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00:01It began on the 1st of September, 1939.
00:07The German attack on Poland.
00:14That day, one world became another.
00:21For the children, too.
00:30I remember vividly that my mother wouldn't let me take off my shoes, you know.
00:35And sleeping in the shoes was somehow very painful for me.
00:40But of course, she wanted to be ready to run wherever it was necessary.
00:47There were improvised shelters in the cellars,
00:51where you were among hundreds of people, you see.
00:56With being able only to sit on the bench,
01:02and sometimes lying in my mother's lap.
01:08SIRY ENGINE
01:09SIRY ENGINE
01:43Oh
01:43No more almost to manga
01:52Come on!
01:54Come on, Robert!
01:59Schmiller, it's serious. We're catching up.
02:02He's missing from the top.
02:04Your area lies here.
02:06You have a shield.
02:08Any questions?
02:10For the soldiers, the people, and the land.
02:21Herr Oberleutnant, Ihre Maschine ist klar zum Einsatz, Herr Oberleutnant.
02:25Danke, Meier.
02:26Herr Oberleutnant, gestatten Sie mir eine Frage.
02:29Nur zu, Meier.
02:30Ist jetzt Krieg, Herr Oberleutnant?
02:32Ja, Meier.
02:34Ich fürchte, jetzt ist Krieg.
02:41Das schreckliche Wort Krieg, jetzt ist Krieg, das hat bestimmt meinen ganzen Körper ausgefüllt.
02:50Jetzt kommt das Sterben.
02:53Da gehörte man hinein.
02:55In diese Maschinerie des Krieges, da mach ich mir selbst gar nichts vor.
03:01Dann muss man das, was man tut, verantworten.
03:10Within minutes, the Stukas of the 77th Divebomber wing were in the air.
03:1620 minutes flying time and the target was in sight.
03:18The small Polish town of Wilyunje.
03:22They made their approach at 13,000 feet.
03:26Dann mussten alle neuen Maschinen aus dieser Anflughöhe hineinstürzen in den Ortskern.
03:43Ich bin so erschrocken.
03:46Die Menschen, die wissen ja gar nicht, dass Krieg ist.
03:50Die sind von jetzt auf gleich vielleicht tot und mit meinen Bomben vielleicht mit.
04:03Für Piotr Kiskowski and his siblings, that moment was the end of childhood.
04:10Das war war war war war war war.
04:16Das war war war war war war und alles.
04:30We were in der ersten Minute.
04:31Das war war war war war war war war war.
04:51The children barely escaped with their lives.
04:59The children barely escaped with their lives.
05:08The painting was all they could save.
05:11Their house was destroyed and that wasn't the worst.
05:18To this day, no one knows the exact number of victims in Viljunie.
05:21The Estrella was all they could save.
05:23Their house was destroyed and that wasn't the worst.
05:28To this day, no one knows the exact number of victims in Viljunie.
05:33The estimates range between 400 and 1200.
05:37But we do know that Viljunie was simply a kind of target practice for the Stukas.
05:42It was the first war crime of the Second World War.
05:46One pilot was never able to forget what he had done.
06:10The first of September, 1939. The beginning of the Second World War.
06:16The worst war in the history of the world.
06:19It would cost 60 million lives.
06:25The question remains, could it have been prevented?
06:29From today's perspective, it was possible to stop Hitler,
06:33and to prevent the scary Second World War.
06:36From the past, yes, the people were logically treated.
06:42We could explain everything.
06:44But history can go many ways.
06:46There is not only one way that can take history,
06:48and one of the possible ways would have been to prevent this war.
06:53It would have been to prevent this war.
06:56Barely a year earlier, the peace had hung by a thread.
07:00To save it, the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain,
07:03signed an agreement with Hitler,
07:05as did the Italian dictator Mussolini
07:07and the French Prime Minister Daladier.
07:12They allowed Hitler to occupy the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia
07:17and annex it into the German Reich.
07:23The Czechoslovak government in Prague wasn't even consulted.
07:27The country was simply supposed to accept the decision
07:30of the great powers for the sake of peace.
07:37Well, Hitler was in the driving seat.
