All language subtitles for Abandoned.Engineering.S06E04.North.Of.The.Wall.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-squalor_track3_[eng]

An extraordinary stock pile of
trains hidden in the heart of Africa.

It's like a train graveyard
with shrubs and earth

gradually burying the remains.

A mythical complex of structures
shrouded in ancient intrigue.

Skulls have been found at this
site, but they're not to do with burials.

It's believed these
were taken as trophies.

A colossal network of ruins
devastated by an overwhelming force.

When you find out what
really happened here,

it just sends a chill
down your spine.

And vast relics of industry
rusting in the American mid-west.

This is just a small
part of what was here.

Shows you the
scale of this facility.

Decaying relics and
ruins of lost worlds.

They were shaped
by the passing years

and are now haunted by the past.

Their secrets are
waiting to be revealed.

In the heart of the
American mid-west,

on the peaceful
shores of lake Michigan,

are places with an
intriguing history.

There's not much left in the way
of clues to tell you what it was for.

Clearly when the site was
abandoned, it was stripped bare.

This place has a
top-secret feel to it.

You know, you see remains of
fencing topped with barbed wire.

You see control
towers of some kind.

Why do we have plinths and
platforms with nothing on them?

And that, in turn,
begs the question,

so what were these things for?

The surrounding area reveals
something even more perplexing.

Remains of a second site lie
camouflaged in the undergrowth.

This site is, if anything,
even more mysterious.

You just have this large concrete
pad, and then these steel doors

that open to something
underground, but you can't see what.

What was so deadly
and disturbing that

it was kept
underground in Indiana?

And what links these two compounds
to one of the most perilous periods

in world history?

Local entrepreneur Virgil
frey is keen to preserve

the long-forgotten buildings.

The remains of a barrack
block suggest it was some

kind of 1950s military centre.

This was the part of
the property that housed

over 90 men when
it was an active base.

We have 17 full buildings.

The admin building, that's where
the commander would have been.

We have two full barracks
buildings, we have a mess hall,

we have a generator room
that produced power for the base.

The true purpose of this place
was a well-guarded secret.

All 23 acres were
surrounded by barbed wire.

There were dogs, there were
kennels and extra security

that would be here.

The general public knew
very little about the property

and what went on
here, at the time.

One building explains
the high level of security.

So, this is the
communications building.

So, this building would have
housed racks and racks of computers.

This provides a clue to what once
would have topped these five towers.

So, each one of these towers
housed a different set of radar.

When the base was active, there
was dishes along the top of that tower.

The key elements of the property
were, really, gathering information

from the towers,

putting that together in
the communications room.

So, the towers themselves
are essentially platforms

for radar arrays and
communication systems.

But what was this highly
advanced surveillance system

designed to detect?

The answer can be found almost a
mile away at a second, more remote site,

with its ominous-looking
doors into the ground.

What we're looking at here is the
command and control centre for an

installation of very
sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles.

These two places worked
very closely together.

The first was a listening
station and control centre.

The radar sets will
relay the coordinates

over to the launch site where
the missiles will be prepared.

There's three of them
behind these steel doors.

The second site was used
to launch nuclear missiles

designed to intercept
and destroy enemy aircraft.

But why would anyone want to
attack the American mid-west?

A clue sits ten miles away
in a vast industrial wasteland.

These two areas of
abandoned infrastructure

are linked in history.

This whole region is full of this
kind of abandoned infrastructure

on a very large scale.

It looks like some
post-apocalyptic vision.

What is the connection
between these sites

and did the same thing
destroy all of them?

The answer lies in the history
of this now derelict place.

50 years ago, it
was a hive of activity.

This was really the beating
heart of American industry,

this whole new industrial zone

created along the shores of
lake Michigan, near Chicago.

This is the town of Gary, Indiana,
once dubbed the city of the century.

The colossal scale of this place was
born of a famous us product - steel.

When us steel set up shop on
the banks of lake Michigan in 1906,

that was really the
start of Gary's rise

to being an industrial powerhouse
and a region of enormous strategic

importance to the country.

It was vitally important
for the military as well.

And in world war ii, the steelworks
at Gary are producing all the steel

needed for, you know, ships,

planes, tanks, and all the,
you know, armaments of war.

Gary is chosen as an
industrial site for many reasons.

One of them is that it's
immune to enemy attack

because it's so far inland.

You could not fly a plane from
Germany or Japan or Russia

to bomb Gary, Indiana.

But after the second world war,

tensions between the us and the
Soviet union drove fierce competition

for technological and
military supremacy.

