All language subtitles for Abandoned.Engineering.S08E10.Shadow.Of.The.Wars.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-squalor_track3_[eng]

Tom ward (narrates)
An industrial powerhouse

that transformed
the American skyline.

There's a kind of
futuristic look to this place

but it's all old,
it's all rusted.

A holy relic that helped
shape modern england.

It has all the hallmarks
of a monastic complex

and for many today remains a
mecca of Christian history in britain.

A gothic building in Poland
that leaves few clues to its past.

These walls hide an
incredibly dark history,

one that is still shrouded
in mystery to this day.

And ancient ruins in
Israel caught in the crossfire

of a modern conflict.

You see this immense contrast

between the ancient
and the modern

but here the
ancient is deserted.

(Theme music)

Decaying relics.

Ruins of lost worlds.

Sites haunted by the past,

their secrets waiting
to be revealed.

Near the quiet town
of Bethlehem usa,

industrial remains punch
out of the landscape.

There's a kind of
futuristic look to this place

like something out of 'bladerunner'
has been dropped out of the sky.

This isn't just one set of
pipes or one set of chimneys,

it's row upon row of
decaying structures.

It feels like it
stretches on for a mile.

You enter one of these buildings

and inside is this bizarre
spaghetti of chains,

suspending metal
boxes from the ceiling.

I mean, what
could this all be for?

It's really strange.

When you came through the gate

it's like you were coming
in to another world,

another town, another era.

A key development forged here

paved the way
for the construction

of one of america's
most iconic creations.

This was a revolution
in structural engineering.

It's in many regards
responsible for so much

of New York City's skyline it
makes New York City in a way.

But this site wouldn't
just build the nation.

It would help save it.

Bethlehem steel,

once a giant of
American manufacturing

that employed 30,000
men and women.

Charlene donchez mowers is
a historian who is well aware

of the hazards workers
faced on a daily basis.

Everything was so dangerous

you couldn't wear a wedding
ring, anything could get caught,

all your clothing had
to be natural fibres

because synthetic
would melt if a spark hit it.

The strange overhanging objects
offered security as well as safety.

These baskets that
you see hanging

from ceiling have
chains on them,

the chain would come
down and get attached

to these pipe like things

and they would put
their own lock on it

and then no-one
could touch their things.

This steel works had long been
the life blood of the community.

So, these were really
the kind of, you know,

blue collar workers of the usa.

Salt of the earth type people.

A lot of the workers
are European immigrants

especially eastern European
immigrants and latino workers,

you also have black
workers like my grandfather

who came from in many
cases from the south

so, they actually had a
fairly diverse work force

and that spilled
over in to steel towns

where you would have people
living side by side going to school

with each other, not
always comfortably

but living side by side.

Dating back to 1857,

the Bethlehem steel company
was founded to help build america.

This place was started by people

who wanted to make
iron railroad tracks,

this was when america
still had a frontier

and the iron horses connected

these disparate
parts of the country.

With Bethlehem it was
its position geographically,

being able to get ore,
being able to get coal,

made it just in the right
place at the right time.

This is like baking a cake,

you have to have
the key ingredients,

iron ore, coke and limestone.

Situated in so
called carbon county,

they had everything
they needed close by

and the infrastructure
put in place

to exploit these resources
was of epic proportions.

This blast furnace is
from the early 1900s,

right in front of us
is an incline plane

and there are two
what are called skip cars

and a skip car is
about the size of a Van.

The cars took the raw materials
up the tracks to be weighed

and tipped in to the furnace

which reached temperatures
of over 1,600 degrees c.

The ultimate goal
is to create your iron

as pure as possible

and then it's in its liquid form

you can literally open
the gate of the furnace

and this stuff pours out
but what's great about steel

in its molten form
is you can mould it.

Soon their ambitions extended
well beyond railroad tracks.

In 1907 an invention made here

radically transformed
the American skyline.

The Bethlehem beam is also
known as a wide flange beam

and it was enabled

from a really important
revolution in rolling steel.