07:39I mean, he had very plain designs on Czechoslovakia.
07:44He was threatening to take this to war
07:47within a very specific time span,
07:49by the beginning of October,
07:51if the Western powers did not concede.
07:54So this was the...
07:56This was a classic blackmailer
07:58who had his victims at his mercy.
08:03Hitler was a blackmailer and a dissembler.
08:06Since coming to power in 1933,
08:09he had been rearming Germany.
08:12But the German army and the Luftwaffe
08:14was still by no means as strong as the Western powers believed.
08:18In 1938, Hitler would have struggled to win a war
08:22against France, Britain and Czechoslovakia combined.
08:27It's possible that the Western powers could have said in September 1938,
08:34you're not going to get the Sudetenland.
08:35I think almost certainly that would have compelled Hitler to back down.
08:40But once the Munich Agreement had been signed,
08:44once the Sudetenland had passed into German hands,
08:48I think Hitler increasingly began to think
08:52that the West was morally bankrupt,
08:54that, you know, the West was not really going to oppose.
08:57Hitler had already challenged the great powers two years earlier.
09:01In 1936, the German army had marched into the Rhineland,
09:07demilitarized after the First World War.
09:10The Western powers had merely protested.
09:13As Hitler 1936 das Rheinland besetzt,
09:16war er militärisch eigentlich nackt.
09:18Es sind wenige Bataillone,
09:20die er da ans Rheinland geschickt hat.
09:22Hätten die Franzosen militärisch reagiert,
09:24hätte Hitler nichts machen können.
09:26Das wäre sozusagen mit Pauken und Trompeten schief gegangen.
09:28Es hätte auch gar keinen Krieg gegeben,
09:30weil die Deutschen 1936 gar keinen Krieg führen konnten.
09:33Also es war ein Wabong-Spiel par excellence.
09:36Wir wissen es natürlich nicht,
09:38aber es ist eine große Wahrscheinlichkeit,
09:39dass Hitler eine Niederlage in dieser Rheinland
09:43Krise dann auch innenpolitisch nicht überlebt hätte.
09:47Instead, Hitler went from victory to victory.
09:51First, the Rhineland was incorporated into the Third Reich,
09:55then, two years later, Austria,
09:57and in September 1938,
10:00the predominantly German-speaking Sudetenland.
10:03The justification was always the same.
10:06He was merely bringing Germans and their territory back home
10:10into the Reich in the name of the right to self-determination.
10:15Then, early in 1939,
10:18Hitler's drive for expansion turned east.
10:23The city of Danzig.
10:25After the First World War,
10:26it was placed under the authority of the League of Nations
10:29and cut off from Germany by a swathe of land awarded to Poland.
10:34This was a recipe for conflict.
10:37Joachim Scholz was 15 in 1939.
10:59Hitler now demanded a direct overland connection to Danzig
11:03and the reintegration of the city into the Third Reich.
11:15And he could count on the support of many Danzig citizens.
11:19Over 90% of them were German.
11:22Many had pinned their hopes on Hitler.
11:26And the Nazis controlled the city government.
11:34Then came the 15th of March, 1939.
11:39Germany occupied Prague,
11:41broke up what was left of Czechoslovakia,
11:43and annexed Memel from Lithuania.
11:46Hitler had broken the Munich Agreement
11:48less than six months after signing it.
11:53Then the scales fell from their eyes
11:55and Hitler was seen now as an imperialist
11:57who was out to attack other countries,
12:00and it had nothing to do with German nationalism or such.
12:03And it was a very important distinction
12:06which was made at that time,
12:08and therefore the 15th of March was a crucial moment
12:11where the Western powers now saw Hitler for what he was,
12:16which was an imperialist who would stop at nothing
12:19and had no obvious limits to his expansionist aims.
12:24The mask was off.
12:28The Polish government, too, drew its conclusions.
12:33The Polish government, too, drew its conclusions.
13:09The Polish government decided to make no concessions.
13:13It put its faith in its actions.
13:14It put its allies in the West, particularly France,
13:17and in Poland's own military strength.
13:20If it came to the worst,
13:22Poland would counter the enemy with its own fighting spirit.
