Leslie Swift: My name is Leslie Swift and I am a film researcher in the Steven Spielberg
Film and Video Archive at the Holocaust Museum. The Film and Video Archive collects all types
of film related to the Holocaust, and that's a pretty large... largely defined. That includes
footage from before the war--pre-war Jewish life, during the war, and the DP [displaced
persons] period, as well.
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The Baker collection is two reels of 16-millimeter film that were shot by Ross and Helen Baker
when they were in Vienna. And it also consists of the film camera that they used to shoot
the footage, letters, and a diary written by Helen Baker while she was in Vienna.
The Bakers were an American family. Ross Baker was a chemist and he did a sabbatical at the
University of Vienna, where he was working there at the university and he brought his
family with him. [music ends] So they happened to be in Vienna in March 1938 when the Nazis
annexed the country to Germany.
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On March 11th, Helen Baker writes in her diary: "Streets full of marching, shouting crowds.
Followed one and heard Schuschnigg has resigned. Policeman seem to be leaving the center of
the action. Saw a policeman give a Nazi salute; called a traitor but before long all were
giving salutes. Armbands, flags, swastikas appeared like magic."
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I first became aware of this collection in the summer of 2006 when a colleague of mine
here at the Museum told me that his neighbor had a very interesting DVD to show him. He
brought the DVD to me and when we started looking at it we realized that we had never
seen footage like this before, that it was unique footage of the annexation of Austria.
The original footage was still in the garage of Stan Baker, who was with his family in
Vienna when these events took place. So, I called Stan and said, "Do you think you would
be interested in donating this footage to the Museum?" And he said, "Well, yes, I certainly
would be very interested, and I also have all of these other artifacts that are related
to my family's time in Vienna.
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Helen Baker writes in a letter, "Of course, every building tries to outdo the others in
decoration. Every private house or apartment must decorate, with the marked exception of
those inhabited by Jews. There are no flags on our house. I just heard yesterday that
the owner is Jewish."
There were many, many occasions, both in looking at the footage and in reading the diary, when
I was just completely caught up in what was happening. The Bakers
walked around the Jewish area of town. A lot of the Jewish shops were defaced with graffiti.
And what we had already recognized as a very important scene in the footage, where Helen
Baker walks up to the Jewish shop and is then turned away--that she had recorded not only
this on film, but she had also written about it, and written about the experience.
Helen Baker’s diary entry from March 16th and 17th reads: "Jewish stores marked 'Jude.'
Ross and I tour inner city, see Judengasse with every shop shut tight. Jewish shops on
the ring compelled to put up sign, 'This is not an Aryan store.' Ross comes home telling
of seeing Nazis compelling old Jew to paint 'Jude' on his store window. Can hardly wait
to get away from here."
People donate footage or other types of artifacts to the Museum for lots of reasons. One thing
that is a through-line is that they know that we are going to take their artifacts and preserve
them, and do research on them, and make them available to people who are studying this
period.
Helen Baker wrote, "Please save this letter," . to whomever she was writing to, because
she wanted to save this for posterity. That is really what we mean by 'rescue the evidence.'"
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