Original subtitles

A concentration camp in the Czech Republic

designed as a publicity stunt to disguise a heartless regime.

For the men themselves, this was about survival.

For their oppressors, it was an attempt to fool the world.

In England,

the life of world famous playwright, Oscar Wilde,

is forever changed.

He was here as a result of one of the first ever celebrity trials.

And in Memphis,

a building intended to protect, corrupted by its chief.

This guy had absolute total power.

He was a dictator.

In the town of Terezin in the Czech Republic,

are the remains of a site that played its role

in one of humanity's most disturbing eras.

We see these well-built structures,

formidable walls rising out of the ground.

The largest building stretches

hundreds of feet down the road.

But it's really in bad shape.

Further in, it seems that this site was some kind of town.

The streets are lined with neat and orderly blocks.

Evidence suggests the residents were enjoying life here.

There were performances, concerts, famous musicians...

The scenes may appear joyous, but the reality

could not be further from the truth.

This is a really surreal moment of hope

in this otherwise completely hellish space.

Little did they know, most of them only had weeks to live.

The things that I started to study 24 years ago,

they got under my skin.

Dr. Tomas Fedorovic

first came to Terezin as a student.

What he unearthed inspired him to become custodian of this site's past.

We're in one of the yards

of the large infantry barracks.

It was one of the first facilities built in the Terezin fortress.

The fortress, originally constructed in the 1700s,

was an imposing facility,

and it caught the eye of the Nazi empire

when parts of Czechoslovakia came under their control in 1938.

A meeting was held at Prague Castle in October 1941

regarding the Jewish question.

And one of the outcomes was that Jewish people

should be gathered somewhere

so that they could not have a negative influence

on the rest of the population.

Terezin would become a transit camp

that helped to fulfill the logistical methodology

of the Germans in creating an Aryan nation,

a nation in which the people that they considered to be inferior

would be wiped out.

This was once the Theresienstadt ghetto.

It began as a concentration camp,

where the Nazis sent the Jewish people

they wanted removed from their empire.

At first, the regime touted it as a retirement village,

even describing it as a spa.

So the first Jewish people to arrive here

didn't know what it really was.

In November 1941,

the first transport arrived.

It was 340 men.

They were from Czechoslovakia,

but soon, more came from Austria, Germany and beyond.

Many of them had, in fact, been German veterans,

people of Jewish heritage who had fought in the First World War,

sports stars, athletes, intellectuals.

Many were well-known internationally,

so the Germans wanted to disguise the true nature of the facility.

The Nazi occupation administration

tried to present Terezin

as a place where Jews were doing well.

They had concerts, they had plays, they played music,

and they were able to play sports as well.

The central courtyard became a hub for soccer.

Terezin became the home to Jewish football players.

Some of them were full-time professional footballers,

others were lower league players.

One professional player who ended up here

was Paul Mahrer, a Jewish man and soccer superstar.

He had played for the Czechoslovakian national team

and several soccer clubs in the United States.

These players were, in many ways,

heroes of the ghetto,

because thousands of people watched those matches.

Every week, there were league matches,

and then the ghetto cup matches took place here.

The ghetto's league

was made up of 30 teams and 700 players,

with each team representing a group from the ghetto,

like gardeners or butchers.

And it wasn't only the inmates who enjoyed the spectacle.

We know that some members

of the SS had their favorite teams that they rooted for.

But by 1943,

Theresienstadt had expanded to include Jewish people from across Europe,

including Denmark, which was now under German martial law.

Here, the Nazis caught almost 500 Jews,

forcing Denmark's king to send them to Terezin.

The king of Denmark, he insists that the Danish Red Cross

are allowed into the city to make sure they're being cared for properly.

For the controllers at the camp,

this would be a test.

It appeared as if the people here

were being given a more lenient,

more affable lifestyle than those in other camps.

But this had a more sinister purpose.

By now, the Nazis had solidified their plan

to annihilate the Jewish people.

And they were sending inmates from Terezin

to death camps across their empire.

Initially, this camp was designed

for between 6,000 and 7,000 people.

But in the height of the conflict,

it was housing eight times that number.

So in order to satisfy the Danish Red Cross,

the Nazis would have to escalate their program of extermination

to bring the camp's population down.

Seven thousand inmates were removed and sent to camps elsewhere.

Many of them, in fact, were killed.

Inmates that looked sickly

were also physically removed.

The eyes of the world were about to descend on Terezin,

so the Nazis were prepared to put on a show.

They have this whole beautification campaign.