13:32The film director, Andrzej Wajda, was 13 years old at the time.
13:37He was the son of a Polish officer.
13:46The Russian Pacific, a Hungarian paints.
13:47We thought it was only a Hessian army in the 멋en оперation,
13:51that the Polish army was successfully prepared.
13:53And whatever weird meant,
13:57that the French army was prepared for all gifted faculties.
14:02This was the slogan. We don't even give a gun from the mundur.
14:31Dantzig to the German Reich was now only the pretext for all-out war on Poland.
14:38An SS-unit, the SS-Homeguard Dantzig, was set up in the city. It was armed.
15:01Now we are. And we want to go to our fatherland.
15:05And so, during the summer, the rumors and the excitement grew up.
15:10Hitler Youth in Dantzig in the summer of 1939. The pictures are deceptively calm.
15:20Budzimir Wojteljevic belonged to the Polish minority in Dantzig.
15:24She was a scout and often encountered members of the Hitler Youth.
15:37.
15:55But her father was a Polish patriot and hung out the Polish flag on Poland's
16:01National Day.
16:41Inflaming the already tense mood, Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels visited Danzig.
17:03And we were very excited about what was going on.
17:08We didn't know that the Goebbels there was.
17:10They just sang the way up and they had to hold the hand up.
17:17There were the SS-Männer saying that we are Poles.
17:24We stand, of course, but we won't hold the hand up.
17:31The Polish media and army tried to build confidence with slogans of their own.
17:36Poland did have a large army, but technologically it was far behind the times.
17:42Polish propaganda tried to conceal the truth.
17:45Polish radio claimed that if there were a war,
17:48the Poles would be in Berlin in three weeks.
17:51It was rather a picture of propaganda regarding humanity,
17:56showing that Poland is a strong country.
18:01Poland believed that we had a war against the Germans.
18:05That was not a war.
18:08Poland never did have biri.
18:12The Polish army was clear to us.
18:16And that is why we were against the German army.
18:19with Western countries and with France.
18:25No doubts about Poland's ability to win were allowed to seep out.
18:49We didn't have any knowledge.
19:30The mother had a ringgraf with the Mother of God.
19:34The ringgraf put him in his chest to his heart.
19:39And then a kiss.
19:42And he will die.
20:04It was to be the last time that Andrej Wajder saw his father.
20:09My father made a gesture.
20:15He took his hat.
20:16He made the gesture that everyone did.
20:20And it was my parents.
20:23He never did to.
20:28Warsaw, August 1939.
20:31There were ominous signs everywhere.
20:34Since the German occupation of Prague in mid-March,
20:37elements of the Polish army had been mobilized in readiness
20:40for any attack from Germany.
20:47that month Roman Polanski traveled to the Polish capital with his mother and sister
20:56the general feeling among the Polish population was that worse was the safer place to be so my
21:07father decided to send me with my mother and my sister to Warsaw I remember you know the train
21:16going to Warsaw with my mother in the midst of of August and my birthday is the 18th of August
21:26you
21:26see so it's those two events were somehow very much connected for me I remember this very very hot summer
21:37it was a picture book summer seemingly endless but Jimira Wojtylewicz the girl
21:42from Danzig enjoyed a family holiday in the country
21:49the holiday in the summer and we had a lot of fun with my father
21:55a family with Papa I don't know how and then see in the artist of for right that's not the
22:02fishing so
22:03we come summer weather school holidays fun at the beach happy times who would think of war
22:27only those who followed power politics realized that in those late August days the fate of Europe and
22:34the peace of the world were hanging in the balance on the 21st of August Hitler received a top-secret
22:45telegram at his mountain retreat the bear call it was a positive response to a confidential inquiry
22:52from one dictator to another Stalin was willing to receive the German foreign minister from
22:58Ribbentrop in Moscow the 23rd of August 1939 Moscow the Soviet foreign minister Molotov personally received
23:12his erstwhile enemy with a warm handshake from Ribbentrop came armed with an offer from Hitler a non-aggression
23:20pact they quickly reached an agreement Poland would be carved up between the Soviet Union and Germany
23:27to eliminate Poland Hitler was even prepared to seal a pact with his arch enemy for the pose of course
23:36that was catastrophic because it now meant that they were totally exposed sandwiched between two
23:42powers which were ready to see them thrown to the wolves this most cynical deal of all time was was
23:51settled
23:52within a matter of a couple of days and that deal was one which suited both sides the pact of
23:59the
24:00dictators Stalin was in the best of moods opponents had become accomplices for the time being
24:11the twenty seven to leave that this war the entscheidende signal we have the
24:14rugged deckung we müssen beim angriff of polen keinen Krieg mit der Sowjetunion
24:18zu sagen befürchten und damit hat der Hitler freie Hand wenn es zu einem Krieg
24:22kommt mit den britern franzosen em dann hat er um einen partner auf dem Kontinent die russen liefern
24:28ihm alle um Lebensmittel Öl im rohstoffe er ist sein blockadefest wie es damals ist er kann uns die
24:38The 25th of August.