The new rolling process
produced h shaped beams

that were light, wide and cheap.

So, these big pieces of
molten metal, red hot metal

would go between rollers
that would shoot back and forth

and it would get thinner in
the middle and then the sides

would get taller
and so you ended up

with this incredible long
piece of Bethlehem beam.

This was a revolution
in structural engineering

and it could be used vertically

as a column allowing structures
to be built taller than ever before.

We know what the us is
famed for, its skyscrapers

and it was exactly this
engineering phenomenon

that rocketed Bethlehem
in terms of its supply

to places like New York.

Some of the buildings
that they help make

included 40 wall street,

the Manhattan bank

and the Chrysler
building to name a few.

In fact in the 1920s

they provided steel for
around 80% of the city's skyline

leading the company's
chief engineer to claim

that Bethlehem steel
owned New York.

But they didn't stop there.

Not only skyscrapers

but it's these wonderful
suspension Bridges,

something like the
golden gate bridge

which has this
beautiful orange colour.

83,000 tonnes of steel were used
in the construction of this bridge.

Bethlehem the major contractor
will build the steel towers

and suspended
span of the bridge.

The sections are loaded aboard
ships and finally through the golden gate

in to San Francisco bay.

This was boom time
for Bethlehem steel

but it was nothing compared
with what was to come.

In 1939 the president
of Bethlehem steel,

Eugene grace was out golfing

when a caddy ran up
to him with a message.

The story goes that grace
turned to his colleagues and said,

"gentlemen, we're about
to make a lot of money."

When the second
world war broke out,

orders began flooding
in from Europe.

Everything from tanks
to even big warships

were being ordered by
the British and the French

and at one stage the
machine shop number 2

was the biggest factory floor
going in the whole world at the time.

I heard that they could produce

one of those big
ship guns a day,

at one point there were 800
men over three shifts a day.

And this was a very
dangerous smoky smelly place,

there were machines
up and down these aisles,

you can see there
are railroad tracks,

there were overhead cranes.

Production was
ramped up even further

when the war came
to america's shores.

Once Pearl harbour is attacked,

the United States
starts to feel like

it has stakes in this war and
so the threat became real.

I guess you can imagine
that the ethos of the workplace

will have dramatically shifted,

you've gone from
essentially creating arms

to sell abroad to
actually creating

something to be part
of saving your nation.

It was said that an American
could be on a destroyer built

at the Bethlehem steel
yard firing guns built

at Bethlehem steel

shooting Bethlehem steel
shells whilst being protected

by Bethlehem steel
armoured plates.

Bethlehem steel built

over 1,100 ships
during world war ii,

it was the largest
ship builder in the world

and having these structures
survive really gives a sense of scale

of what the industry is like.

I don't want to say
that it's responsible

for the allied victory

but it's critical to
the allied victory

and to the United
States success in the war.

While Bethlehem steel
corporation continues to operate

elsewhere in the world,

like many manufacturing
plants in the so called rust belt

its days in post-war
america were numbered.

Though unlike some it
was a slow gradual decline

that ended in the early 2000s.

(Soft music)

The children of workers
that filled these factory floors

have not forgotten the
opportunities it has afforded them.

I think 13 members
of my family worked

at Bethlehem steel

and then my generation
we are teachers,

and doctors and lawyers

but that gave our
families the opportunity

from being immigrant
families in 1899

when my grandfather came here
and got a job at Bethlehem steel

to my generation,

it's not just true for my family

but for many families
throughout the United States.

Off the coast of
north east england

is a ruin cloaked in mystery.

This road leads
you out seemingly

to this vast expanse of
sand and nothing else.

In the right weather going
down this road feels like

you're driving in
to the north sea

because sometimes the
mists obscure the way forward.

But as the mist clears
it becomes apparent

that this is a causeway that
takes you to a tiny outcrop

with a castle towering
over its surroundings.

The castle appears to
be organically growing

out of the rock

and in its shadow are the
remains of what looked like

a cathedral like structure.

It's right next to a church
and surrounded by a cemetery

with an intriguing
mix of gravestones.

