Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive

Nazi Germany #15

Julien Bryan Collection

1937

Berlin, Germany

Sam Bryan

00:02:21

Classroom shots of the Goldschmidt school in Berlin, which was created when Jews were no longer allowed to enroll in public schools. Interiors with students at desks writing and a female teacher. The pupils include Stella Goldschlag, who passed as Aryan during the war and reportedly betrayed Jews in hiding, and Trudi Goldschmidt (01:05:16 the blond girl with braids in profile view), the daughter of the school's founder, Dr. Leonore Goldschmidt. Outside the school during recess, students play and move around the yard before returning to the classroom. Good CUs of teenage boys and girls as they enter the school up the stairs. Inside, Margot Segall, the girl in a plaid dress, approaches the blackboard and conjugates the Hebrew verb "to ask". A male teacher helps her.

The "wavy positive scribe" or cross-hatching that constantly appears across the frame was added to the 35mm film print by a motion picture stock footage facility where Julien Bryan stored his original materials in the 1970s and 1980s. It was done to prevent people from copying the footage without permission. Unfortunately, the signature is deeply etched into the emulsion and cannot be repaired.

Detailed preservation notes from the film lab are available in SSFVA department files.
Additional photographs are available in the USHMM Photo Archives.

Bryan filmed in Germany in 1937 for the March of Time newsreel company. Some of his footage appears in the infamous March of Time release, "Inside Nazi Germany." See Raymond Fielding's book "The March of Time 1935-1951" for more information. Bryan retained some of his Nazi Germany footage and rights, and donated part to the Library of Congress (see USHMM Tapes 210 and 211) and part to the USHMM.

Mute

Outtakes

No

Mixed

Julien Hequembourg Bryan (1899-1974) was an American documentarian and filmmaker. In the 1930s, he conducted extensive lecture tours, during which he showed film footage he shot in the former USSR. Between 1935 and 1938, he captured unique records of ordinary people and life in Nazi Germany and in Poland. He was in Warsaw within days of Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939 and remained throughout the German siege of the city, filming and photographing what would become America's first cinematic glimpse of the start of WWII.

2003.214 The Julien Bryan Collection of films, photographs, documents, and artifacts was purchased by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum from Sam Bryan and the International Film Foundation, Inc. on February 12, 2003.

BERLIN, GERMANY
BRYAN, JULIEN
CHILDREN (JEWISH)
GERMANY
GOLDSCHMIDT, LEONORE
HEBREW LANGUAGE
JEWS
PLAY
SCHOOLS
TEACHER

Julien Bryan

Sam Bryan, JB 2015

35mm b/w pos print

35mm; Uncompressed QT; ProRes 422; DigiBeta; Betacam SP; VHS

01:04:29 - 01:06:50

US Holocaust Memorial Museum, gift of Julien Bryan Archive