24:40The way was now clear for Hitler's campaign of annihilation.
24:45He had been preparing the army for it for years.
24:48He issued the attack order.
24:51The countdown to disaster began.
24:56In Kiel, the German Navy training ship Schleswig-Holstein
25:01had been spruced up for a supposedly friendly visit to Danzig.
25:06On the 25th of August, the battleship anchored just off the city,
25:11to the delight of many of the locals.
25:31Nor were the people of Danzig aware that Hitler had already given the order
25:35for war, or that the ship, like the Trojan horse,
25:39carried an unwelcome surprise in its belly.
25:44Danach davor haben wir auf See einen Stoßtrupp,
25:48nannten sie es damals so, Infanterietruppen, übernommen.
25:51Es waren ungefähr 150, 200 Leute gewesen,
25:55mit entsprechender Bewaffnung.
25:56Wir wurden verpflichtet zur Verschwiegenheit.
25:58Und wir könnten stolz sein,
26:00dieser Befehl an die Schleswig-Holstein
26:03sei vom Führer persönlich erteilt worden.
26:06Und wir als Krediten könnten uns möglicherweise
26:11einen ersten Bewehrungssprämpfer aufsetzen.
26:17Preparations for the attack were going ahead.
26:20Otto Schmidt's Stuka-Squadron flew to Neudorf,
26:23just outside the city of Oppeln,
26:25near the Polish border.
26:30Am Mobilmachungstag lief alles so fast geheim ab.
26:36Und auch gar keine Beteiligung durch die Bevölkerung,
26:40etwa in Oppeln.
26:42Und nun kam das Erlebnis, dass man warten muss,
26:45dass nichts geschah.
26:47Dass ich im Stillen für mich wohl privat nur hoffte,
26:52dass doch die Diplomatie einen Weg finden würde,
26:57um den Krieg zu verhindern.
27:01Was that still possible?
27:03The French Ambassador went to the Reich Chancellery in Berlin.
27:10He comes in and he says,
27:12you really can't attack Poland.
27:16As he leaves, he said, you know,
27:18if you attack Poland, the French will declare war on you.
27:22Hitler gets very angry and says,
27:24why do you give this blank check to the Poles?
27:26Then the Italian ambassador arrives.
27:28He says, I'm sorry, bad news.
27:30Muslim is not going to support you.
27:33Hitler and Rivendtrop and the others are furious about this.
27:37And exactly half an hour later,
27:39comes news that the British and the Poles
27:41have finally signed a treaty,
27:43the Anglo-Polish Treaty.
27:46In Warsaw, there was jubilation.
27:49Poland had treaty guarantees from both France and Britain.
27:54Now, Hitler would never dare to attack,
27:56or so the Poles hoped.
27:58And briefly, it seemed they were right.
28:01Really, everything rested with Hitler.
28:03Hitler had to judge whether they really meant it or not.
28:06And he's thrown into complete confusion.
28:08He finally says, okay, okay,
28:09let's cancel it for tomorrow
28:11and we'll see what happens.
28:14The Jablunka pass on what was then
28:16the Polish-Slovak frontier
28:18early on the 29th of August.
28:21Guided by locals familiar with the area,
28:24German commandos crossed into Poland.
28:27Their mission?
