I read with surprise Christina Patterson’s claim (Opinion, 23 January) that Sidney Bernstein’s documentary on the Belsen concentration camp was long shelved and that people did not get a chance to see it. Now, she says, a new documentary, Night Will Fall, will rectify this situation. Bernstein’s film of 1945 was indeed shelved, but only until 1985. In that year I was commissioned by Granada TV and Sidney himself to produce a documentary using the shelved film. I used extensive footage from the forgotten rolls of film, and interviews with an army cameraman present at Belsen, a film editor who worked with Hitchcock, survivors of the concentration camp, and Bernstein himself. It was Sidney who insisted on the title A Painful Reminder. The film was transmitted in May 1985, on ITV, without any commercial breaks.
I have seen the new film “Night Must Fall” which was made by an ex-colleague Andre Singer. It is a powerful and moving documentary but it is hardly as groundbreaking as he and Patterson appear to claim. Most of it has already been seen on British television 30 years ago.
Brian Blake
(Former producer/director, Granada TV), Manchester
• In 1945 when I was eight, my uncle took me and my cousin to see a Disney film. The programme included a newsreel and as it began, he suddenly said “Don’t watch this! Put your hands over your eyes”. I did as I was told, but left a gap so I could see what I was supposed to miss. I have never forgotten the walking skeletons in their striped clothes that I saw. Because so many people went to the cinema in those days, it is likely that most of my generation saw the scenes in those death camps.
Although human suffering is brought to us by TV all the time, it is censored to cut out the worst things. We only see Ebola victims wrapped in shrouds, we don’t see Isis beheading people. Very often the newsreader will warn “you may find some things distressing”.
I don’t find a lack of empathy among people I meet. The generous donations to food banks show people do care.
Val Spouge
Braintree, Essex