As a result, the Soviets developed
a long-range, high-flying bomber.

If the Soviets had ordered an
attack on america, big Soviet

bomber aircraft filled with nuclear
weapons, escorted by regiment after

regiment of fighter aircraft,
would have crossed north over

the pole and moved south
towards the American heartland.

It starts to become
possible to nuke Gary.

The launch and control site now
sinking into the Indiana swamp,

dates back to that uncertain
time when 150 million Americans

were living within range
of Soviet nuclear warheads.

The question for the us military

was how to defend the
American heartlands.

The answer was the
Nike missile project.

When these Nike missiles
were regarded as, really,

the ultimate defensive measure
against the ultimate Soviet weapon

at the time, the heavy bomber
coming in over the north pole.

There were more than
20 paired Nike missile sites

in the lake Michigan area.

This pair is Nike c47.

Together, they had to
defend Gary, Indiana.

This dilapidated communication
room was once mission control.

So should the decision have been
made to actually launch a missile,

this is where it would
have happened from.

The missile that they would
have been firing obviously needs to

strike that target or a lot of
people's lives are on the line.

I couldn't imagine how it must have
felt to have to actually make those

decisions. I'm sure it would
have been tense at that moment.

If you're a missile
operator or radar operator

in an installation like this,
you really just get one shot at it.

And if they were asleep at
the switch, people could die.

But the pace of technological
change during the cold war meant that

the nuclear missiles in Nike
c47 were never called in to action.

Even as they were being built,

the technology was changing,
and the threat was changing.

In the 1960s, the Soviet union

develops intercontinental
ballistic missiles.

There was no real defence

against an intercontinental
ballistic missile.

That warhead would be coming in
from space at supersonic speeds.

Suddenly this cutting-edge
defensive weapon is no longer useful.

And so, what we see here,
in the land around Gary,

is just a moment
in that history.

During the decades
that followed,

the industrial plant at Gary,
Indiana, would also become obsolete.

Not at the hands
of communist rivals,

but because of the
forces at capitalist markets.

Nobody had to blow it
up with a nuclear weapon.

The reality is,
economics and politics

changed Gary in to the
rubble we see there today.

These missile bases were very
much part of the story of Gary, Indiana,

just as much as
those big factories.

Once the home to
booming industry

and a cutting-edge
nuclear defence system,

Gary, Indiana, now lies silent,
buried in the undergrowth.

The place is a real monument to
the pace of technological change

during the cold war.

In the wilds of northumbria,
close to the Scottish border,

there's a collection
of crumbling structures

which once marked the
edge of the known world.

Britain represented something
that was unknown, barbaric.

It was a place of myth and
speculation and mystery.

Here and there, you see the
remnants of stone foundations.

It suggests something
significant was built here.

This site is located
amongst a, sort of,

network of streams
and waterways.

It could have sustained quite
a lot of people living there.

But the people who walked these
stone pathways vanished long ago.

Whoever built this, put a
lot of engineering ingenuity

and craftsmanship
into building this,

that you have a commanding
view of a whole region,

which suggests that it
had military importance.

We're less than a mile from
a major defensive structure.

The vast wall was designed
to protect those in the south

from the people to the north.

But the question this poses is,

who were these people
to the north of the wall?

The evidence suggests that a savage
painted people lived beyond the wall

and that violence between
them was commonplace.

This is really venturing
into the dark and mysterious.

And you can imagine that
would have been both exciting,

but also quite scary.

Skulls have been found at this
site, but they're not to do with burials.

It's believed these
were taken as trophies.

These foundations
are just the surface.

Underneath is an
epic and bloody history.

What links this great wall
cutting through the wilds

of northern england to this
eerie, abandoned place?

This is vindolanda.

Like his grandfather and
father before him, archaeologist

Andrew birley has spent his life
exploring this fascinating place.

It's given up a huge
number of its secrets.

Most secrets have
changed our perceptions.

The more and more work we
do, the more we start to understand

about what happened
here almost 2,000 years ago.

The ancient walls, broken
steps and crumbling remains

provide only the barest
outline of what once stood here.

This building here has got about
20 rooms on the ground floor.

Really, really impressive.

It was while he was exploring these
desolate ruins that Andrew's father

unearthed an incredible
clue about who lived here.

We found the remains of a bonfire
site and included on that bonfire

was something like 320
or 330 letters or documents.

Some of them are still
there, still recordable,

still, you know, being able
to be pulled out of the ground

and to be able to be
read 2,000 years later.

