2014 additions to National Film Registry – CBS News …

Samuel Fuller would go on to a career as the uncompromising director of such films as "Shock Corridor," "The Naked Kiss," "Pickup on South Street" and "The Big Red One" (inspired by his Army days in World War II).

But on May 9, 1945, Fuller was serving in the 1st U.S. Infantry Division when, armed with a 16mm Bell & Howell camera, he documented the aftermath of the liberation of a Nazi concentration camp in Falkenau, Czechoslovakia.

According to Fuller, he was asked to record the gruesome spectacle of the emaciated bodies of the near-dead, as well as burial preparations of the victims, by his battalion commander, Captain Kimble R. Richmond. The death-camp survivors, Fuller wrote, "raised their bald heads and looked at us, eyes sunken in anguish, their mouths agape, a hand here and there reaching out, grasping for anything, begging us for assistance in helpless silence."

In addition, the townspeople of Falkenau - who professed ignorance of the camp's true nature - were compelled by Richmond to witness the proceedings or face execution. They, like the viewers of Fuller's footage, could not turn away.

Credit: Directed by Samuel Fuller. Courtesy of Christa and Samantha Fuller, Chrisam Films, Inc. and the Academy Film Archive

Continue reading here:
2014 additions to National Film Registry - CBS News ...