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00:04When a political fanatic hijacked a civilized nation,
00:08the public doesn't care about the truth.
00:10He set in motion the slaughter of millions.
00:13They sat and discussed how you destroy people on an industrial scale.
00:18Could the Allies have prevented the inevitable genocide?
00:21The idea that we never really knew anything until afterwards is false.
00:25I came up a couple of times very close to be killed in the gas chamber.
00:30The discovery of the concentration camps revealed the true evil behind the Nazi Empire.
00:36Now rarely seen archived from around the world,
00:39expertly restored and brought to life in full HD color,
00:42tells the story of one of the most shocking events of World War II
00:46as you've never seen it before.
00:53Early April 1945, and the war in Europe is coming to a head.
00:58Soviet soldiers are advancing from the east on the disintegrating German Empire.
01:04On the Western Front, the U.S. 3rd Army under General George Patton
01:08is pushing through central Weimar.
01:11There's intense fighting happening.
01:13Casualty raids in April 1945 are almost as high as they were the previous summer
01:17during the Battle of Normandy.
01:19On April the 11th, while moving past the town of Ettersburg,
01:23the 6th Armored Division is confronted by an unnerving sight,
01:27a group of skeletal figures dressed in striped pajamas.
01:32First thing you're going to think is, oh, these are POWs,
01:34but they don't look like that, do they?
01:36They are basically telling the Americans, they're trying to tell them,
01:39this is a horrible place and you've got to get there immediately.
01:43We need you.
01:44And they keep saying it's called Buchenwald.
01:47Buchenwald.
01:48A group of four soldiers follow the men.
01:51Though battle-hardened after months of fighting,
01:54nothing would have prepared them for what they are about to see.
01:57They had no idea what they had come across.
02:00It was just a place of horrors.
02:09It's absolutely shocking.
02:11People in terrible, terrible condition.
02:14People near death in a stage of emaciation.
02:19The stench of the area is beyond belief.
02:24The Americans are confronted with this and cannot believe their eyes.
02:30Row upon row of barracks,
02:32house the starving bodies of 21,000 men and boys.
02:37Jews, Russians, gypsies, political prisoners,
02:40all existing in squalor.
02:43This is Buchenwald, a giant Nazi concentration camp.
02:49For many, the American liberators have arrived too late.
02:53Others are barely hanging on.
02:56Many people were dying, committing suicide.
03:00Many cases.
03:03And others didn't have enough to eat.
03:07And they died.
03:09I mean, to live 700, 800 calories, how long can you go on?
03:16I never thought that would make it.
03:19But Buchenwald will not be unique.
03:22But Buchenwald will not be unique.
03:22Across Germany, the Allies uncover camp upon camp
03:25of dead and dying men, women, and children.
03:29Corpses piled up on trains.
03:33Crematoria brimming with charred remains.
03:36And even gas chambers for mass extermination.
03:40News of the barbaric discoveries shocks the world.
03:44The question is asked, how could this happen?
03:48It boggles the mind that a civilized culture society like Germany
03:53could inflict this kind of horror on their fellow human beings.
04:01How much did the Allied powers really know of the Nazi atrocities?
04:05For Hitler, long known for his anti-Jewish sentiment,
04:09had made his intentions perfectly clear just six years earlier.
04:25In an infamous speech in 1939,
04:28Hitler made a terrifying prophecy, as it turned out.
04:31That if war came, it wouldn't be a war that he'd started,
04:35but that the Jews had started.
04:37And it wouldn't end with Germany's defeat.
04:38It would end with the annihilation of the Jew.
04:42At the time, the implication was not grasped as fully as it might have been.
04:48And you think, why didn't others see what he was saying?
04:51The answer starts back in the decades before the war began.
04:57In 1919, the abject humiliation of Germany losing the First World War cut to the core.
05:05The subsequent Treaty of Versailles stripped her territories, forced disarmament,
05:10and instituted crippling monetary reparations of $30 billion.
05:15The country went into a great tailspin, you might say, economically, militarily, socially.
05:22There was all sorts of upheavals.
05:25One young man left embittered by Germany's plight was Adolf Hitler.
05:29Austrian by birth, he had served in the Bavarian army on the Western Front.
05:33The shock to him personally, when the nation that he'd adopted proved incapable of winning
05:39the war against the Allies, left him devastated.
05:42He was angry about Germany's condition, passionately angry.
05:46Hitler comes into contact with white Russians, emigres fleeing from communist Russia.
05:51And they brought with them this intense distaste hatred of what happened within Russia,
05:56which was, in the eyes of the white emigres, a Bolshevik-Jewish plot,
06:01where the political and the Judaic had come together.
06:05At last, Hitler comprehends how the brilliant Germany could have been brought to its knees.
06:11Here is the explanation for our difficulties.
06:14We've been betrayed by Jews.
06:17Jews who brought about a revolution in Russia and want to do the same in Germany now.
06:22We must get together as Germans, as Germans, and reject all that threatens us.
06:28Driven to politics, Hitler joins a fledgling group called the National Socialists, the Nazi Party.
06:35Here he finds a group of like-minded people.
06:38There was a vehicle that he could use, he could shape, he could mould in his image
06:43and do the kind of things that he wanted to be done for Germany.
06:47When worldwide depression hits in 1929,
06:50Germany's struggling economy is thrown into turmoil.
06:55Hitler seizes the opportunity to galvanise support,
06:58promising to create jobs, rebuild infrastructure,
07:01and make the country self-sufficient.
07:09The message was not centred on anti-Semitism.
07:13He knew that most Germans did not consider this to be a big issue.
07:17Germans were far more concerned with the Versailles Treaty,
07:21with the economic circumstances of Germany.
07:24And by pushing his anti-Bolshevik agenda,
07:27Hitler provides the people with a scapegoat for all their problems.
07:30The public willingly embraces his reasoning.
07:34German people as a whole were very much worried that communism was going to take over.
07:41And Hitler played upon this fear that the German people had.
07:46Support for the Nazi Party soars.
07:49Really, if you had to identify a theme for Hitler's election campaigns,
07:54it would have been, let's make Germany great again.
07:58Let's overturn the Versailles Treaty.
08:00Let's give people jobs.
08:02Let's get rid of these foreign elements that are poisoning our society.
