By COLlive reporter
A short and soundless video showing Jewish people of all ages and levels of religious observance roaming the streets on a sunny day in June wouldn’t pass as something exciting nowadays.
But the year, the location and the format in which this footage was shot makes all the difference: Warsaw, 1939, original color footage.
The rare film shows a typical life in the Jewish quarter in Warsaw, “a moment before the shtetl period ends and the ghetto period begins,” it was pointed out on the Yiddish Shtetl Culture page on Facebook.
Credit was given to the family of the cameraman Dr. Benjamin Gasul and to the Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Description of the scenes:
Main street in Jewish quarter.
Steady pan of Jews mingling in the streets, milling about, shops line the streets, signs in Polish. Two men dressed in shambles sleeping on the curb.
Group of old and young Jews, boys horsing around and teasing another with a large satchel on his back.
Jewish woman wearing a wig gathers laundry in an alley.
Two Jews holding parchment papers converse on street corner.
Jews smiling, teasing each other, curiously pointing to the camera. Vendor sells sunglasses. Pan up to man in window. Another group sitting in chairs on the street, including children.
Close pan of large group of Jews with one blind elder standing in the center.
Three elders with beards and dark hats sitting in chairs in front of a shop, one shields his face from the camera, younger Jews crowd around them.
Main cobblestone street in Jewish quarter with people, carriage, and car.
VIDEO:
The Germans should never be forgiven for what they did,…and I don’t care that they’ve transformed themselves into the spineless pacifists that they are today.
I feel for these people so much…they smile and carry on with their lives not knowing that the fires of hell and all of hell’s demons will soon engulf them.
They play this footage on a life size screen at the main exhibition hall at the Jewish museum in Warsaw. When you see it it is like you are transported back in time ….. its like you are there. Jewish existance in Poland would vanish a few months after this was filmed. Shocking
So extraordinary that this was from 1939—in color!!!
Spielberg couldn’t do better!! Color back then??? this must be one of very few if any other at all!!!
The tragedy is only more evident as in this footage we see a Jewish community–alive, altho poor, (notice how thin eveyone is) but smiling —–with no idea of what was to befall them!!! Enuff of golus—MOSHIACH NOW!!!
agree!
Thank you so much!!! 🙂
A good though sad REMINDER that the germans should NEVER EVER EVER be forgiven for what they did. And any german products should not be patronized. They are produced by the children and grandchildren of these monstrous murderers. REMEMBER what the Torah tells us MOCHO EMCHE ES ZECHER AMOLEK! This nation beats amalek. And should NEVER be forgiven.
apart of my childhood mey dey ollrest in peas Zelda
whats the letzer door???????
is this a scary video????????/
the last part of the article goes through the events in the video
What exactly do you find ha ha ha? These poor individuals were prob all dead /murdered so I fail to see any humor at all regardless of what you meant.
I cannot think of anything sadder then watching unsuspecting jews going about their business and then being obliterated.
‘Todah’ COLlive and Steven Spileberg. Beautiful footage with a very painful, awful ending.
HY”D
‘Timche es sacher Amalek, al tishkoch!’
(Ironically, ‘Amalek’ came out of the ‘Yidden’)
Within 3 months from when this film was taken…many of these people when be dead or starving in a ghetto.
A last glimpse of a great and ancient community, the crown of world Jewry (as jabotinsky called it in his speech given around the same time in that same city) on the verge of its total destruction….Poor people oblivious to what monstrous fate awaits them. Chilling video, watched it numerous times….
I was looking for my Dad.
Can you post some more of these documentary movies,
please?
to number 8. dont forget that in those times a video camera was a new thing, so that is why you see many ppl staring at it, whereas today ppl normally say or do something when they know they are being filmed.
also today life has more pressures, you just dont see ppl sitting on the curb shmoozing.
its very eye opening …
bittersweet. Those little toddlers are adorable. I wonder whatv became of them
wow this is sooo cool
but very confused whats happening
someone explain whats going on in the vedio
WOW! BUT anyone have pictures or films of Crown Hts. 40-40- years ago?
that’s incredible!
very nice!!! ha ha ha
Wow its amazing to think that those people who were photobombing the video are now imortalized for life
Its just depressing to know that probably most of these fellows are no longer amongst the living…perish in the hands of the Nazis.
PAINFUL.
THis is just beautiful!