They make the prisoners paint houses, plant gardens,

do anything that would make it look beautiful, clean, safe, healthy.

They even put on a children's opera

in a hall built specially for the occasion.

The delegation concluded

the conditions at the camp were adequate.

But the show wasn't over.

The Nazis see a real opportunity here.

So they decided they're going to make a new piece of propaganda.

They used a filmmaker, Kurt Gerron, to make a documentary.

Kurt Gerron was a Jewish film director,

and he was being forced to film the activities

at Terezin for the sake of his life,

and for the sake of the life of his own wife and family.

Its message was to show

how things were done here in Terezin...

how well they were doing,

and of course, to con the global population.

And the Nazis were keen to show

how much the inmates enjoyed their soccer.

The people in the audience were chosen.

They were definitely meant to be seen.

They cheered enthusiastically,

or at least pretended to be enthusiastic.

So the idea to show the match

was to prove how well the Jewish people were doing in Terezin.

But it painted a picture

that couldn't have been in starker contrast

to the horrors unfolding within these walls.

In the Czech Republic are the remains

of a concentration camp which the Nazis were determined to portray

as an ideal place for Jewish people to resettle.

But when filming wrapped on their deceitful propaganda film,

the genocide continued,

and a wave of transports departed Terezin,

bound for the death camp at Auschwitz.

The vast majority of those in the film

died in the gas chambers of a concentration camp,

or were destroyed by slave labor.

Even the film's director, Kurt Gerron, was killed.

In the end, the film was never made public during the war.

They made this project to try to fool the world.

But by the time they were finished with it,

everyone knew what they had done.

On May 9th, 1945, the Soviets finally liberate the town,

and they found terrible horrors within.

More than 150,000 Jewish people were brought to Terezin.

Thirty-five thousand died here, because in reality,

the living conditions were intentionally harsh

to hasten death.

A further 88,000 were sent to death camps in Poland.

I don't look at this entirely as propaganda,

but more like the last record of the lives

of the thousands of people who were here.

So it seems to me more like a memorial,

a visual memorial to those who suffered here.

Many of the Danish Jewish people

survived the conditions here,

as did the renowned soccer player Paul Mahrer.

After the war, he returned to the United States,

while the remnants of the Terezin ghetto

still stand in testimony to those who perished here.

In Southern England is a domineering building

that's synonymous with a monumental fall from grace.

We're in the town of Reading. It's just a short train ride out of London.

It's a busy town

full of commuters, shops, homes.

But tucked away right in the middle is a hulking eyesore.

Behind the brick wall

is an enormous red brick building.

It has Victorian features, castellated windows...

You almost feel like you could be looking

at a royal palace from some angles,

but the reality is much less dignified.

Once you're inside, it's clear this can only be a prison.

Long quarters, rows of cell blocks

and a gloomy, oppressive air.

It's the last place you'd expect to find

one of the most celebrated figures of British high society.

One man entered the jail and changed its place in history forever.

His arrest shocked the country.

At the time, he was already a household name,

but he was reduced to a prisoner C33.

He was here as a result of one of the first ever celebrity trials.

Matthew Sturgis has written extensively

about the prison's most famous inmate,

and the inhumane conditions he faced.

This is somewhere where your personality

is sort of negated.

The whole building is designed

to limit your sense of self and your sense of agency.

The reason for this jail's existence

dates back to the 18th century,

when it was designed to solve a unique problem.

For more than a century, Britain had sentenced

many of its criminals to what was known as "transportation."

They would be sent halfway around the world to Australia.

But by the mid-19th century, that process was coming to an end.

The result of this, though, was if you stop sending them off

to be Australia's problem, they're going to start piling up at home.

When London's prisons became overcrowded,

the government looked outside the capital to build somewhere new.

This is Reading Gaol.

Reading Gaol, in its early years,

was full of the typical kind of criminal you would imagine here,

thieves, debtors, murderers.

But the laws were about to change in a way that would bring

an entirely new kind of felon into the prison.

Homosexuality had been illegal in Britain for hundreds of years.

But in 1885, a new law nicknamed

The Blackmailers' Charter, was introduced.

What it did was it extended the grounds

for which somebody could be prosecuted

to the point where even if two men exchanged friendly letters

where they expressed affection for each other,

that could be grounds for prosecution.

This would have grave implications

for one of Britain's most famous writers.

Oscar Wilde was a household name at this time.

He was a celebrated poet and playwright,

had shows on in the West End,

published books, and mingled with the literary elite of London.

His books and his plays were enormously popular,

and he himself was a very public figure who liked attention.