08:11In 1933, Hitler is swept to power in a landslide electoral victory.
08:18Almost immediately, he bans all other political parties.
08:23Abroad, Jewish observers react with dismay.
08:26His anti-Semitic record rings alarm bells.
08:30In the US, civil rights activist Samuel Untermeyer demands a boycott of German goods.
08:36The only crime charged against the Jews is that they are Jews.
08:43Shall the world stand idly by?
08:45Take no steps to prevent this reversion to the Dark Ages.
08:51But the calls to action are not heeded.
08:54In Germany, Hitler can finally take his anti-Bolshevik ideas
08:58from campaign manifesto to government policy.
09:01He begins a program of forcibly re-educating the undesirables of society,
09:07placing them into concentration camps.
09:10By putting them into these camps and forcing them to perform good hard work
09:14and get a lot of fresh air and exercise,
09:16their attitudes would be turned around
09:18and ultimately they would become good German citizens again.
09:21For most middle-class and upper-class Germans
09:25who saw communism as a real threat,
09:27this was a good way to take German society in hand.
09:30But the message of intimidation is clear.
09:55With the death of President Hindenburg in 1934,
09:58Hitler takes on the title of Führer, or leader of Germany.
10:03And from that point on, it was a dictatorship, pure and simple.
10:08As Führer, Hitler now amplifies another core belief,
10:12one that has been part of Nazi philosophy from its earliest days,
10:16that the German people are descended from a master race
10:19and so begins a project of racial profiling.
10:23What he wants is to make Germany a racial state.
10:28The folk, the idea of the Germans being bonded together
10:31through historical development,
10:33excluded those who weren't Aryan, weren't German.
10:38The concept of a superior race was not restricted to Germany.
10:43The idea of white supremacy was well established in the European tradition,
10:48notably in the justification for slavery in the United States.
10:52In the 19th century, eugenic pseudoscience took racial theory to a new level.
10:59Blonde-haired, blue-eyed, Nordic-looking sort of people
11:02were the model that you were aiming for.
11:05And Hitler added to it by saying,
11:08well, we can rapidly breed out impure races and make a master race.
11:13Rarely giving direct orders himself,
11:16Hitler instead leaves it to his trusted lieutenants
11:19to interpret and carry out his will.
11:21Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, is one such devotee.
11:26Heinrich Himmler wanted to control how German society functioned,
11:31how people related to one another,
11:32how they acted in their private lives even.
11:35Heinrich Himmler believed that he had a mission,
11:38and the mission was to engage in the purification
11:41of German culture and Aryan racial superiority.
11:47Taking on responsibility for the camps in 1934,
11:51he quickly expands their use to remove the racially inferior.
11:56They looked at Slavs, they looked at Eastern Europeans,
11:59as untermenschen, subhumans,
12:02people who were simply not deserving of the kinds of consideration
12:06that Aryans deserved.
12:08Gypsies, homosexuals, habitual criminals, drunks, the unemployed,
12:13all of these people were targets of the camp system.
12:17Much of the public accepts the new policy.
12:20The regime pushed this as a positive development.
12:23There were people that most Germans considered to be
12:26at least somewhat a threat.
12:28But it's Hitler's despised Jews
12:31who are to be the prime targets of Nazi persecution.
12:35In 1933, there are half a million Jews in Germany,
12:39around 1% of the population.
12:41Though generally assimilated into society,
12:44prejudice is never far away.
12:46Anti-Semitism was the norm, a fear, a suspicion,
12:50that in some way there's a presence within Germany,
12:54a people within Germany, who aren't really German.
12:57The Nazis aim to take advantage
12:59of this underlying racial prejudice.
13:02Jews had influence.
13:03That was Hitler's line.
13:04They run the banks, they run the finance houses,
13:07they're lawyers, they're doctors.
13:08The key professions, key institutions, are Jewish-dominated.
13:13Hitler had written about his hatred of the Jews extensively
13:16in his 1925 book, Mein Kampf.
13:20For him, there is only one solution.
13:22They couldn't be allowed to be part of the citizenship of the state
13:27because they were naturally enemies.
13:29He often used the very grim analogies
13:32of the bacillus in the body politic,
13:34the germ that's going to corrupt.
13:36You have to wipe it out, cut it out.
13:38But the Nazi regime realizes the call for all-out war on the Jews
13:42would be unpopular.
13:44The public needs to be persuaded.
13:46Most Germans didn't know any Jews.
13:48For those who did,
13:50they tended to think,
13:52my Jews, my friends,
13:54they're different.
13:55They should be treated differently.
13:58Hitler appoints politician and master manipulator
14:01Joseph Goebbels as head of the propaganda ministry.
14:04His mission, to portray the Jews as other
14:07and engineer public opinion to the Nazis' favor.
14:11Propaganda was central to how the Nazis persuaded Germans
14:16of the rightness of Nazi policies.
14:19And Joseph Goebbels was a real expert at this.
14:22He had a natural talent at it.
14:23You couldn't publish anything in Germany.
14:25You couldn't say it on the radio
14:27if it didn't meet with Goebbels' approval.
14:30His strategy is simple and bold.
14:33He was an expert in what he called the big lie.
14:37And this idea of the big lie
14:38was that the public doesn't care about the truth.
14:41What they want to hear is something that is simple,
14:44that seems to solve their problems,
14:47and you say it again and again and again.
14:50It doesn't matter if it corresponds to the facts or not.
14:52You just keep saying it,
14:54and sooner or later people will start to believe it.
14:57He cleverly uses the new media of radio and film
15:00to spread his message.
15:06There was a program that people were sold radios
15:10at a very low cost that could only get one station.
15:13It was the state-controlled radio station,
15:16and so the propaganda stream never ended.
15:19The message?
15:20The Jews have too much power.
15:23Joseph Goebbels was able to say,
15:27the Germans are suffering
15:29because the Jews are doing so well.
15:32To the Jewish population, the actions are alarming.
15:35They hold positions within government,
15:38teach at universities, run businesses.
15:41Up until that point,
15:42Jews had become more and more assimilated
15:44into German society,
15:45tending to see themselves as Germans first and foremost,
15:49and Jews sort of second.
15:51Almost immediately after taking power,
15:54Goebbels helps organize a one-day boycott of Jewish shops.