These letters give an extraordinary
insight into the day-to-day lives of

the people here.

What they talk about
is just sensational.

Everything from demands for
beer to birthday party invitations.

You know, some of the
earliest handwritten letters

by women from the western world.

But some of the letters reveal
that the people of vindolanda

were not all here by choice.

You can see that in some
of the information that's

found in the
tablets, it tells of

a fear and of a longing to be
back in places more familiar.

So, which people carved out these
ancient words two millennia ago

and why did they vanish?

Close to the ruins of vindolanda,
there's a clue as to its origins.

Nearby, you've got
this long, straight road

running from east to west,

and that might give us an
indication as to who built this and why.

The only people who built
roads like this were the romans.

I'm standing here on one
of the major Roman roads

and on either side of
me, solid walls of stone,

solid pavement of stone and
a very big door at the far end.

The location of vindolanda
suggests that it had a military purpose.

It was positioned on the border
between england and Scotland,

at the very northern
edge of the Roman empire,

which once stretched from
britain to the middle east.

So, vindolanda was a
frontier conquest fort.

So when the Roman army
conquered this part of the landscape,

they put a fort down here as part of
something called the Roman frontier.

So, wherever you go inside this
fort, you're reminded of structure,

rank, status, and the
huge impact of Rome.

For the romans, britain
was beyond the known world.

It was a land of mystery. It was a
land where things were unknown.

It was a place where they
speculated about myth and mystery.

They were especially terrified of
the warring barbarians to the north.

The romans called the people
north of the wall, the painted people -

pictee - from where
we get the word picts.

They thought they
were deeply uncivilised,

but respected them as
great and fearsome warriors.

Their fears were
probably well-founded.

The last known reference to
the Roman 9th legion in britain

dates to a 108ad.

Some believe it was destroyed
by the northern painted warriors.

A legion isn't a small thing.

It's thousands of men.

So, for those who were stationed
here, looking out, looking into

the beyond, this area would
have put the fear of god into them.

The remains of the Roman solution
to the problem of the northern tribes

lies within sight of vindolanda.

As you, sort of, rise up
and look in to the distance,

you can see the walls snaking along
the landscape, using every sort of

nook and cranny of the landscape
to help fortify its protection.

The vast wall runs
across the whole

of northern britain
from coast to coast.

This is hadrian's wall, an
extraordinary 73-mile-long

defensive structure built by one
of Rome's most ruthless emperors.

Hadrian was a
volatile character.

It's said that his boyfriend
jumped into the river,

but many also said that it
was hadrian who pushed him.

When the emperor hadrian
came to britain in 122ad,

he was determined to protect
Roman territory from the northern tribes.

So, here we are at hadrian's wall
created by 15,000 Roman soldiers in

a decade of hard
work, sweat and tears,

separating out people on this
side, part of the Roman empire,

from the other side, the
barbarians to the north.

The Roman engineers
did everything they could

to give themselves an advantage.

Large parts of it are
built using the landscape

as part of the defence. There's
a bit structure along large parts of

the wall called the wind sill.

So, you've not only got
hadrian's wall to contend with,

you've got this cliff of rock.

And what a formidable
thing to try and get past.

Everything about
hadrian's wall was

designed to keep out
the rebellious picts.

What we're looking at here, is
the power of the Roman empire

to impose its will on a
landscape, on a people.

Imagine this twice the height,

with a walkway,
crenulations across the top.

And even at night-time, this would
be so visible on the landscape,

it would also
be a wall of light.

The soldiers, with their
torches, would run across the top,

giving you this contrast between

what's inside the Roman
empire and what's outside.

For those people who were
looking at it from the north, on seeing

this cutting-edge Roman military
fortification, it must have been

the most awe-inspiring sight,
unlike anything they'd ever seen.

Hadrian's wall was the most
unconquerable defence system

in the world at that time.

So, every mile, you get two towers
which command tremendous views

right across as far as the
eye can see, to the north.

30, 40 miles, in some places.

Nothing can get
under the Roman radar.

The Roman's built 16
defensive forts along the wall

to keep the northern
hordes at bay.

But the stone ruins at
vindolanda don't fit with this story.

The sprawling fortress sits
a mile south of hadrian's wall.

Discoveries at vindolanda

show that 2,000 years
ago, this was a thriving place.

The population numbers are
low at this site, range from 2,500

to 6,000 or 7,000 people.

You had people from what is, today,
Belgium, people from modern Germany,

people from Switzerland,

even people from north Africa,
living and patrolling this area.