But that was also putting his freedom at risk,

especially in this new climate.

He was, apparently, happily married to this lovely wife, Constance.

He had two small children.

But he had been engaged in a passionate love affair relationship

with this young English aristocrat, Lord Alfred Douglas.

Douglas' father happened to be an important and public figure,

the Marquess of Queensberry.

The stories floating around

about his son and Wilde could land him in hot water.

When the Marquess publicly confronted Wilde

about his actions,

Wilde sued him for libel.

But when he lost in court, the Crown brought charges

against the author for sodomy and gross indecency.

Wilde had a decision to make:

flee the country, or stay to fight the charges.

And, unfortunately, he was too stubborn for his own good.

In 1895,

the famous literary giant, Oscar Wilde,

had the chance to flee Britain

and escape a public trial for gross indecency.

But he made the ill-advised decision to stay and fight the charges,

thinking he would be let off the hook.

He was found guilty and sent to a prison in London,

where one of his punishments was hard labor.

What he faced was practically torture.

They employed the crank,

which was just a stiff rotating handle attached to nothing.

And the treadmill,

where prisoners were forced to walk around like hamsters

for hour on end.

It's said that when he began his prison sentence in London,

he was absolutely crushed by the horror.

Wilde was transferred to Reading Gaol in November 1895,

but his situation didn't improve.

While there, he faced a brutal form of incarceration

known as the "separate system."

This system was all about isolation

as a form of punishment and pacification.

Even when they left their cells,

they were forced to put on something called a Scotch Cap,

a kind of leather contraption, leather hood that obscured their face,

and made it difficult for people to talk to each other,

even recognize each other.

It was literally dehumanizing.

Within these walls, Wilde was reduced to the number of his cell,

C33.

It is extraordinary

to think that this is Oscar's cell.

The narrowness of the door,

the narrowness of the room...

And he would have spent

twenty hours each day looking at these...

these walls...

that door...

that window.

This must have felt like a massive fall from grace.

He was used to crowds applauding him in the theater.

Wilde wrote, "This silence, this solitude...

this isolation from all human and humane influences,

this tomb, for those who are not yet dead..."

Soon after writing these heartfelt words,

Wilde witnessed an event that inspired one of his last great works as a writer.

In 1896, one of Wilde's fellow inmates

was taken into this courtyard for his execution.

Wilde watched the whole execution,

and found it deeply upsetting and horrifying,

and that became the impetus for his final great work.

When he finished his two year sentence,

Wilde was a shell of his former self in every way,

and his reputation was entirely ruined.

An immense sense of shame shrouded Wilde,

and he couldn't stand to be seen in his old circles in London.

After his release in 1897,

Wilde exiled himself in France.

And his forbearing wife finally cut him off

when he refused to give up his lover, Lord Alfred.

In France, he wrote a poem about the execution,

"The Ballad of Reading Gaol."

It was published under the name of his cell, C33.

And here was something that would draw

on the horrors of the prison world,

the horrors to which he had been subjected by the British legal system.

And it would transmute them into art.

It was a remarkable poem,

and it was remarkably received.

On November 30th, 1900,

just three years after his release,

Oscar Wilde died of meningitis in Paris.

The truth was inescapable.

The two years in jail had undermined his health.

Reading Gaol, I think, is one of the key elements in Oscar's life.

I mean, the only location, the only address

which he turned into a work of art.

Reading Gaol continued operating throughout the 20th century.

But in 2014, it was closed for good.

Now there is a movement to make sure the legacy

of its most famous inmate is not forgotten.

There's been a push to save Reading Gaol.

Celebrities like Kate Winslet, Natalie Dormer, and Kenneth Branagh

have all backed the campaign.

In downtown Memphis,

a bastion of institutional corruption,

hides in plain sight.

We're right at the heart of the city,

and it projects this sense of power and authority.

But the domineering edifice belies the dereliction within.

The main entrance is fenced off,

the windows are boarded up.

It makes you wonder, "What happened here?"

Above the building's grand entrance

is etched an indelible clue.

In faded lettering, above the door, reads, "Memphis Police Station."

This was clearly an impressive station.

This now forsaken structure,

was built by a man who reigned over Memphis for decades,

and who used the people inside to do his dirty work.

He would stop at nothing to control the city, and even the entire state.

Everyone was expected to do his bidding,

and if they didn't, there would be consequences.

In the early 1900s,

the city of Memphis was experiencing rapid growth.

But with that, came a downside.

Business was booming.

But as the population surged,

overcrowding, substandard living conditions, and crime

became serious social issues.