So, this place has a
real spiritual feel to it.

The layout of the stone remains

are telling and hint
at Christian roots.

When you look at it
from above you can see

that it's been constructed
in the shape of a cross,

it feels monastic in its design.

There are elaborate
stone arches,

one of them almost
floating in the air.

Ornate masonry, sculpture,

this all points to a place of
considerable opulence and wealth.

Yet it was the
victim of an attack

that shook this land to its core

and sent shockwaves out
across the Christian world.

Doctor Frances McIntosh
specialises in the archaeology

of this region

and is an expert on
this celebrated ruin.

So, we're here in the
top end of the church

in the apps which is
the top of the cross.

The position of this new
construction completed

around 1150 was all important.

And only exists because
of a even older structure

that lies at its feet.

They picked this spot for
the church because we think

this is where the seventh
century church was,

this is a real kind of
centre of christianity

and it was the
centre of the cult.

The high altar of that
seventh century church held

the body of the
man behind this cult.

And yet this tomb contains
neither a body nor a coffin.

And that is what we see
now, a 12th century priory

with a cenotaph
meaning an empty tomb.

So, who was this
cenotaph dedicated to

and why is the
body no longer here.

This rocky outcrop is the
holy island of lindisfarne,

barely connected to the
mainland by a causeway.

The tide rises so quickly
here that on average

one car per month
still gets stranded.

But you can imagine
how 1,000 years ago

this natural feature
would have given the place

a real mystical charm,

created a real sense of wonder.

It was this sense of wonder
along with its isolation

that attracted the attention

of king oswald in
the seventh century.

The era between
the romans leaving

and the Norman conquest
has really captured

the imagination of
people in recent years.

I mean, you've got
series such as the 'vikings'

and the 'last kingdom'

and in fact king oswald is
said to have been the inspiration

for the character Oregon
in 'lord of the rings'.

Oswald's northumberland
covered a vast amount of land

making it the northern
powerhouse of england

which at the time was
made up of a small handful

of warring anglo Saxon kingdoms.

He's going to let
all of the other rulers

on the isle of Great Britain

and on the continent
of Europe know

that he is a holy king
and a wealthy king.

Oswald gifted
lindisfarne to monks

in order to establish
a monastery

at the heart of his
political kingdom.

And he was
driven like all rulers

by the desire to have
monks praying for his soul

and praying for the health
and welfare of his lands,

christianity was
a political act.

In the 670s, a monk named
cuthbert joined the monastery.

Cuthbert is himself
a very holy man

who likes a life of
spiritual contemplation,

he prefers to live as a hermit

and yet he's willing to act
as a spiritual guide to kings.

News of cuthbert's
holiness spread

and in 685 the king
appointed him bishop

so, he was dragged back
in to the world of politics,

the court, nobles, religion
but yet he still retained

a reputation as a holy man, as
a seer, as a healer, as a pastor.

But just a few years
later cuthbert died.

It's believed his body was placed
in a stone coffin at the eastern end

of the original building.

When his tomb was
opened 11 years later,

to everyone's astonishment
his body was found to be intact,

uncorrupted and it was
a message to everyone

that cuthbert was
truly divinely favoured.

And that's when the cult
really starts, people start coming

to pray to ask for miracles,
we hear of a paralysed boy

who wore the shoes of cuthbert
who was healed, a monk came here

and fell seriously ill, he
prayed by cuthbert's grave

and was miraculously cured.

This is where the pilgrims
would come to that high altar

to see cuthbert's grave.

As a result powerful kings
and rulers donated lands to it,

making lindisfarne one of the most
important monastic sites in britain.

And the ruins that
extend off to the side

of the original cross
shaped church reflect

its increasing wealth.

All of these buildings
were once filled

with monks hard at
work, tilling the land,

receiving donations,
writing out manuscripts,

preserving knowledge, praying
for the souls of their benefactors.

It was here in this
prestigious seat

of knowledge and learning

that the lindisfarne monks
produced something extraordinary.

