Can anyone help me find footage of my grandmother taken for use in a Nazi propaganda film in The Hague, Netherlands between Sept 1941 and Sept 1942?

by Sybn

My grandmother wrote a memoir about her experiences as a child in Holland during WWII. In it, she describes an experience where she was chosen to go to Germany by train with a bunch of other Dutch children.

The children were told their throats would be checked, but my grandmother and another girl were chosen for a full physical. She did not know this physical was filmed until she heard about it from her grandmother, who lived in Amsterdam at the time, saw the film in a theater.

My grandmother recalls in her memoir that she was 9 years old. That means the film must have been shot between Sept 30, 1941 and Sept 30, 1942.

The memoir describes the film as being about, "how good the Dutch children have it under Nazi rule."

My grandmother describes being embarrassed because the elastic in her underwear was so stretched out, her mother had to use a giant safety pin to keep them on. (New elastic wasn't available.) Maybe that will help with identification.

My grandmother did not end up going to Germany because her sister came down with a sore throat. It's a good thing, too, because the train also had weapons on it and was bombed by the British.

Can anyone point me in a direction where I can find this footage? Also, a news article or something about the bombed train would be welcome!

joustswindmills

You might want to try the Verzet Museum in Amsterdam. It's the museum of the resistance. They might have good ideas about where to go.

Other ideas off the top of my head would be Westerbork or Amersfoort where the camps were used as transit camps and concentration camps. I have no idea if there are museums associated with those places but that would be where I would start.

[deleted]

You may want to get into contact with the NIOD Institute to see if they have anything.