An ambitious local businessman saw an opportunity,

and used it to launch his ruthless rise to power

by running for mayor on a Democratic ticket

to clean up the city.

There was a new political player on the scene,

and someone wanted to shake it up,

and that was Edward Hull Crump.

When he was elected mayor in 1910,

Crump began work on a complex of these,

you know, grand structures downtown.

In 1911, work began on a new police headquarters building.

This building was central to his strategy.

It was called Memphis Central Police Station.

Along with their new headquarters,

the department recruited more officers,

and invested in cutting edge patrol vehicles.

The Memphis police were becoming a modern and efficient police force,

and they "owed..." That's an important word.

...they "owed" a lot of that to Edward Crump.

Joe Lowry is a historian

who has extensively researched Edward Crump

and his unorthodox operations.

He was a tremendous man of vision.

But the way he went about gaining what he gained

was different than any other mayor that we ever had here.

The idea was that citizens had more autonomy,

and power, and influence in politics.

They voted for the mayor, but they also voted

for the heads of various commissions, like police and fire.

The belief was that this would lead to less corruption,

you know, more efficient government.

But Crump had other plans.

He realized that all he really needed to do to control the city

was ensure that his people were elected to these commission rules,

and he would control the budgets,

the hiring, the firing,

and even the police.

The mayor grew his network of trusted lieutenants

in key positions.

It became known as "The Crump Political Machine."

This building became an extension

of Crump's Political Machine.

And he used the force like his personal staff.

They were expected to help him campaign,

registered voters, and even drive citizens to the polls

to make sure that they voted for the right candidate.

And this was all done on their own time, and without pay.

Any police who didn't agree with what he was doing

would find themselves passed over for promotion,

given worse duties, or fired under some pretext.

They intimidated and imprisoned journalists,

fabricated charges against Crump's enemies,

and enforced the mayor's dubious views.

Crump used his police department to influence white rule,

and they did it at the end of a night stick.

Mr. Crump was a white supremacist.

He was a segregationist.

He ran Memphis just exactly like a small plantation,

and he was the master.

Everybody... judges,

department heads, state judges,

all were taking their orders from The Machine.

This guy had absolute total power.

And Crump's ambition spread far beyond Memphis.

In 1931, he was elected to the U.S. Congress,

and became a close ally of future President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

When he would go to Washington,

Roosevelt had a standing order...

that if Mr. Crump came, he didn't need an appointment

because he knew that Crump was that powerful,

and could bring the votes.

But Crump always kept a close eye on his hometown.

In 1937, Crump made sure

that his longtime ally, Joe Boyle,

was appointed to the position of a police commissioner.

Mostly because Boyle would do his bidding.

Every decision made by the police department

was made by Mr. Crump through his police chief

and his police commissioner.

Crump liked the way he did things

because Joe Boyle was an aggressive bully.

There were numerous reporters

that had their cameras broken, and they were beat down

because they wrote something that they shouldn't write.

But in the 1940s, Crump's absolute control was challenged,

and he would go to great lengths to maintain his grip on power.

That challenge came from an entrepreneur

and Republican organizer

who would not kowtow to Crump's regime.

J. B. Martin was a successful black businessman in Memphis.

He owned a successful drugstore,

and also was the owner of the Memphis Red Sox.

Dr. Martin made an enemy of Crump

by supporting his political opponent.

Campaigning for the Republican candidate

in the upcoming presidential elections,

he was putting himself at odds with Crump and his Political Machine.

Consequences would be life-changing.

In Memphis is a derelict police station

that was once under the personal control

of career politician Edward Crump.

In the late 1940s,

he used the building's officers

to target his enemy,

an influential drugstore owner named Dr. Martin.

Mr. Crump realized that Dr. Martin

was one of those guys that you want to follow.

He was a guy that you respected

because of his knowledge, and because of his character.

He dispatched his loyal deputies

to persuade Dr. Martin

to renounce his support

of the Republican presidential candidate

and Crump opponent.

They went to him and they told him,

"Do not support that candidate."

And he basically told them what they could do with themselves.

Realizing that he couldn't be threatened,

Crump used his man in the police, Commissioner Boyle,

to do his dirty work.

From his office in this building,

Boyle accused Martin of selling illegal drugs

and ordered two policemen to stand in front of his drugstore all day.

Police searched everyone

going in and out of Martin's store,

including kindergartners who were buying ice cream.

Eventually, people just didn't really want to go,

and so they just, basically, put him out of business,

and they ran him out of town. He went to Chicago.