28:27To seize the railway station
28:29in the border town of Mosta.
28:31Its rail line was strategically important.
28:34The Poles had wired it for demolition.
28:48The raid was successful.
28:50The detonators were disabled.
28:53Only then did the commandos learn
28:55that the attack had been halted.
28:59The commandos had been halted.
29:00Riskiert ihr das,
29:01dass ihr sagt,
29:01ein paar Bandspiele?
29:02Aber er war eben ein paar Bandspiele.
29:03Das muss für die Einheit
29:04und ihre Anführer natürlich
29:05ein Schock gewesen sein,
29:06festzustellen,
29:07dass sie dort auf einmal
29:09ganz alleine waren
29:10und eben nicht mit der geballten
29:11militärischen Kraft,
29:13mit der sie gerechnet hatten,
29:14im Rücken.
29:17End in der Aktion!
29:19Es gelang dem Anführer
29:20mit ein paar Leuten
29:21auch sich noch abzusetzen,
29:22aber das Groh des Kommandos
29:23wurde von den polnischen
29:26Streitkräften dort
29:27und der Polizei gefangen gesetzt.
29:30Es war eine massive
29:32Verwaltung der Bordeaux.
29:36Potem
29:37niemieccy dowódcy
29:38stacjonujący
29:39po drugiej stronie
29:40granicy
29:40tłumaczyli się,
29:43że
29:43był to
29:44incydent
29:44sprowokowany
29:45przez
29:45niepoczytalnego
29:47osobnika
29:47po stronie
29:48niemieckiej.
29:49Generalnie
29:50polskie
29:50oddziały
29:51miały
29:52rozkazy
29:53zachowania
29:54daleko
29:54idącej
29:54ostrożności,
29:56strzemieźliwości,
29:57nie ulegania
29:58niemieckim
29:59prowokacjom
30:00granicznym,
30:01które
30:01w polskim
30:03rozumieniu
30:04miały dać
30:05Hitlerowi
30:06jeden z
30:07pretekstów
30:07do ataku
30:09na Polskę.
30:11situation
30:12was on
30:13a
30:13knife
30:13edge,
30:14but
30:14ordinary
30:15people
30:15heard
30:16nothing
30:16of
30:16the
30:16events
30:17at
30:17the
30:17Jablunko
30:18Pass.
30:23The
30:24governments
30:24in
30:24London,
30:25Paris
30:25and
30:26Warsaw
30:26were
30:26informed,
30:27but
30:28they
30:28did
30:28not
30:28react.
30:31The
30:31Western
30:32powers
30:32even
30:33warned
30:33Poland
30:34not
30:34to
30:34do
30:34anything
30:35that
30:35might
30:35antagonize
30:36Germany.
31:15Hitler drew his own conclusions from the reaction of the Western powers.
31:21His judgment, which became increasingly a conviction, was that they would just back down.
31:27Lots of theater, but they wouldn't really do anything serious.
31:30And that's what, in the end, led him to order German forces into Poland
31:35on the morning of September the 1st.
31:40A station in Kiel on the 31st of August, 1939.
31:45Herschel Glantz, Jewish, 15 years old, was about to begin the journey of his life.
31:51He had been granted a British entry permit.
32:05But again.
32:09For much of the late 1930s, the Western powers had been reluctant to accept a large flood of Jewish refugees
32:17from Germany.
32:19But finally, in 38, late 38 and 39, the doors began to open a little bit wider.
32:26And the British finally agreed to the so-called Kindertransport.
32:30In the end, they came to recognize that this really was a humanitarian crisis of huge proportions.
32:37And they really were morally obliged to do something.
32:43Zugang nur für Ausreisende.
32:46Erledigen sie, was sie zu erledigen haben.
32:49Hier.
32:50Der Nächste.
32:52Du musst jetzt ganz zupfer rein.
32:55Weiter davon!
32:56Nicht zu mir bleiben, Mama.
32:58Mama, wann kommt hier?
33:00Mama, wann kommst du?
33:02Wir durften nicht auf den Bahnsteig.
33:05Dass sie Abschied musste draußen vorhaben.
33:08Es scheint, dass die Nazis nicht wollten, dass es veröffentlicht statt veröffentlicht wird.
