Night Will Fall

Allied troops had no idea what to expect when they approached the concentration camps dotted across Germany and Eastern Europe in the closing months of the Second World War. But once the ghastly secret of the Holocaust had been revealed, the Supreme Allied Command was keen to make an accurate record of the atrocities to ensure that such inhumanity was never repeated. The task fell to Sidney Bernstein, the chief of the Expeditionary Force's Psychological Warfare Film Section, who enlisted the help of Alfred Hitchcock in collating footage being submitted by British, American and Soviet camera units. André Singer reveals in this compelling documentary that diplomatic concerns soon impinged upon the production of German Concentration Camps Factual Survey, while American impatience with Bernstein's meticulous methodology prompted them to commission Billy Wilder to utilise the harrowing images in his short film Death Mills (1945). Ultimately, Bernstein's project was abandoned, as it was decided that confronting the German people with the crimes committed in their name would prove counter-productive. But the survivors and liberators interviewed by Singer have never forgotten their experiences, and this crucial account of a dark episode in history stands as a chillingly eloquent memorial.