15:58The action marked the start
15:59of a systematic campaign of discrimination.
16:03Students organize mass book burnings.
16:06Works by foreign and Jewish authors
16:08are destroyed to purify German culture.
16:12Persecution of the Jews within Nazi Germany
16:14is a cumulative affair.
16:16Step by step,
16:17the Jew is made to feel more and more isolated.
16:20The Nuremberg race laws are a critical stage.
16:23It is at the 1935 Nazi Party rally at Nuremberg
16:26that Hitler introduces legislation
16:28to protect Aryan bloodlines.
16:31One law forbids marriages between Jews and Germans.
16:35The other critically defines
16:37who qualifies as a true German
16:39and who does not.
16:40They made it possible then
16:42to persecute in a very direct way.
16:44Because you're defining your enemy.
16:46You're saying,
16:46these categories make someone a Jew.
16:49And the Jew is the enemy
16:51and the Jew is to be guarded against.
16:53And therefore,
16:54all families can now be examined.
16:56And we can see just how deep
16:58the corruption has gone.
17:00The policy of ethnic purification
17:03is now enshrined in German law.
17:06Mit den Nuremberger Rassegesetzen von 1935
17:12waren Juden in Deutschland
17:13zum Menschen zweiter Klasse geworden.
17:17Viele hatten sogar noch die Hoffnung,
17:18okay, jetzt gibt es diese schreckliche Gesetzgebung,
17:21aber jetzt werden wir in Ruhe gelassen.
17:23It was a faint hope.
17:25Things only deteriorate for the Jews.
17:28Over the next two years,
17:29there were additional laws
17:31that further restricted the rights of the Jews.
17:34They're forbidden to have pets.
17:35They're forbidden to have radios.
17:37They're forbidden to have cars.
17:39Gradually, there are more and more restrictions
17:41put upon them.
17:42The policy is all part of an Aryanization drive
17:46to purge society of Jewish influence.
17:49The German people do little to intervene.
17:51Some even benefit from the measures.
17:53Every time a Jew was dismissed
17:55from a position in, say,
17:56in a school or a legal firm
17:58or a publishing house,
17:59a job was available
18:00to a non-Jewish German Aryan.
18:04And that is highly attractive.
18:06You can swallow your feelings
18:07about Jews being ill-treated
18:08if your career prospects
18:10are going to be so much improved.
18:13Although news of Jewish persecution
18:16spreads abroad,
18:17it seldom makes it into the popular press.
18:20And when it does,
18:22the public don't trust the reports.
18:24During World War I,
18:26Germans have been falsely accused
18:27of mutilating Belgian children
18:29in news stories.
18:31People said,
18:32well, this is just anti-German propaganda
18:34like we got in World War I.
18:36It turned out not to be true
18:37that the Germans really weren't
18:39doing the bad things
18:41to Belgian children
18:42that, so why should we believe this?
18:44Some American Jews
18:46even fear drawing attention
18:48to the injustice.
18:49The Jewish owners
18:50of the New York Times
18:51felt there might be
18:52an anti-Semitic backlash
18:54against American Jews
18:56if it seemed like
18:58the New York Times
18:59was beating the drum
19:00for let's do something
19:01to save the Jews of Europe.
19:04In truth, anti-Semitism
19:05is growing across the globe.
19:08European countries like Italy
19:09and Poland
19:10have anti-Jewish restrictions.
19:13Britain is facing its own
19:15fascist movement,
19:16inciting hatred against Jews.
19:19In the US,
19:20discrimination is never far away.
19:23Jews often weren't permitted
19:25to be in the same class
19:27as other students
19:28or to attend golf clubs
19:30or hotels.
19:32Not as bad as the treatment
19:34of African Americans
19:35but nevertheless
19:36a real and endemic
19:38and legalized prejudice
19:39within American society
19:41at this time.
19:42The United States State Department,
19:43for example,
19:44was filled with anti-Semites
19:45that made sure
19:46that we did not even
19:47fulfill the quotas
19:48that we, by law,
19:51could have filled
19:51in accepting people
19:52from Central Europe.
19:55In late 1938,
19:57a group of 900
19:58Jewish refugees
19:59flee to Cuba
20:00on the German
20:01transatlantic liner
20:02the SS St. Louis.
20:04The passengers
20:06had bought Cuban visas.
20:08When they got to Cuba,
20:09there were demonstrations
20:10against them
20:11and they were turned away.
20:13Desperately looking
20:13for sanctuary,
20:14the captain sails
20:15to the US,
20:16the promised land
20:17of the free.
20:18And so the ship
20:19sailed on to Miami
20:20but the State Department
20:22said, no, you can't
20:23offload anybody here.
20:25Some people committed suicide
20:26by jumping overboard.
20:28Forced to return
20:29to Germany,
20:30many of the passengers
20:31end up as victims
20:32of concentration camps.
20:34About 150 of the passengers
20:36ended up dying
20:37in the Holocaust
20:38when the Nazis
20:39overran Western Europe.
20:44Within Germany,
20:45few in the Jewish community
20:47protest against
20:48government discrimination
20:49because for them,
20:50this is nothing new.
20:52Jews have been dealing
20:54with anti-Semitism
20:55for centuries.
20:57For most of that time
20:58in most places,
21:00there were limits
21:01on how bad things
21:03could get.
21:04And this knowledge
21:05of their history
21:06affected how they reacted
21:07to the steps
21:08the Nazis took.
21:09Many thought,
21:10it'll blow over.
21:12It's bad at the moment
21:13but it's a passing phase.
21:17But instead,
21:19the persecution escalates
21:20as the seeds
21:21of Goebbels' malignant
21:22propaganda
21:23come to fruition.
21:25In late 1938,
21:27the assassination
21:28of a German diplomat
21:29by a Polish Jew
21:30in Paris
21:31gives the Nazis
21:33a pretext
21:33for triggering
21:34direct violence
21:35against the Jewish community.
21:38On the night of November,
21:40the 9,000s
21:41of Nazi brown shirts
21:42go on the rampage.
21:46They smashed
21:47Jewish shop windows.
21:48They looted the contents.
21:49They broke into people's homes
21:51and trashed them.
21:52They beat people up.