The lindisfarne gospels are
one of the undoubted treasures

of the world.

It shows influences
from the Celtic world,

from the anglo Saxon world

and even the mediterranean
world showing just how international

a place lindisfarne was.

And not only are they one of
the most beautiful Latin bibles

ever produced in england

but also ascribe has written
translations of the gospels

in old English
underneath making them

one of the earliest
sources of the Bible

in old English long
before the reaffirmation.

But the monastery's
geographical position

once seen as a strength would
soon become its weakness.

You put this monastery
on a holy island

because it would protect them
from armies coming from land,

they didn't think for a moment

that they would have to worry
about an army coming from the sea.

June 8, 793 ad.

A sizeable force of norse
vikings come from the sea.

So, the sea's quite far away now

but we know it was much
closer in that eighth century

so, when the vikings pulled up
on the beach in their long ship

they would have been
much closer to the monastery,

really quite a quick, you
know, sprint up the beach

to come and attack so the monks
would not have had much warning.

According to one
of the chroniclers

they came in like fierce wolves

and they murdered the monks

and they carried
others off in chains.

When word of this bloody assault
got out its impact was far reaching.

It's the first attack on
a Christian settlement,

it's not the first attack
by the vikings in britain

but it's really quite shocking,
it shakes the church.

And it was on
such a horrific scale

that the news spread like
wildfire across Western Europe.

Gravestones found on the
ground show that some believe

this was divine vengeance.

Why did st cuthbert
not intervene

and prevent such barbaric
slaughter and protect the monks?

For many this was a sign
that doomsday was coming.

In fact, it was the
start of the viking age.

The monks fled taking
cuthbert's remains with them.

This wandering community of
monks carried cuthbert's coffin

with them until it was
enshrined at durham cathedral.

Centuries later
when they felt it safe,

they returned to
the holy island.

12th century monks
wanted lindisfarne

to be a place of pilgrimage

and they didn't have st
cuthbert's body anymore

so, they built an empty tomb

where st cuthbert
had been buried

and they succeeded in making
that a place of pilgrimage.

It's believed stone from the
original church was reused

in the building of
this later incarnation

and its layout reflects the
strength of cuthbert's cult

in the middle ages.

The church that's built here

seems to be mirrored
or trying to copy durham

and it becomes
almost a second centre

of the cult of cuthbert.

Corner turrets, battlements and
cross shaped arrow loops reflect

the later fortification
of the church.

But they could only protect
the monks for so long.

Lindisfarne continued as
an active religious community

until Henry viii dissolution of
the monasteries in the 1530s

when he crushed
the catholic church,

shut down all the
abbeys and monasteries

and murdered the monks.

In the 1820s the
central tower collapsed

but miraculously not
everything was destroyed.

Well, the tower is gone

but almost magically
one arch remains.

It is as though god
has made a promise

that this kind of ruination
won't come again.

Today, st cuthbert holds an
important place in the story

of early christianity
in britain.

Cuthbert is somebody
who turns christianity

from the religion
of britain's elites

in to the religion
of britain's people.

And more than 1,000 years later
the ruins on this windswept island

still draw the faithful.

People still come,

the pilgrims come
in their thousands.

Lindisfarne is one
of the earliest sites

of Christian
pilgrimage in britain

and for many today remains a
mecca of Christian history in britain.

In a rural Polish village

is a conspicuous
building with a secret past.

It looks like something from
afar almost out of a fairytale.

It's incredibly ornate, it's
got these beautiful windows.

If you look at this
building from above

you can actually see that
it's laid out like a cross.

Is that a coincidence

or does it have a deeply
symbolic religious meaning?

As you walk along
these corridors

and you peer into
the doors you realise

it looks more like a school
or an infirmary, a hospital.

What its original purpose was
a far cry from what it became.

This place has a
really twisted history,

its roots are grounded
in charity and kindness

but the ultimate
application of this place

was positively diabolical.

These walls hide an
incredibly dark history,

one that is still shrouded
in mystery to this day.