Excavations reveal that it
was split into two sections.

The fort itself and a
bustling Roman town.

In their spare time,
the soldiers Manning

hadrian's wall
headed to vindolanda.

This was more like a small city.

People were there with their wives
and their children and they were

involving in farming and
hunting and all kinds of activities.

So, it was more like a community
than simply a military facility.

But would the wall
hold or would the picts

bring destruction to vindolanda?

Having spent vast resources
defending the northern limits

of their empire, by the 4th century,
the Roman armies had become severely

overstretched and there was no
longer an appetite for faraway wars.

The Roman empire gradually
declined and so did vindolanda.

Before the romans left, they
tried to destroy their letters.

They'd lit the bonfire.

The rain had come along
and put the bonfire out

and made it impossible to burn.

And then, 2,000 years later,
we find the site of that bonfire

and all the letters are
still sitting there, in a heap.

They give us the detail.

The beautiful detail
that you can't get from

any other way, any other source.

They fill-in the gaps. They
give the colour and the detail.

The shades of grey
to life at vindolanda.

Today, vindolanda and hadrian's
wall stand as reminders of the ambition

and power of the Roman empire.

You can look at it as an incredible
monument to military architecture

and the wheel of an empire.

But also, you can see it
as a monument to failure.

A monument to the fact that the
Roman army never finished the job.

They couldn't quite
beat everybody in britain.

In the horn of Africa, in eastern
Ethiopia, is the city of dire dawa,

a place crowded with relics
that have hit the end of the line.

It's a ghostly sight that
was clearly once full of life,

but is now abandoned, with
all the people that were here,

mysteriously missing.

There's something really
quite spooky about it.

A closer inspection reveals
that European fingerprints

are all over it.

We're in Ethiopia, but we've
got French signs hanging up.

We've got locomotives abandoned.

We've got bits of
rolling stock and lines.

A giant tooling shed
musty with dust and oil,

brimming with
50-year-old lathes,

and a brightly coloured,
painted ticket office now empty.

The once vibrant paint
peeling from its walls.

It looks like this place was once
at the centre of a vast and very

significant railway network.

Looking at the
scale of this place,

a huge amount of
capital was invested,

and now, we see
it covered in grime.

It's a place where train
enthusiasts would love to explore.

There are the trains.
There are the signs.

There's just a sense of history.

Usually when a rail
line is decommissioned,

the cars and
equipment are sold off.

But this hub has remained
and the trains left abandoned.

So, what's their story?

The history of this train
graveyard can be traced back

to the end of the 19th century
and to the vision of one man,

the emperor
menelik ii of Ethiopia.

Ethiopia is a
land-locked barren state,

but it has huge amounts
of natural resources.

But they're only going to help
the people if they can be exploited.

And at the turn of the
20th century, the emperor

looked around and thought, "how
are other countries succeeding

and moving forward?"

If you look at britain or
america in the 19th century,

what was the game changer?

It was all about urbanisation
and industrialisation,

and at the heart of
that were the railways.

Emperor menelik really wanted
to put Ethiopia on the map

with an impressive engineering
project, and that was the railroad.

Menelik's railroad would connect
the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa

and other major trading centres
to the red sea port of Djibouti.

This provided a
direct link to the coast

where goods could be exported.

These are the remains of
the dire dawa railway terminus.

It was once pivotal to emperor
menelik's ethio-Djibouti railway,

but whoever built it, gave
it a distinctly European feel.

67-year-old basha Ali Omar
has worked here all his life.

His experiences at dire dawa
shed light on its intriguing history.

But first, he had
to learn French.

Once we'd learned that language,
we could come here and get a job.

We could work here then,

because everything the
company did was done in French.

So here, we have
the accounting office,

case office and an
inspector bureau.

All of these are
written in French.

While menelik ii was conceiving
the ethio-Djibouti railway,

the great European powers
were vying for control of Africa.

Menelik had just repelled
an invasion by the Italians,

so he decided to Grant the concession
to build his railroad to the French.

The French came in to
set up Ethiopia's railways

and in 1897, they
made a great start.

The terminus at dire dawa opened in
1904 and the city soon began to grow.

Dire dawa was founded
because of this railway,

which carried both freight
and passengers through here.

It transported commodities
like cereals from Addis Ababa

and delivered them to dire dawa.

Then, it went back to Djibouti and
transported goods back to the port.

Dire dawa had been a backwater.

What the railroad does is
it transforms it into a hub

that goods and people
are going through.