21:53They raped women.
21:54The police have been instructed
21:55to watch on
21:56without intervening.
21:58People gathered
21:59in the streets
22:00and more or less
22:01cheered
22:01or did cheer
22:02as the synagogues
22:03burned down.
22:04In the event
22:05now known as Kristallnacht,
22:07the night of the broken glass,
22:09over a hundred Jews
22:10are killed.
22:12It couldn't have happened,
22:13Kristallnacht,
22:14had there not been
22:15that gradual
22:15wearing away
22:16of the idea
22:17of the Jew
22:17as acceptable,
22:18as respectable.
22:19The Jew was
22:20now get-at-able.
22:21He was vulnerable.
22:23With the horrors
22:23of Kristallnacht,
22:25the Jewish persecution
22:26finally makes
22:27front-page news abroad.
22:29Reaction around the world
22:31to what the Nazis
22:32were doing
22:33to the Jews
22:33was pretty loud.
22:36There were
22:36large protests
22:37in New York City,
22:38for example.
22:39There was a gathering
22:40in Madison Square Garden.
22:41There was a limit
22:42to what people
22:43were willing to do.
22:44There was a limit
22:45to what they could do.
22:47Though Roosevelt's
22:48administration
22:49expresses great concern,
22:50both the U.S.
22:51and Europe
22:52fundamentally do nothing.
22:54They refuse
22:55to impose
22:56economic sanctions
22:57or open their doors
22:58to fleeing Jews.
23:00German Jews
23:01now realize
23:02that Hitler's gold
23:03had always been
23:04to force them out.
23:05But the Nazis
23:07make it very difficult
23:08to leave,
23:08imposing hefty
23:10emigration taxes.
23:11The Nazi operation
23:12was national-level
23:14gangsterism.
23:15They wanted to seize
23:16Jewish property
23:17to enrich themselves
23:18and their supporters.
23:20And so,
23:21certainly for
23:22much of the
23:24pre-war period,
23:25if you could pay up
23:27and give all your
23:28property over,
23:28then you were able
23:29to get out.
23:30And those who do escape
23:31often find themselves
23:32penniless and stateless.
23:35This was the middle
23:35of the Great Depression.
23:37Other countries
23:37didn't want to accept
23:38a bunch of people
23:39who weren't going
23:40to be able
23:41to support themselves,
23:41who were going
23:42to come in
23:43and perhaps take jobs
23:44away from people
23:44who were already there.
23:46Life was then
23:46very hard
23:47for Jews
23:48in these countries.
23:50They often were
23:50deprived of working rights,
23:52and actually a few
23:53even went back
23:53to Germany.
23:54But fundamentally,
23:56it is anti-Jewish sentiment
23:58that drives
23:59European attitudes.
24:00A lot of people
24:01just didn't want Jews
24:02coming into the country
24:03at all,
24:04and this was true
24:05throughout Europe.
24:06In the aftermath
24:07of Kristallnacht,
24:0930,000 Jewish men
24:10are rounded up
24:11and sent
24:12to concentration camps.
24:1510,000 of those
24:16end up in Buchenwald
24:17in central Germany.
24:20Originally built
24:21in 1937
24:22as a place
24:23of hard labor
24:24for political prisoners.
24:25The camp primarily
24:27houses men and boys.
24:29There was a lot
24:30of sort of
24:31pointless work.
24:32You know,
24:32carry these rocks
24:33over to the other
24:33side of the compound.
24:34Okay, carry them back.
24:35Dig a hole,
24:36fill it in.
24:36Work that was simply
24:37meant to demean,
24:39to exhaust,
24:40sometimes to the
24:41point of death.
24:42The whole idea
24:43of Buchenwald
24:44was to break
24:46the spirit
24:47of people
24:48who were sent there.
24:50Right across Germany,
24:51Jews start to be
24:53incarcerated en masse.
24:55For a lot of Jews,
24:56this did seem like
24:58the last straw.
24:59Now they realize
25:00that this was not
25:01just a matter of,
25:03oh, I can't have a radio.
25:04This is now a matter
25:05of they're going
25:06to be increasingly
25:08violent until we leave
25:09and we have to leave.
25:11Emboldened by the lack
25:13of international
25:13condemnation,
25:15Hitler pushes on
25:16with his plans
25:16for a great
25:17German nation,
25:19expansion.
25:20The Nazis wanted
25:21to gain Lebensraum,
25:23they wanted to gain
25:24living space
25:24so that Germany
25:26could be self-sufficient
25:27in terms of food
25:28so that the German race
25:29again could prosper
25:31and ultimately
25:32take over the world.
25:33If the master race
25:35is to reign supreme,
25:36it needs space
25:37for Aryan farmers.
25:38They would move
25:39into areas
25:40currently occupied
25:41by the inferior races,
25:43the Slavs and the Poles
25:45and the Russians
25:45and that would be
25:46perfectly legitimate
25:47because a superior race
25:48has the right
25:49to suppress an inferior one
25:51just as the good bacteria
25:53will destroy
25:54the bad bacteria.
25:58On the 1st of September,
26:001939,
26:01Hitler invades Poland.
26:03Europe is at war.
26:05With the rest of the world
26:07distracted by Germany's aggression,
26:09the Nazis quietly
26:10target another group
26:12of undesirables,
26:13the physically
26:14and mentally ill.
26:17Under the Actaean T4 program,
26:19Hitler orders doctors
26:20to grant mercy deaths
26:22to those deemed
26:24incurably sick.
26:27Six asylums
26:28are outfitted
26:29with specially constructed
26:30gas chambers.
26:31Here,
26:32chemically manufactured poisons
26:34are used to kill patients.
26:36But while the Nazis
26:38rid themselves
26:39of one problem,
26:40newly captured territories
26:41present them with another,
26:43an excess of Jews.
26:45They start rounding them up,
26:47isolating them in ghettos.
26:48The Nazis knew
26:49that they wanted
26:50to control the Jews,
26:51but they weren't yet sure
26:53what they were going
26:53to do with them.
26:55Alex Moskowitz
26:56is 13 years old
26:57when he,
26:58his two brothers
26:59and parents
27:00find themselves targeted
27:01in Czechoslovakia.
27:03The family was orthodox.