This is mokrzeszow palace,

built in the 1880s it was designed
as a hospital and sanatorium.

It was commissioned by the
order of the knights of Malta

and this is a catholic
organisation that is dedicated

to providing humanitarian
aid to those in need.

Little remains from
those early days

although not
everything has gone.

Deep in the basement
stowed far away

from sight there's an object
that is sort of innocuous.

This item offers a vital clue
to what transpired at this site.

This baby carriage
holds the truth

of what this place really was.

The order of the knights
of Malta kept working

in this place doing
charitable work

until about 1926
when funding ran dry,

they couldn't afford to maintain
the facility so they sold it

to a wealthy Jewish
merchant from the area.

But his control of this
building would not last for long.

In an atmosphere

of increasingly
violent anti semitism,

this Jewish merchant chose to
pack up his belongings and flee.

As local historian
jan niewczas recalls

the merchant got
out just in time.

What they used it for
however was a mystery

but in 2010 a discovery was made
in the cemetery across the road.

It proved something that until
then had only been a terrible rumour.

Interviews with the locals
also added to this evidence,

residents recalled seeing German
men and women in Nazi uniforms walking

around as couples on the property
and others remember children

being born here but
not staying for long.

The evidence was mounting.

Everything pointed towards
the theory that this site was used

by one of Hitler's
top secret societies.

In the run up to the war,
Hitler had multiple concerns.

He didn't just want
to consolidate power

he also wanted to purify
the German community.

This was all about having
a pure germanic Aryan race.

And producing more
and more pure aryans

to occupy this expanding
German third reich.

To achieve this, Hitler
set about ridding society

of those he deemed undesirable

while also increasing
the birth rate.

In terms of filling that void,

Hitler turned to the nation's
women, the nations Aryan women.

For starters Hitler basically had
incentives for German couples

to have more kids, cash incentives,
medals for having lots of children,

mothers who had a bunch of kids
would get a medal from their fuhrer.

They bought together
large groups of young men

and young girls
for human breeding.

The next step was the
lebensborn project created

in December 1935 by Hitler's
right hand man henrich himmler.

It's believed this building was
one of those secret locations

and the women bought here

were selected by a
special medical committee.

But it wasn't just the
women that had to pass tests.

For women, their life
here was of a high standard

but their every
move was controlled.

Once the children were born,

they were kept here
for as little as two weeks.

And after that they
would be sent out

to German families so
they would be taken away

from their birth mothers.

The ss was responsible for
the adoption and education

of the children that were
bred through this program

and they were bought up
with strict Nazi ideology.

Hitler believed that if
you got children early

and we're talking
before Hitler youth,

we're talking in
the crib as infants,

if you could get control
of their hearts and minds

then that was
important to nazification,

to the Nazi future.

But the Nazis didn't stop
at breeding Aryan children.

They went a step further.

The lebensborn program was
also involved in the kidnapping

of foreign children.

The children who were kidnapped

really fit a certain
phenotypical mould

win terms of hair colour,
eye colour, skin colour,

it's about how people
look and whether or not

they can pass as Aryan.

It is estimated that
some 400,000 children

were kidnapped
from across Europe

and were placed in the
custody of German families.

Dozens of similar structures
across Europe were exploited

for this germanisation program.

Yet most of the
evidence of what went on

within these palace
walls has long vanished,

until more discoveries are made
the details of what happened here

will remain a mystery.

While mokrzeszow
palace is now abandoned,

the lebensborn project
isn't just a distant memory,

many of the children it
produced are still alive today.

Probably one of the most famous

lebensborn children was one
of the female singers in abba,

Freda lyngstad, her mother
was mated with an ss officer.

Freda is just one of thousands

and although some
may know their past,

many grew up unaware
that they were the product

of a horrifying
eugenics experiment.

In Israel

on the edge of the historic city
of Jerusalem lies a haunting ruin.

Where the judian hills

instantly turn in to a
bustling modern city,

there's an odd collection
of beautiful old stone houses

clinging to a hillside.

Some of the pathways are
almost obscured by vegetation,

roofs have collapsed.

