Thursday, November 27, 2008

Those Who Forget History Are Doomed To Repeat It

I'm not sure if I'm alone in this way of thinking but ever since childhood I've found it difficult to connect old footage (eg: 1920's onwards) with reality. I don't know why but it's almost as if the crackly black and white images didn't seem real to me as it wasn't how i saw the world (black and white as opposed to colour ).

I found footage from the Romano Archives that was actually filmed in colour. Vincent Romanos research has unearthed an abundance of colour film that shows what events looked like to those who were there. The archive presents mainly World War 2 recently declassified and other previously unavailable material. Some of it such as the footage and actual sound of Eva Braun and Hilter is eerie and is considered rare. I've featured a tiny sample of the archives below. Worth a look


Eva Braun private color amateur footage from Summer 1939 filmed at the Berghof, near Berchtesgaden. Original captured soundtrack with the voices of Hitler, Goebbels, Speer, Eva and Gretl Braun, Bruckne(Eva's bodyguard) and others.



A battered young German woman in despair. Filmed on a country road after the passage of the Red Army.



Amateur Kodachrome film (fragment) filmed in New York. Greenwich Village Art Fair, Spring 1944



Summer 1939. German Art Festival in Munchen with Adolf Hitler, Albert Speer, Rudolf Hess, Himmler and others.



To see more:
www.webalice.it/romanoarchives
www.youtube.com/user/UnknownWW2InColor

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

those german films are the most chilling things I've seen in a long time. The young woman on the road brought tears to my eyes.

Wonder where the child in the first film is now.....

Green of Eye, Sharp of Claw said...

@NurseMyra: They are and I found myself watching a lot of them spellbound (more so a mixture of horror and fascination)

It was the footage of the young woman i saw first and unnerved me that it could have been me, my sister or my friend. It looked like it was filmed yesterday.

Despite the fact that this was filmed over 50 years ago, You'd think at this point humans would have become tired/disgusted at ourselves with the infliction of cruelty, war, lack of empathy and general disrespect towards others.

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