27:04We lived in a small town
27:06and I didn't know
27:07too much
27:08about the rest
27:09of the world.
27:10All of a sudden,
27:11police came
27:11and they put us
27:13on trucks
27:13and they put us
27:14into a brick factory.
27:16And that was our place
27:18in the ghetto
27:19in that town
27:20and we were surrounded
27:21by Hungarian police.
27:23Conditions inside the ghettos
27:25are miserable.
27:26Many people die
27:27from disease,
27:29starvation
27:29or are simply shot.
27:31There was very little food.
27:34There was a great deal
27:34of overcrowding.
27:35So people were forced
27:37into small areas,
27:39usually in the poorest parts
27:41of these towns or cities.
27:43From the ghettos,
27:44the inhabitants
27:45are transferred
27:45to the camps
27:46where conditions
27:47are even worse.
27:49Inmates are worked
27:50till they drop,
27:52beaten and whipped.
27:53Those considered of no use
27:54are shot or hanged.
27:56The camps attract sadists.
27:59One of the most notorious
28:01was Ilsa Koch,
28:03wife of the SS commandant
28:04at Buchenwald.
28:05It's said that if she saw
28:07somebody with an interesting
28:08tattoo,
28:09she would tell the guard
28:11to write down
28:11that prisoner's number.
28:13The next day,
28:14he would disappear,
28:15he would be killed
28:16and have his skin removed
28:18and tanned
28:19and made into
28:20some household object.
28:22A small industry
28:23flourishes at Buchenwald
28:25providing these gruesome
28:26items.
28:27Throughout the SS world,
28:29orders would come in
28:31and say,
28:31I'd like to have
28:31a book cover
28:32of human skin
28:33or some house slippers,
28:34lampshade,
28:35or whatever it happened
28:36to be.
28:38By mid-1941,
28:39the Third Reich
28:40has now occupied
28:41most of mainland Europe.
28:43To accommodate
28:44the ever-growing number
28:45of prisoners,
28:46the SS set up
28:47thousands of slave labor camps.
28:50Throughout Nazi society
28:52in Germany at the time,
28:53there was a slave labor system
28:55and I think people
28:56don't realize that.
28:58Local factories
28:59and businesses
28:59benefit from the free labor.
29:02Slaves who came
29:03to do the work
29:04were clearly
29:04in extremely poor health,
29:06badly dressed,
29:07maltreated.
29:08The idea that people
29:09didn't know until afterwards
29:10is simply a fiction.
29:17From June the 22nd, 1941,
29:20Hitler launches
29:20Operation Barbarossa
29:22against the Soviet Union.
29:24The invasion
29:25marks a major turning point
29:27in the Nazi
29:28racial cleansing campaign.
29:30Prior to June 41,
29:32Hitler's army
29:33treated enemy soldiers
29:35in accordance
29:36with international laws
29:37and expectations,
29:39but Operation Barbarossa
29:41marked a break here.
29:42Nazi high command
29:43authorizes
29:44a significant change
29:46to the rules of engagement.
29:47This war
29:48is going to be different
29:49from all wars.
29:52The enemy in the East
29:53is a different enemy
29:54who has to be treated differently.
29:55He fights viciously,
29:56he fights savagely,
29:58he is Asiatic,
29:58he is cruel,
29:59and so we have to be prepared
30:01for that
30:02and we have to be
30:03similarly cruel
30:04toward that enemy.
30:05Hitler is finally
30:06in a position
30:07to attack
30:07the reviled
30:08Jewish communist foe
30:10he denounced
30:11in Mein Kampf.
30:13He believed
30:14that by attacking
30:15the Soviet Union
30:16he would be attacking
30:17the heart
30:18of communism
30:19stroke Judaism.
30:21And hence
30:21his ruthless determination
30:22to kill
30:23all the Soviet Jews.
30:25Anti-Semitic aggression
30:26escalates
30:27as head of the SS,
30:28Himmler,
30:29deploys special
30:30paramilitary groups
30:31to follow
30:32the advancing
30:33German forces.
30:34The Einsatzgruppen
30:35were made up
30:36primarily of
30:37SS and police personnel,
30:39and these units
30:40followed the armies
30:41and rounded up Jews,
30:43took them outside
30:44of their villages
30:44to places
30:46that had been prepared
30:46or in some cases
30:47forced them to dig
30:48their own graves
30:49and shot them.
30:52Entire Jewish settlements
30:53down,
30:54not just the men
30:55but the women
30:55and children
30:56and the elderly
30:57were killed
30:58to the last person.
31:00Chillingly,
31:01several SS officers
31:02even filmed
31:03the atrocities
31:04as war mementos.
31:05There's a lot
31:07of German photographs
31:08of shootings,
31:10hangings
31:11that Germans
31:12were proud of
31:13and showed
31:14to each other
31:14and sometimes
31:15even sent home.
31:16At Babi Yar,
31:17a ravine
31:18just outside of Kiev
31:19in the Ukraine,
31:21the Einsatzgruppen
31:22murder nearly
31:2334,000 Jews
31:24in the space
31:25of two days.
31:26It is one of the
31:28single largest
31:29massacres
31:30of World War II.
31:32The slaughter
31:33is so horrific
31:34that the executions
31:35are beginning
31:35to exert a toll
31:37on the officers
31:37involved.
31:39Heinrich Himmler,
31:40the head of the SS,
31:41started to hear
31:42that psychological
31:44effects were severe,
31:45there was a great deal
31:46of alcoholism
31:47breaking out,
31:48so he started looking
31:49for another solution.
31:50To stop his troops
31:51suffering,
31:52Himmler introduces
31:52the use of mobile
31:54gas fans.
31:55The killing process
31:56is becoming industrialized.
31:58They would pack people
31:59into the back
32:00of the truck
32:00and the exhaust
32:01from the truck
32:02would go into
32:03that compartment
32:03and suffocate the people
32:05or kill them
32:06with carbon monoxide poisoning.
32:08But the vans
32:09proved too time-consuming.
32:11In order to exterminate
32:13more efficiently,
32:13the Nazis
32:14turned to technology
32:15developed under
32:16their Action T4 program.
32:18At a point in 1941,
32:22a number of technicians
32:24from the T4 program
32:25actually go to
32:27Eastern Europe
32:28and coordinate
32:29with the SS
32:30on how gassing
32:32can work.