It's not clear why this
village is completely empty

when the land around it
is quite densely settled.

This village should be
a desirable place to live.

You see a water source right
in the middle of the village,

something rare in
this part of the world,

it's a very arid environment.

Jerusalem is such a
highly developed city

because property
there is so expensive.

This place would be worth loads.

Dig deeper and some aspects
of these ruins don't make sense.

In the roofs that
are still intact,

there are these strange holes

almost looks like someone
did them intentionally.

Yacoub odeh used
to live in this village

and fondly remembers
the time he spent here.

This is lifta

a once idealic village built
around a very precious resource.

There's actually only
two year round Springs

near Jerusalem, here
in these two valleys,

these are the places
that you can grow fruits

and vegetables and
this was actually known

as the garden of Jerusalem.

And it was this spring that
bought the first settlers here

more than 2,000 years ago.

Avi mashiah of the
Israel antiquities authority

has carried out a
detailed investigation

of the villages past.

The first phase of the
village that we can see

is from the Roman period.

You can see a big stone
building like a stone watchtower

at the entrance to Jerusalem.

As the years went on
lifta grew to become

an important agricultural
centre for nearby Jerusalem.

You can see here
the industrial passage.

This is a long corridor of
500 meters with many oil press

and dozens of service
rooms and storage.

You can see here a big stone
that was the base of the oil press

and the huge stone was bought

with donkey or other
animal to turn it around.

Life in lifta continued
relatively unchanged

as great empires
Rose and fell around it.

But as the 20th century came
into view, everything would change.

After thousands of
years of occupation lifta

was caught in the
crossfire of a modern conflict

and was struck
by a great tragedy.

At the end of the first world war,
britain took control of this area,

then known as
mandatory Palestine.

When the British assumed
stewardship of the region

after the first world war,

they in effect promised to
create an arab and Jewish state

that would be self-governing.

But they were
confronting a serious issue

which is that you did
have a split population.

The same time there
was a growing movement

among Jews in
Europe to leave Europe

where they often faced
various kinds of persecution

and move to Israel and
build a new homeland there.

This was a source
of some tension.

In the horrific
aftermath of world war

two these tensions
came to a head.

After the holocaust,

a lot of Jews want to move
to the Palestine mandate,

they want to establish
the Jewish state

that they'd been promised

by the British government
way back in 1917.

And the arab population

were energised by new ideas

about arab liberation
and Jewish nationalism

and arab nationalism clash.

In 1947,

as a war weary britain
prepared to leave the region,

large scale violence erupted.

And lifta was
caught in the middle.

This little village
of lifta is right

on the road between

the mixed arab and
Jewish city of Jerusalem

and the largely Jewish
city of Tel Aviv on the coast.

And once fighting started in
earnest between the Jewish militias

and the arab militias,
this was a war zone.

(Gunfire)

Yacoub witnessed
the violent conflict

that escalated here.

As the fighting continued
getting ever more violent,

yacoub and his
family fled the village.

Like much of
Israel's recent past,

the story here is
very complicated

and what actually
happened depends upon

which side you're talking to.

So, the Israeli history books
say the occupants of lifta fled

whereas when you talk to arabs,

they say that they
were intimidated

in to leaving because
of the threat of violence.

By February 1948,
lifta was empty,

shortly after Israel
declared its independence

and took control of this land.

The occupants were
never permitted to return.

You can see these
holes in the roof,

they were put there intentionally
to make the buildings uninhabitable.

Today lifta faces
an uncertain future.

After centuries of existence
this historic village faces

a new threat,

there are plans in the works to
build luxurious accommodations

but it's not a done deal yet.

The Israeli antiquities bureau
has also explored this area

and documented how old some
of these structures really are

and so now they're involved
in helping make that decision

but it looks like there is
a pretty strong movement

against doing anything
that would radically change

this little historic piece
of the past of this region.

And yacoub and the
other former residents

of lifta haven't given up
hope of one day returning.

Captioned by
ai-media ai-media. TV