Not a three-year-old chimney sweep (2022)

This footage has gone viral online with the claim that it shows an 3 year old chimney sweep on the job: Millions of people saw the footage, shared it online an were upset by it, as they should be… if it was real… When I saw this I knew things were not as they seemed, it was staged, but convincing people of this was quite tricky, after all there’s film footage, it’s right there and it looks real. Before we debunk the claim, we first have to find out more about the footage. The source for the footage is the British Pathé archive, you can find the film by clicking here. They describe the footage as “Very young boy works with his father as a chimney sweep.” and date it to 1933. That’s all they seem to know. But what can we learn from the film itself? The text on the shops suggests this was filmed in a German speaking country, we see “Luxus Geschirr” (luxury tableware) and “Eingang” (entrance). But the pavement looked familiar to me, I’m specialised in Europe during the 1920s-40s an ... Read full article.