32:32There were experiments
32:33that were being made
32:34with gas chambers
32:36and within 10 or 15 minutes,
32:39hundreds or thousands
32:40of people could be killed
32:42and that was the method
32:43that was determined
32:45as the most efficient.
32:47But it's events
32:48in early 1942
32:49that prove key
32:51in accelerating
32:52the deployment
32:53of this new
32:54mass extermination method.
32:57The crushing defeat
32:59of the German army
33:00at the Battle of Moscow
33:01throws Nazi invincibility
33:03into doubt.
33:04This was a moment
33:06of real panic
33:07in the Nazi leadership
33:08because they feared
33:09that they would lose the war
33:11and the response was,
33:12well, the Jews
33:13caused this war
33:14and now
33:15they must pay the price
33:17because we've just lost
33:18165,000 men
33:20and they must pay the price
33:22for that,
33:22wrote Goebbels
33:23in his diary
33:23that winter.
33:25The gas chambers
33:27offer a way
33:27to take vengeance
33:28and rid Germany
33:30of the Jewish problem.
33:32On January 20th, 1942,
33:3515 high-ranking
33:36Nazi officials
33:37meet at the
33:38Wannsee Villa
33:39in Berlin
33:40on the agenda
33:41the implementation
33:42of the final solution.
33:45This idea of
33:46destroying 11 million Jews
33:48starts at Wannsee Conference
33:49where they say,
33:50what's the problem?
33:51The Jews.
33:52The Jews of Europe
33:52occupied Europe.
33:53How many are there?
33:5411 million.
33:54We've got to wipe them out
33:56within as short a space
33:57as we can.
33:58It was at that meeting
33:59that it was decided
34:00that these gas chambers
34:02would be the best way
34:03to accomplish
34:04this very ghastly goal.
34:06The question now
34:07is how to scale up
34:09the process.
34:09They sat and discussed
34:11how you destroy people
34:13on an industrial scale.
34:14How do the trains run?
34:16How do we get the timetables
34:17to tally?
34:17What supplies do we need?
34:19And now we have
34:19a new scale of killing
34:21that we see
34:22industrial killing.
34:23From across Europe
34:25hundreds of thousands
34:26of Jews
34:26are sent to be gassed
34:28in six purpose-built
34:29killing centers.
34:31All are based
34:32in the east of Poland.
34:33Man is sozusagen
34:35vor Ort,
34:35wo man
34:36in gewisser Hinsicht
34:37auch geschützter war,
34:40weil man fern
34:40auch von der deutschen
34:41Bevölkerung war
34:42und sich sozusagen
34:44in seinen verbrecherischen
34:45Absichten
34:46leichter austoben konnte,
34:48bösartig ausgedrückt.
34:52Alex and his family
34:53were put on a train
34:54heading to the largest
34:56extermination center,
34:58Auschwitz-Birkenau.
35:00Once we arrived in Birkenau,
35:02I was separated
35:02from my father
35:03and my older brother.
35:04My younger brother,
35:06I had no idea
35:07that where he was.
35:08My mother wasn't
35:09there anymore.
35:11I left her on the platform
35:12and I had no idea
35:14what happened to them.
35:15Alex never sees his mother
35:17or younger brother again.
35:19Hundreds of thousands
35:21of others
35:21are sent straight
35:22to the gas chambers.
35:25Ultimately,
35:26in the extermination centers,
35:28almost 2.8 million
35:29people were killed,
35:30most of them Jews,
35:31but also Roma and Sinti,
35:34some of the disabled,
35:35some Soviet prisoners of war.
35:38Those deemed of use
35:39are tattooed
35:40with a number
35:41and put to work.
35:43Alex is forced
35:43to haul the garbage carts,
35:45but it's not just rubbish
35:47he will have to dispose of.
35:49One day,
35:50he is approached
35:51by the leader
35:52of a women's barrack.
35:53She has a desperate situation.
35:56One of the newer women
35:57that came there
36:00was pregnant.
36:02Bad news.
36:04If the Germans
36:06would have found out
36:07that she was pregnant,
36:08they killed her immediately.
36:11So she says to me,
36:13she's going to give birth,
36:15and once she gives birth,
36:18we're going to take the baby,
36:22and we'll have to choke the baby
36:26to make the baby to make the mother live.
36:29I figure the mother has to live,
36:31and then we'll give the baby
36:32to you in a sack,
36:34and you put it in a wagon,
36:35and when you go to the dump,
36:38you bury it.
36:39So we came back,
36:42and we took the baby
36:43to the burial place.
36:45We dug a hole,
36:47and took the baby
36:48very quietly
36:49and put the baby
36:50back in and covered it.
36:52If someone dies,
36:53you have to say a prayer.
36:56Kaddish, right?
36:57Instead of Kaddish,
36:59it wasn't easy.
37:04When a handful of inmates
37:06manage to escape the camps,
37:08they take news
37:09of the killings
37:10to the Allies.
37:11A great deal of information
37:12about the extermination
37:14of the Jews
37:14started to come through.
37:16There were statements
37:17by the Soviet government.
37:19The Polish government
37:19in London
37:20published a whole dossier
37:21detailing almost village
37:23by village
37:24the Nazi atrocities.
37:27In December 1942,
37:30representatives of 16 allied governments
37:33meet in London.
37:34They issue a declaration
37:36condemning the extermination.
37:39The British House of Commons
37:40stood in silence
37:42which only ever happened
37:44otherwise
37:44at the death of the monarch.
37:46So this was a very powerful symbol
37:48that was being sent
37:49about the recognition
37:50that the Jews of Europe
37:51were being exterminated.
37:53So the idea
37:54that we never really knew anything,
37:56we never really said anything
37:57until afterwards
37:58is false.
37:59The declaration is broadcast
38:01on the BBC
38:02in nearly 20 languages.
38:04The world knows,
38:06so why is nothing done to help?
38:09Well, the short answer
38:10was, as Franklin Roosevelt said,
38:13we're trying to win the war.
38:14But at this point,
38:15the Nazi tanks of Rommel
38:17are 150 miles from Cairo.
38:20The Middle East oil
38:21is expected to fall
38:22to the Nazis.
