The Cine Technician (1943 - 1945)

36 THE CINE-TECHNICIAN March — April, 1943 SOVIET CAMERAMEN AT THE FRONT Karmen is a young ace newsreel cameraman who shared in Stalin Art Prize awards for his part in filming " One Day in Soviet Russia " and " The Defeat of the Germans near Moscow." He was one of cameramen later on of "Leningrad Fights." Before the war he took scenes in Madrid during the siege {iq$6), in China (1937) and in the Arctic Circle during night flights over the Pole in search of the lost Soviet airman Levanevsky. He has also acted as war correspondent for " Pravda " at home and abroad. FOR a number of years Soviet newsreel cameramen had been accustomed to film the peaceful life of our country. Documentary film and Soviet newsreel mirrored the onward march, the happy life, the constructive and joyful labour of millions of people. But there came the day when Hitler flung his divisions against our towns and villages. Upon the country and the people that was giving an example of the actual realisation of the great march of humanity toward democracy and social justice, there descended the full force of the Hitlerite hordes. And the Soviet people entered into battle — everyone to the last man rose up to wage a sacred patriotic war. We took upon ourselves the brunt of the blow. And for the first time in the present war the march of Hitler's hordes across the territories of the countries of Europe was halted— by the Red Army. And on the very day of the outbreak of the war, newsreel cameramen left for the Front. To-day, when eighteen months of war are behind us, we can sum up certain results of our front line work. Scores of thousands of feet of film have been taken. Each of us has run great risks and been not infrequently bombed, trench-mortared and shelled by the Germans. Many of our comrades have perished at their post, camera in hand, and many have been wounded, returning to active work immediately on recovery. Digging into the earth they have been subjected to fierce enemy bombardment; together with plucky sharpshooters they have lain in wait for the enemy, suffering trials and hardships. We have all grown unused to the feel of civilian clothes and have learned to appreciate the supreme law of the soldier's front line comradeship, which is " Help one another." 1'echul charged into the attack side by side with his Red Army comrades, rifle and grenade in hand. The detachment broke through the encirclement. In this action Pechul died a hero's death. Another cameraman, Slavin, was twice wounded and twice came back to the front immediately he recovered. Cameraman Boris Sher spent ten weeks with a guerilla detachment that wrought panic among the Germans in an unnamed district near the Valdai Hills. When he had amassed sufficient material covering the activity of this detachment and planned to make his way back across the enemy lines, the guerillas did not want to part with this plucky young man. They had come to consider him as belonging to their ranks and he had won their strong affection — the affection of grim and courageous men who look death in the face every minute of the da}'. The guerillas sent a letter to the studio from which we learned much in regard to which our comrade had modestly kept silent. They wrote that Boris Sher had participated in several daring and dangerous operations as a guerilla trooper. At night time when filming was impossible he would take up a rifle and accompany the detachment into battle. Boris Sher, like many another front-line cameraman, now wears the Order of the Red Banner and continues his newsreel work. Cameraman Mark Troyanovsky was among the last batch of Bed Army men to leave Odessa — that same Mark Troyanovsky who accompanied Papanin on his flight to the North Pole. (His film was shown in England under the title Conquerors of the North). Troyanovsky filmed scenes of the heroic defence of Odessa and the exploits of its defenders. Till the very last hour cameraman Mikosha stuck to his post filming the glorious defence of Sevastopol, which will go down in history as one of the most heroic pages in the struggle of progressive mankind against bloody Hitlerism. In the last days of the defence of Sevastopol. Mikosha was badly shell-shocked but he kept on working. The work of the cameramen filming in beseiged Leningrad deserves special mention. Cameramen