Camp Confidential: America’s Secret Nazis Film Receives Accolades and International Attention
It’s doubtful anyone in Israel was paying closer attention to the February 8th announcement of 2022 Academy Awards nominations than young filmmakers Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan. Both professional and personal partners going on 20 years, their latest collaboration Camp Confidential: America’s Secret Nazis had received accolades and attention including designation on the short list for nomination to the Best Documentary Short Subject category.
Camp Confidential tells the story of a group of Jewish American veterans, refugees of Nazi Germany, whose top-secret assignment during World War II was guarding a secret Nazi POW camp on American soil, outside Washington, DC. Dubbed PO Box 1142 to hide its location and purpose, it housed high ranking Nazi scientists and officers either captured or recruited to defect to the American side as the course of the war turned against Nazi Germany. In 1946 after World War II had ended, the camp was bulldozed and all records of its existence and mission were destroyed.
Loushy and Sivan both lost family members in the Holocaust growing up with household survivor stories, but the making of Camp Confidential was an idea brought to them by Austrian Jewish film producers Benji and Jono Bergmann. The Bergmann brothers had discovered US National Park Service audio interviews of a few Jewish Army veterans who had been assigned to staff the Northern Virgina prison camp unlike any other. As the site, under supervision of the US National Park Service, featured a swimming pool, tennis courts, volley-ball court and theater so “prisoners” could feel more like members of an exclusive country club. Only 15 unclassified photographs existed from the camp prompting enterprising National Park Service employees to see if any former US Army officials were still alive and willing to share their personal experiences.
The Bergmanns found a handful of audio-taped interviews made by the Park Service in 2006 of former prison staff, who had sat for interviews of their recollections which comprised a truly astounding story of historical significance. They contacted Loushy and Sivan with their find who although exhausted from the making of Kings of Capitol Hill (a 2019 behind the scenes look at America’s pro-Israel lobby AIPAC) couldn’t resist the opportunity to make a documentary of the astounding story, which of course revealed moral questions; did the ends justify the means.
In addition to the subject matter and historical significance, what makes Camp Confidential notable is the use of animation in several scenes as archival footage or still pictures did not exist. Loushy and Sivan added the talented Canadian Little Blackstone Studios to their team effectively and creatively deploying animation in key segments of the short film. They recreated the story of Jewish refugees of Germany inducted into the US Army who ending up supervising and gathering intelligence from Nazi prisons of war, including the famous Wernher Von Braun.
One of the key pieces of intelligence gathered by unusual methods deployed at PO Box 1142 was the secret location of Nazi rocket development and construction facility which had been supervised by Von Braun. The V-1 and V-2 rockets had been developed, built and launched at the Peenemunde facility largely utilizing Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald concentration camp slave laborers. This intelligence was utilized in Allied bombing of Peenemunde, seriously setting back Nazi rocketry development.
Over the past decade and a half Loushy and Sivan have been more than prolific and successful producing and directing a number of high-quality, well-known documentary film projects; Oslo Diaries, The Devil Next Door, Dirty Tricks and Kings of Capitol Hill.
Film industry recognition of the quality of their work have earned Loushy and Sivan backing and distribution by top film distributors such as Netflix (Camp Confidential), Showtime (Dirty Tricks), HBO (Oslo Diaries) and backing of YES Documentary in Israel among other international sponsors. Their films have also won numerous accolades from renowned American film festivals including Telluride and Sundance Film Festivals.
While not quite making the final nomination, the recognition by Hollywood’s Academy Awards of their storytelling talent and creativity enhances their already glowing reputation.
Camp Confidential is available to stream on Netflix.