38:24The survival of
38:25Western civilization
38:27was at stake.
38:28Winning the war
38:29was the absolute priority.
38:31And that was the way
38:32to save what Jews would be left.
38:36Two years go by
38:37before a turn in the war
38:39brings hope
38:40to millions of prisoners.
38:41On the 6th of June, 1944,
38:44the Allies land at Normandy.
38:46In the East,
38:47the Soviets are now
38:48pushing back
38:49the German forces.
38:50Germany is in retreat.
38:53On the 23rd of July,
38:55the Red Army reaches
38:56Majdanek extermination camp
38:57in Poland.
38:58It is here
38:59that the Soviets
39:00find the first evidence
39:01of industrial murder.
39:03Piles of charred corpses
39:05next to crematoria ovens,
39:08three large gas chambers,
39:10and 553 cans
39:12of Cyclone B poison.
39:14Russian filmmaker
39:15Roman Karman
39:16documents the scene.
39:18He was overwhelmed
39:19with what he had seen.
39:21Ashes from the dead bodies
39:22was actually used
39:23as fertilizer
39:24to actually grow
39:26this enormously beautiful
39:28cabbage
39:29on the fields of Majdanek.
39:30And so the camera
39:31zooms in on the cabbage.
39:32The Germans
39:33have collected
39:34the plundered belongings
39:35of the murdered Jews.
39:36Glasses,
39:38suitcases,
39:38even human hair.
39:40In the Soviet Union,
39:42the horrific discoveries
39:43are reported extensively.
39:45But the claims
39:46are so shocking
39:47that Western media
39:48are simply not convinced
39:49they are genuine.
39:51Those images
39:52did not circulate
39:54to Western viewers
39:55at the time.
39:56In fact,
39:57when Alexander Wirt,
39:58who was the correspondent
40:00for the BBC in Moscow,
40:02sent a report
40:02to the BBC in London
40:04in August 1944,
40:06the editors refused
40:08to publish it,
40:09believing this to be
40:10a Soviet propaganda hoax.
40:12By January 1945,
40:15the Soviets
40:15are advancing
40:16on other camps.
40:17The Nazis
40:18start removing inmates.
40:21Thousands
40:22are forced
40:22onto death marches,
40:24including Alex Moskowitz.
40:26People
40:27that
40:28full hour
40:28of the group
40:29on the side
40:29and so on,
40:30they went over there
40:31and shot them
40:32and left them there
40:33on the road.
40:34And the people
40:35that would walk
40:36kept walking.
40:37Lucky to survive
40:38the march,
40:39Alex faces
40:39another harrowing ordeal
40:41when he is packed
40:42onto a train
40:43heading west
40:44to Buchenwald.
40:45First couple of days,
40:47it was crowded.
40:47At least,
40:48we were able
40:49to keep warm.
40:50By the second
40:51and third day,
40:51people started to die.
40:52For over 20 days,
40:54survivors are forced
40:55to keep the dead
40:56on the train
40:57so that the Nazis
40:58can account
40:59for every Jew.
41:01Bodies.
41:02All they cared about
41:02is bodies.
41:04At Buchenwald,
41:05the situation
41:06has become so dire
41:07that some inmates
41:09resort to desperate measures.
41:11The worst thing
41:12I saw
41:12was someone
41:14eating a human being.
41:21Wow.
41:23unbelievable.
41:24His father
41:25and older brother
41:26now dead,
41:27Alex finds himself alone
41:29along with thousands
41:30of other children.
41:31The goal of the SS
41:34was they were going
41:35to die along
41:36with the adults
41:38who were in the camp.
41:41By now,
41:43U.S. troops
41:43have advanced
41:44into central Germany.
41:45At Erdruf,
41:47on April 4, 1945,
41:49American forces
41:50make their first
41:51horrifying discovery,
41:53an abandoned
41:54slave labor camp.
41:55They were astonished
41:57by what they saw.
41:58There were piles
41:59of corpses
42:00and a few starving,
42:02smelly survivors
42:04who could barely raise
42:07their hands
42:08to greet
42:08the American rivals.
42:10About a kilometer
42:11outside of the camp,
42:12the SS guards
42:13had summarily dumped
42:15between 2,000 and 3,000 bodies
42:17in various shallow graves
42:18and ditches
42:19and forest areas.
42:21Finally,
42:22the Allies see
42:22with their own eyes
42:23the atrocities
42:24the Soviets
42:25have been reporting
42:26for the past year.
42:27The commander
42:28of the American unit
42:29called back
42:30to headquarters
42:31and he said,
42:31you won't believe
42:32what I found here.
42:33Get people here
42:34as quickly as you can.
42:36With the Americans
42:37just 26 miles away,
42:39the SS at Buchenwald
42:40immediately start
42:42clearing the camp.
42:44But the inmates,
42:45realizing freedom
42:46is finally within their grasp,
42:48rise up and resist.
42:50Prisoners aren't just
42:51sitting around waiting.
42:52And so you see
42:53this enormous pressure
42:54of the prisoners
42:55trying to kind of resist this.
42:57because they know
42:58evacuation probably means death.
43:00On April the 11th,
43:01the starving prisoners
43:02seized control of the camp.
43:04Weapons were handed out.
43:05Inmates rushed the main gate.
43:08Many of the guards ran away.
43:10We were able to open up
43:12the front gate
43:12and when the Americans arrived,
43:15that gate was opened to them.
43:17So they just walked
43:18right through it.
43:20Salvation has come at last
43:22for the few
43:22who have escaped death.
43:24I felt that
43:25I wouldn't see that day
43:27ever.
43:28Surviving a situation like that,
43:31it's almost impossible.
43:33Everybody who was there
43:34said it was the greatest day
43:36of their lives.
43:37In many cases,
43:38they said,
43:38this is the day
43:39I began my life.
43:42Couldn't believe it.
43:44I couldn't believe it
43:46to be able to
43:48go home
43:49and hope
43:51and hope
43:51that someone
43:52in my family
43:53would still be alive.
43:55But that is not to be.
43:57Out of 41 members
43:58of his family,
43:59Alex is the only one
44:01to survive.
44:04The barbarities
44:06uncovered in the camps
44:07are so unbelievable
44:08that Allied commanders
44:09insist on seeing
44:10the evidence
44:11for themselves.
