display edition’ for publications on the new found original Westerbork deportation footage ; such as the YouTube uploads “De Westerborkfilm 📽️🎞️” (uploaded Apr 8, 2021) – https://youtu.be/8Y-A4BkWY18?t=2 , a video presented first I believe April 18, 2021 in an online Media Café event by Sound & Vision , and May 18, 2021 on the occasion of the public release of the restored film (Ref 9), in the 20 min presentation “Gerestaureerde filmbeelden Westerbork (1944)” of a compilation of selected images from the restored film – missing again the dot at 0:47 – https://youtu.be/-zCmr6PSNcI?t=47
Missing Image Westerbork Film 2021 | 20230519 | Michel van der Burg | Settela•Com | ISSN 2949-9313
References
1. Westerbork Film | Full version RVD 1986 | 20190605 | Michel van der Burg | Settela•Com | ISSN 2949-9313
2. WESTERBORK FILMS COLLECTION – UNESCO ALBUM | 20200120 | Michel van der Burg | Settela•Com | ISSN 2949-9313
3. WESTERBORK FILMS COLLECTION – UNESCO ALBUM (20200120) Michel van der Burg | Settela•Com | ISSN 2949-9313 | CC BY 4.0 | Open Images – URL https://www.openimages.eu/media/1223905
5. Westerbork Film 🎦 2021 | 20220302 | Michel van der Burg | Settela•Com | ISSN 2949-9313 | Display edition film annotated online in CC
6. Westerborkfilm Introduction | 20220507 | Michel van der Burg | Settela•Com | ISSN 2949-9313 | Introduction by Michel van der Burg on the Westerborkfilm screening in METRO Kinokulturhaus , Vienna , Austria at the DOCUMENTS OF DESTRUCTION | DOKUMENTE DER VERNICHTUNG Symposium 6-7 May, 2022 curated by Florian Widegger. Presented by Filmarchiv Austria in cooperation with the Vienna Jewish Film Festival and the Mauthausen Memorial.
Settela•Com | ISSN 2949-9313 Registration – as ongoing integrating resource published by Miracles.Media (Netherlands) confirmed by the ISSN Centre of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek – the Netherlands National Library, Friday, 25th Nov 2022.
Settela•Com aims to online document and facilitate research of the Westerbork images, the use of the film in other works, the context of the camp and of the war in the Netherlands, and the destruction of diversity.
Settela•Com was made public with the first publication on May 19, 2019 — 75 years after the deportation of the Sinti girl Settela Steinbach from camp Westerbork was filmed — with the online premiere of the new one-minute film ‘Settela’.
From that first publication, contributions are published irregularly, with an average frequency of about once a month, mainly in English and Dutch, on the settela.com website.
Settela•Com welcomes contributions (English, Dutch, French) by submission of posts, papers, suggestions, or proposals within the scope of the platform.
ISSN Registration | 20221126 | Settela•Com | ISSN 2949-9313
TakeNode ID 44b0c33b-2be4-4fd7-816b-c38d35cdcbb5
Simon Stompin’ at the Saint Sépulcre | 20221119 | Miracles•Media | Rushes with a rough cut for Miracles film – vibrant memories – not forgotten – that vibrant testimony , swinging jazz of Simon Gronowski Stompin’ at the Saint-Sépulcre school in Liège (BE).
Thanks to friends Philippe Renette, Simon Gronowski, Koenraad Tinel (Photo Dieter Telemans featured in Der Welt , Saturday 16th Nov 2013 – Feinde wie wir, by Felix Stephan) and help by Patrick (sound), staff Marc Belleflamme, André Hérin, teachers Christine Marchal, Ingrid Lothe, others, and the Saint-Sépulcre students participating that 19 november 2013 , today 9 years ago, during this unique human adventure. They hosted 3 sessions that day. Time to share … waiting for the film is taking long … here rushes with a rough cut ..enjoy! Filmed by Michel van der Burg at the Station Luik-Guillemins – Liège-Guillemins, in Luik, and Institut Saint-Sépulcre , Liège (BE), 19 november 2013. License info: Simon Stompin’ at the Saint Sépulcre | 20221119 | Michel van der Burg | Miracles•Media | @michelvanderburg | TakeNode ID: 94510c1e-1ae4-42a3-9467-251dafd4c9ad
Samudaripen Book Cover | 20221118 | Settela•Com
For Settela•Com , Michel worked with Elisabeth Obadia at the small publishing house L’Esprit Frappeur in Paris and the Tokyo based French visual artist Benoit Dupuis (eden-olympia.net), by preparing a high quality camera-original still image of Settela (Ref 1) from the Westerbork film (Ref 2, 3) for the cover of the 3rd edition of the book Samudaripen, le génocide des Tsiganes (Ref 4) — the genocide of the Gypsies – by author, historian, Claire Auzias. Proud with the result. Waiting for the book to arrive …
New 2022 slow motion edition based on the newly found camera-original footage (the original negative film used in Breslauer’s camera May 19, 1944) as published last year in Deportation Westerbork Film | 20210719 (REF 1).
Before in 2017 a similar first slow-motion film was published (Settela | 20170721) (REF 2) that was using the ‘duplicate’ footage (not original footage) from the 1986 RVD film (REF 3).
The 9-year-old dutch Sinti-girl Anna Maria ‘Settela’ Steinbach peeks outside , at the last moment just before the sliding door is closed , standing inside a freight wagon with 74 people on May 19 , 1944 in the Westerbork concentration camp in Holland , when this deportation train leaves for Auschwitz-Birkenau – where Settela is murdered a few months later in one of the gas chambers. Here she wears a headscarf made from a torn sheet, because the Nazis had her head shaved , and while Settela peeks outside , her mother cries behind her in the car : “Get out of there, or soon your head gets in between!”
She was filmed by the Jewish prisoner filmmaker Rudolf Breslauer as part of a documentary film being made on the Westerbork camp (REF 4,5). More info in previous posts (REF 1–10).
This film starts with a slow-motion edition (15% original speed) , followed by the unedited 3-4 seconds clip taken from the 2021 Deportation Westerbork Film (REF 1) . Note : the images bounce occasionally , due to a technical artifact — a defect in Breslauer’s camera (REF 10).
Credit
Settela Film | 20220630 | Michel van der Burg | Settela•Com – CC BY 4.0
