200,000 deportees. A camp for extermination through labour. In this hell, men achieved the impossible. The theft and smuggling out of 2,000 photographs so that one day there would be proof against their persecutors! The people in these camps were not deportees but resistance fighters! 1944 signalled the defeat of the Reich. Berlin's orders were unequivocal: nobody was to know what had really gone on in the concentration and extermination camps. From Warsaw to Prague, from Hamburg to Vienna, in every administrative body, in every office, hundreds of thousands of reports, records, and photographs went up in smoke. And in the camps, the last survivors were murdered. But the Nazis would fail to hide their crimes. Deportees would return to tell the unspeakable. And they would bring evidence! For 5 years at Mauthausen concentration camp, a handful of men would do more than just survive. They would steal this evidence. And they would hide it. And they would even get it out of the camp, and out of reach of the SS. Thanks to them, 2,000 photographs of Mauthausen camp would reach us. We are going to tell you the incredible story of this salvage operation.

A film by Barbara Necek

Production company: 13 Productions
French broadcaster: Arte
International sales: CLPB Rights
 

Festivals

Festival international du film d'histoire - Pessac 2021 - Audience Award