44:12on April the 12th,
44:14Generals Eisenhower,
44:15Patton,
44:16and Bradley
44:16visit all truth.
44:18Patton was so
44:20grossed out
44:21by what he saw
44:22that he went behind
44:23a building
44:23and threw up
44:24and Eisenhower and Bradley
44:25just turned white
44:26with shock and horror.
44:28Determined to make
44:29the world aware
44:30of what the Nazis
44:31were doing,
44:32General Eisenhower
44:33sends for the press.
44:34And he said,
44:35I want them to document
44:37what we've found here
44:39because maybe in the future
44:41somebody will deny
44:42it happened
44:42and our boys
44:44may not know
44:45what they're fighting for
44:47but now they'll know
44:48what they're fighting against.
44:51People across Germany
44:52claim shock
44:53and ignorance
44:54at what was happening
44:55on their own doorstep.
44:56At Buchenwald,
44:57General Patton
44:58forces a thousand
44:59locals
44:59to tour the camp
45:01and confront
45:02the horrors within.
45:03It's very difficult
45:04to know
45:05how they could not have known.
45:07I mean,
45:07you think of the death camps
45:08and the chimneys,
45:09the black smoke,
45:10and there were bits of flesh
45:11that would land on people
45:12like soot.
45:13What about the smells?
45:14You didn't see the trucks
45:15coming in
45:16or leaving
45:17and whatever.
45:18Nah.
45:19They reacted like dummies
45:21that did not know
45:23what was happening
45:24and that's not true.
45:26They know.
45:29Between 1933
45:30and 1945
45:31there were a recorded
45:3344,000
45:35slave labor sites,
45:36concentration camps
45:38and ghettos.
45:39When images
45:40from the liberations
45:41hit the international press,
45:43the outrage reverberates
45:44across the globe.
45:46Seeing in detail
45:48what the Nazis
45:49had really got up to
45:50in their camps
45:51provided a deep shock
45:53to publics internationally.
45:55How could this possibly happen?
45:58Humanity should have been
45:59beyond such barbarities.
46:03The shadow cast
46:04by the Nazi regime
46:06reminds us
46:07that even civilized society
46:08can descend into depravity
46:11all too easily.
46:12My feeling is
46:13that there is something
46:14in the human condition
46:16that allows people
46:17at times
46:18to pick out
46:19people who are different,
46:21to see them as a threat,
46:23and to exterminate them.
46:24And because there was
46:25a certain core
46:27of people in Germany
46:28who were willing
46:29to carry out
46:29this mass atrocity,
46:31this mass murder,
46:32it happened.
46:35The murderous rampage
46:37that the Nazis unleashed
46:38killed 6 million Jews
46:39and a further
46:4011 million civilians
46:42and POWs.
46:43to a British military tribunal
46:46at Lunenberg
46:46has brought a sordid
46:47assortment
46:48of Nazi war criminals.
46:49Thanks to far-sighted
46:51evidence-gathering work
46:52started in 1943
46:53by the UN War Crimes Commission,
46:5636,000 charges
46:57are brought against
46:58Nazi criminals.
47:00But despite the evidence
47:01of genocide,
47:02the anti-Semitic elements
47:04within the US government
47:05do their best
47:06to block proceedings.
47:08The State Department
47:09had never wanted
47:10a war crimes process,
47:11and right-wing
47:12political figures
47:13such as Joe McCarthy
47:14did everything they could
47:16to smear
47:16American prosecutors
47:18and then by 1948
47:20with the Cold War
47:21looming,
47:22American intelligence
47:23officials
47:23had the archive
47:25of all these
47:2636,000 indictments
47:28made secret
47:30at the United Nations
47:31so that even countries
47:33that were trying
47:34to organise prosecutions
47:35couldn't access
47:36their own files
47:37at the UN.
47:38Many Nazis find
47:40their sentences
47:40commuted
47:41or charges dropped.
47:43They return
47:44to ordinary life,
47:45never facing justice
47:46for their crimes.
47:48The justification
47:49offered
47:49is the rising
47:50Soviet threat.
47:52The way in which
47:53anti-communism
47:54was used
47:55to rehabilitate
47:56Nazis
47:58is, I think,
47:59quite shocking.
48:00While you might say
48:01we needed scientists
48:02or industrialists
48:03to help rebuild Germany,
48:04quite why did we need
48:06death squad leaders
48:07and concentration camp
48:08and death camp guards
48:09for rebuilding Germany
48:11and rebuilding democracy?
48:12These are the last people
48:13you would want.
48:14With many European countries
48:16desperate for American aid,
48:18the US is able
48:19to pressure them
48:20to abandon trials.
48:22This even happens
48:23in the United Kingdom.
48:25In 1948,
48:26the Labour government
48:27stopped the trials
48:28and even where
48:29they had Gestapo men
48:30in custody
48:31waiting trial,
48:32they were just allowed
48:33to walk free
48:34and the note
48:35on the file
48:36was something
48:36of the kind of,
48:37well, we have to
48:38bury the past
48:38and move on.
48:39In the years
48:40following the Holocaust,
48:42the rallying cry
48:42becomes,
48:43never again.
48:45It shouldn't have
48:46come to this.
48:47Yet, it happened
48:48and a lot of us
48:51let it happen.
48:53But there is always
48:55the worry
48:55that humanity
48:57has not learned
48:57from the past.
48:59One of the things
48:59that becomes plain
49:00is how effective
49:01propaganda can be,
49:03especially when it
49:04plays on prejudices
49:05that already exist
49:06within society.
49:08And unfortunately,
49:09we're seeing that
49:09again today.
49:10We're seeing the same
49:11lies about the Jews
49:13being propagated
49:14by right-wing groups
49:16more and more openly.
49:18Even some governments
49:18are starting to encourage
49:20these kinds of statements.
49:22It's a constant fight.
49:23It's something we have
49:24to be on the alert for,
49:25not because it affects
49:27just the Jews,
49:28but it affects all of us.
49:41We'll see you next time.
50:00Bye-bye.
50:01Bye-bye.
50:03Bye-bye.
50:05Bye-bye.
50:15Bye-bye.
50:16Bye-bye.
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