What we see here has been
repeated all across the world.

You get a small village,
but in the right place,

and you put a
railway through it.

And suddenly, that village
becomes bigger and bigger,

until you get a bustling town
supporting not only the railway,

but driving business,
driving the economy.

The line was finally
completed four years after

emperor menelik's death in 1913.

What was once a very long
and treacherous journey,

could now be made
safely in 36 hours.

It took a while, but by
1917, Ethiopia had a bustling,

thriving railway network, ready to
be exploited by people and goods.

At its peak, nearly 4,000
passengers and 1,250 tonnes of cargo

would pass through this
station every single day.

Racial segregation
that was commonplace

in many countries at the time,
wasn't tolerated in Ethiopia.

And so, you had Europeans and
africans sharing common areas

on the passenger train.

Hundreds of people,
black and white, travelling

from here every
day, all together.

Menelik's vision for Ethiopia
was way ahead of its time.

But the train graveyard suggests
that the emperor's great scheme

didn't quite turn
out as he'd hoped.

On 3 October 1935,

two separate Italian armies sent by
Benito Mussolini invaded Ethiopia.

Less than a year later, they
joined forces in dire dawa.

The fascist occupation
was now complete.

World war ii truly was a global
war and Ethiopia didn't escape.

The railway and the country
were overtaken by Italian fascists

and they used the railway
network to transport people,

goods and weapons - including
tanks - using the railway system.

In 1941, Ethiopia was
liberated by the allied forces,

but it didn't revive the
fortunes of the railroad.

The end of world war ii
triggered a global recession.

The railway line, in
particular, fell into disrepair.

It limped along, but
there was no reinvestment.

The railway suffered
another blow in 1977.

As Somali troops
invaded Ethiopia,

they took control of the
railway and dire dawa station.

They blew up large
portions of the railway,

meaning operations
were again cut in half.

And things were to get worse.

In 1985, a terrible
accident shook Ethiopia.

A train was crossing a river
on a curved bridge and derailed.

And out of the 1,000 people
onboard, 400 people died.

This is the worst rail accident
that Africa has ever suffered,

and it's had a major
effect on the network.

Today, a brand-new line
runs alongside the old railroad,

and the old terminus at
dire dawa is now abandoned.

The ethio-Djibouti railway
represents a national dream.

One which may yet be revived.

Plans are now afoot to
reinvigorate Ethiopia's rail network,

which the government hopes
will kickstart industrialisation,

transforming a poor,
agricultural nation

of nearly 100 million people into
a middle-income country by 2025.

In the heart of Lithuania
in Eastern Europe,

lie ruins that at first sight
seem to have no purpose.

If you were to be dropped
into the middle of this space,

because of its vastness,

it wouldn't really make
sense as to what it actually is.

This is one of those structures

that you get a better
idea from the air.

You can see angular shapes. You
can see the outlines of buildings.

Meanwhile, on the ground, a
series of mysterious features emerge.

It's overgrown. There
are plants everywhere.

And there are these concrete
mounds with large openings,

but it's not clear
where they lead to.

You see long tunnels.
Many of them sloping

and going in
different directions.

You see something
of a dark, interior maze.

It's thick-black and the smell
is kind of damp and mossy,

and it's actually a
really spooky place.

All around, signs of a
violent struggle still linger.

This place clearly suffered
from a major attack.

The sense of damage
and devastation is obvious.

There are holes in the
ceilings, holes in the walls,

and just debris everywhere.

When you find out what
really happened here,

it just sends a chill
down your spine.

The origins of this vast ruin date
to a turbulent and bloody period

in European history.

What happened in this
place was very, very significant

and helped push the
downfall of a great empire.

In the late 1800s,
this whole region

was on the edge of the
massive Russian empire.

As the end of the
century approached,

tensions between the European
super powers were mounting.

This borderland region
was faced with a new threat.

Germany, which had always been
separated into smaller kingdoms

and states, finally
unified in 1871.

And for the first time in its
history, the Russian empire

now had a single, powerful
nation on its western border.

When a new German
emperor came to power in 1888,

he was no longer interested
in the old alliance with Russia.

In anticipation of war, the Russians
built this, the fortress of kaunas.

The Russian tsar
likes fortifications,

so this idea of fortress
cities comes into being,

and Russia will pour in
a lot of its military wealth.

Construction began in 1822.

Valdas rakutis
is a local historian

who is fascinated
by its turbulent past.

Kaunas fortress is one
of the biggest fortresses

of Russian empire in Europe.