33:14Und dann machten wir Abschied.
33:16Und meine Mutter hat geweint, haben zum Abend schon gesagt, aber wir werden uns bald wieder sehen.
33:20Du wirst sehen. Sehr, sehr bald.
33:23Mein geliebter Junge.
33:25Schluss jetzt mit Kopf.
33:27Mama.
33:31Mama.
33:33Mama.
33:37Mama.
33:37Mama.
33:37Mama.
33:37Mama.
33:37For most of the children, it was goodbye forever.
33:42Ich habe nicht geglaubt, dass wir uns nicht wiedersehen würden.
33:46Das haben mich nicht geglaubt.
33:47Nur wenige von den Kindern haben ihre Eltern wiedergesehen.
34:13Wir überkreuzten die holländische Grenze kurz vor Mitternacht.
34:18Fünf Stunden vor der Invasion von Polen.
34:22Ich habe gelesen, dass zehn Stunden später ein Zug aus Wien kam.
34:28Mit über 100 Kindern.
34:31Und die Nazis haben sie nicht durchgelassen.
34:33Die meisten sind umgekommen.
34:36Ich war nur ein kleiner Junge.
34:38Ich weiß nicht, ob ich es überlebt hätte.
34:41Ich denke nicht, dass ich mein 17stes Jahr erlebt hätte.
34:48Das gleiche Nacht hat ein Gruppe von SS-Männer versucht, eine Justification für die Krieg.
34:54Man hatte sich seit einem fertigen Polen von Gleiwitz von nahegelegenen Konzentrationslagern noch mehr in den Nahe.
35:07Man musste sich tote besorgen, das muss man zynisch sagen.
35:10Die in dem Amtssprach als Kornserven, als gefallene Polen liegen gelassen werden sollten.
35:15Mit dieser Truppe übermannte man die Mannschaft des Radiosenders.
35:24The SS men tried to broadcast fake Polish propaganda, but it could only be heard locally as the transmitter was
35:32partially closed.
36:01The first of September. At 4.45 a.m. Schleswig-Holstein, the training ship on a friendly visit, opened fire
36:10on the Westerplatte, a small Polish fortress in Danzig.
36:15Frühmorgens wachte ich auf, denn zu Hause war, Papa ist herumgegangen mit Mama. Es war ein Leben in der Wohnung.
36:37Frühmorgens wachte ich auf, denn die Schleswig-Holstein, die Schleswig-Holstein, die Schleswig-Holstein, die Schleswig-Holstein, der Krieg war
36:44ausgebrochen. Das war eine furchtbare Sache.
36:50After the shelling, the naval infantry, who had been hiding aboard the Schleswig-Holstein, launched their attack.
37:03Meanwhile, the SS-Homeguard Danzig was trying to seize the Polish post office.
37:15Die Übernahme geriet aber schwieriger, als man sich das eigentlich vorgestellt hatte, weil die Postbeamten sich in den Tagen vor
37:21dem Angriff selber bewaffnet hatten und eben Widerstand leisteten.
37:26Und dieser Widerstand wurde auch filmisch aufgezeichnet von der deutschen Propaganda, die ja eben die gesamte deutsche Übernahme von Danzig
37:33begleitete.
37:33Und es war natürlich ein gewisser Druck da, die polnische Post so schnell wie möglich zu besetzen.
37:47The unequal battle lasted 14 hours.
37:51Then the survivors surrendered.
37:53The first two to hold up a white flag were shot.
37:57A few days later, all the others were executed, accused of belonging to a militia.
38:04Today the post office is a memorial, and Danzig is the Polish city of Gdansk.
38:34The first two to hold up a white flag, and he said to me, you are the oldest, and please
38:51help your mother and pass on your younger sister and say the right hand for your mother.
39:01Denn ich werde interniert.
39:05Interniert?
39:06Wie lange, weiß ich nicht.
39:09In diesem Moment ist meine Kindheit weggegangen.
39:14Da fühlte ich mich schon verantwortlich.
39:17Da fühlte ich mich schon erwachsen.
39:19Verantwortlich für meine Familie.