And here part of the fort
were used for the soldiers,

250 which live here and
fight here in the time of war.

This was the golden
age of fortress building.

This is really the last
time you see widescale,

largescale building
of fortresses.

So, we are on the right side of the
fort and you can see city of kaunas,

which this fort protects.

Basically, all roads
lead to the city.

You couldn't go around it.

But the most important thing
was that it was a rail nexus.

And rail was the way to
move troops and supplies

in this period of warfare.

Kaunas was so vital, the
Russians didn't stop at one fort.

They built nine.

You need to set
up your fortifications

so there's no safe approaches,
so that every direction is covered.

When they were built, they
were pretty much state-of-the-art.

But the state-of-the-art in the late
1890s was changing very rapidly.

Every couple of years, this
fortress had to be updated,

because within that short space of
time, technology was progressing,

artillery was changing,

and the threats were becoming
more and more dangerous.

Pretty soon, new
weapons, aeroplanes, tanks,

they're going to make fixed
fortifications largely obsolete.

When the first world war erupted
in Europe, new weapons developed

in the 20th century would
put the fort to the test.

The bitter conflict between the
German and Russian empires

was centred around the
fortress town of kaunas.

The German's concentrated all
their efforts on capturing the vital fort.

The German's poured
reinforcements into the northern part

of their flank and
they moved down.

And by August of 1915, they're
now at the gates of kaunas.

For ten days, hell rained down
on forts one, two and three.

But fort four was
supposed to be the toughest.

Really, the
hardest nut to crack.

And the Russians were
hoping the Germans

would focus their efforts
there, but they didn't.

In the first world war, if
you lost one or two forts,

it means that the
fortress is still alive.

But everything different on
the sensitive points of the fort.

If your sensitive
points will be destroyed,

your fortress will be broken.

With the German army and its
superior weapons bearing down on it,

the weaker sections of the
fortress didn't stand a chance.

The most terrifying of these new
weapons was an artillery piece

called big Bertha.

And it fired a 17-inch
artillery shell. 17 inches!

It was the largest
artillery piece ever built.

We can see results
of the bombardment.

Destroyed completely
such building.

Of course, destroying
all people who were close.

No possibility to survive
in such occasions.

Once that breach was made,
the Germans flooded into the city,

and then took over.

What is absolutely incredible is
that all those years of planning

and construction

was not able to withstand a
few days of concentrated attack.

The Germans held much of
Lithuania until the end of the war.

But even after they eventually
withdrew, the suffering wasn't over.

When they left, there
was a power vacuum

and you had to have three civil
wars as Lithuania finally established

itself as a separate nation.

But as much as there was violence
and horror there, the darkest days

of the fortress
were yet to come.

As Hitler's war machine
trampled its enemies,

the forts bore witness
to unspeakable horrors.

The forts are a perfect location
for the perpetration of the worst

of the German war crimes,

particularly those
against civilians.

They're out of the
way. They're hidden.

And that's exactly
what made it, sadly,

an ideal place for
mass execution.

It was Lithuania's Jewish population
that suffered the greatest cruelties.

Fort number four is
important as place of holocaust

in the second world war.

And definitely, in this place,
people were transported,

sitting and waiting,
for the execution.

In a single day, more than 1,800
Jewish people were shot here.

Tragically, more murders
were committed in the other forts

around kaunas.

Fort number nine saw the worst
of these crimes against humanity.

Tens of thousands were
murdered in and around the fort.

As the end of the war drew
closer, the forts were used

for their intended
purpose just one, last time.

Here, the Nazis made a last
stand against the advancing armies

of Stalin's Russia.

These forts were useless against
a massive Soviet tanker force.

And, in fact, these fortresses
that held out for 11 days

in world war I,
fell in 45 minutes.

And then, the Germans are driven
out, but Lithuania isn't going to

find the independence it struggled
so hard to achieve before the war.

Instead, they're going to
be facing a new occupation.

That of the Soviets.

And that's going to last
for another half century.

In 1990, the iron
curtain was lifted,

and Lithuania finally became
an independent nation.

And the abandoned forts here echo
a resilient nation's tumultuous past.

What can we find
on this site today,

besides the remnants
of these fortifications?

We find a memorial to all
the lives that were lost there

under the German occupation.

Now, they are
abandoned, crumbling ruins.

Many remind us of dark times,

but some were once
beacons of hope and progress.

Lasting testimonies to human
imagination, enterprise and spirit.

Captions edited by
ai-media ai-media. TV