39:21Papa?
39:22Papa?
39:24Papa?
39:26Papa?
39:31Papa?
39:34On 1st September 1939, 1 and a half million German soldiers invaded Poland.
39:43Their objective was to gain as much ground as possible.
39:47Hitler had long ago made it clear to his generals that this war was not about Danzig.
39:57Supported by aircraft, the tanks of the Wehrmacht quickly gained the upper hand.
40:22As I saw the first film, it was fantastic and the other world entered into our lives.
40:32It was a world of mechanical civilization.
40:37Maybe it will not be so bad, maybe it will be people.
40:41But after a few days this war showed its true face.
40:45SS units moved in after the army and began the systematic murder of the Polish elite.
40:53It was the prelude to a horrendous slaughter that was to last for over five years.
41:00This was a war of a very different kind to any previous war, even including the First World War,
41:06that this was now a war which contained genocide at its very heart.
41:11And so here was the beginnings of a collapse of civilization
41:19of a sort the world has previously never seen.
41:24That was what the 1st of September 1939 unleashed.
41:34Herschel Glantz, the Jewish boy from Kiel, escaped the inferno on the continent.
41:39Two days after the war began, he disembarked in England.
41:46I am not religious, but my wife is.
41:50And my wife really believed that God said,
41:54a 13th woman in London was waiting for her.
42:00And that's...
42:02And she really believed that.
42:06My son makes me laugh about that, but...
42:17That day, Britain declared war on Germany.
42:28And of course, we heard Chamberlain's famous speech.
42:33We wanted Hitler to take his troops out of Poland,
42:38until so many hours.
42:40It didn't happen, so we are now in Germany.
42:44And then, a few minutes later, the French war.
42:46And then, a few days later...
42:54And happened to the French were not able to escape against England.
42:57We didn't believe that.
43:00And would never lie to anyone.
43:02And then, a few days later...
43:03And, a few years later, the French war might be dead.
43:05Even the French war were not able to escape against England.
43:06that Poland was the end of the French.
43:13The people of Warsaw, too, felt fresh hope after their allies, France and Britain, entered the war.
43:26But their expectations of direct military assistance were soon dashed.
43:34It was also about the time to prepare for the war with the Niemcy.
43:40In the 1940s, France and Britain will be better prepared for the war.
43:46If it had been promised in Poland for the Niemcy,
43:52in the 1930s, in the 1930s.
43:54Maybe the war would have been at the time.
43:58Today, historians support this issue.
44:06Warsaw, early September 1939.
44:10The city braced for its defense.
44:12Within two weeks, it was surrounded.
44:15The Luftwaffe bombed it systematically.
44:32People went hungry. Roman Polanski, too.
44:37There was nothing to eat, nothing to drink.
44:39My mother was making these excursions and coming back with water.
44:45And there was sugar on the sidewalk, as she told us.
44:50And she scraped the sugar.
44:52And it came with a big bag of sugar home.
44:57The tragedy of Warsaw.
44:59The once proud city was buried under a mountain of rubble.
45:24In the midst of it all was one small boy.
45:32My main preoccupation was, where is my father?
45:37Where is my father?
45:42This is, I always have a hard time telling about it.
45:45Because it's an incredible moment in my life, you know.
45:49I found the tail of a bomb.
45:53You know, with the fins like this, you know.
45:57And a round ring around it.
46:00And I was playing with it.
46:01This was my trophy.
46:05And when someone called me,
46:07and I turned around,
46:09and I saw a man crouching with his arms open like that.
46:13It was my father.
46:30But their joy at being together again,
46:32was soon clouded by the sight of German troops in Warsaw.
46:39They were very well dressed and in military order.
46:42and clean and spank, you know,
46:47and marching.
46:48And people on the street were turning backs to them.
46:54I watched with curiosity and my father,
46:57I remember just saying the equivalent of
47:03bastards, bastards, you know.
47:10and pulled me by the hand and we just walked away.
47:17September 1939 was Hitler's hour of glory.
47:22It would take five and a half years and immense sacrifices
47:26to bring about his downfall.
47:29No one in Europe had felt strong enough to stop him
47:32when it might just have been possible.
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