Dr. Martin's crucial support

for Crump's political opponent had been crushed.

It just goes to show you the power and control Crump had.

It was more like a dictatorship, actually.

Crump's grip over the city continued

right up until the day he died on October 16th, 1954.

Only then did his Political Machine grind to a halt.

After Crump's death,

the Memphis police force continued to grow.

This was certainly still an impressive building to work in,

but it wasn't really built for an ever-expanding police force.

By the 1980s, the police station was getting overcrowded and tired

in need of renovation.

So in 1982, it was finally shuttered.

For more than 40 years, it has sat dormant.

Today, while the former Memphis police headquarters

faces an uncertain future,

the complex legacy of E.H. Crump

continues to be felt across the city.

He had such a command...

of administration and how to use people.

When you have that, you can do anything.

And then he did.

Off the southern tip of Argentina,

lies a remote coastal settlement

that served as the backdrop

for an unlikely global showdown.

On the edge of town, there is this long airstrip,

and then in the distance, you see what looks like mounds of earth.

But there's actually something under them.

They're entirely bare inside.

There's no sign of any furnishings,

just these huge curved roofs.

These don't look like airport buildings.

These look like something much chunkier.

This quiet facility, and the people living nearby,

were plunged into a war that no one thought that they could win.

An armada of warships and aircraft carriers set sail from Europe

to this far flung corner of the South Atlantic Ocean.

This was a mobilization,

the likes of which the country hadn't seen since World War II.

This spot is going to become

a piece of key terrain in a confrontation

that will pit a regional power

against a world power.

Argentinians like Alejandro Granero lived through a time

when his country faced severe economic problems.

It's very difficult to explain today.

But at that time, there was a constant concern.

Generations were permanently on edge.

In the late 1970s,

Argentina's military junta looked to war

to distract its discontented public

from the government's failings.

In 1978,

a military airbase was built here

to focus on the tense and conflicted warlike atmosphere

with the neighboring country of Chile.

Successful diplomatic intervention averted war with Chile.

But by the 1980s,

when a new military leader came to power,

Argentina's woes had still not abated.

In 1982, General Galtieri realizes

that the Falklands present a very enticing opportunity for him.

But the Falklands had been a British overseas territory

since the 1800s.

They valued its potential resources

and strategic position oversea routes.

Its 2,000 odd islanders considered themselves British,

but Argentina had long disputed control.

On April 2nd, Galtieri launched

a full-scale invasion of the islands.

By many, it was seen as this grand nationalistic move.

The Argentines are convinced

the last thing the British are going to do is fight.

Why would they, right? I mean, it's over 8,000 miles away.

U.S. President Ronald Reagan

tried to convince the British not to fight,

even though the Americans were supplying intelligence,

fuel, and ammunition to the British behind the scenes.

To the surprise of everyone,

and as the world watches...

in disbelief,

a British Task Force is moving slowly

to take the Falklands back.

In 1982,

a British armada made up of 127 ships

carrying 25,000 troops,

headed to the Falkland Islands

to defend their strategic outpost.

Meanwhile, the invading Argentinians

rushed to fortify their positions there.

But they ran into a problem.

The Falklands only had three airfields,

and none of them were big enough to support fast jets.

And so, the Argentines had to launch their bombers

and fighter jets from the mainland.

This is Puerto San Julian Airfield,

the closest point on mainland Argentina

to the Falklands,

more than 400 miles away.

By April 5th,

this was a world of over 1,000 people working 24/7.

It never stopped.

Then, on May 1st, 1982,

the British Task Force arrived off the coast of the Falkland Islands.

At the same time,

pilots from Puerto San Julian took to the skies.

It's precisely from here,

from San Julian,

that the first mission making contact and engaging the British fleet departed.

One day later, a British nuclear submarine

responded with an attack that remains controversial to this day.

HMS Conqueror is able to put weapons

into the General Belgrano and sink it.

The Belgrano was an Argentine Navy cruiser

which had been bought from the U.S. Military.

This was one of Argentina's key military assets.

The Argentinians respond by bombing

a series of targets around the Falklands.

The Argentine Air Force pounds the British Task Force,

pounds it when it lands, pounds it when it's at sea.

All the people of Puerto San Julian could do was wait,

and hope that the pilots would return home safely.

The residents would watch the fighter jets take off.

And then when the pilots came back,

they would be counting each aircraft in the sky

to make sure no one had been lost.

It's a time that locals like Andres Kyle will never forget.

I knew people who would say things like,

"Hey, did you notice that today, four planes took off,

and only two or three came back?"

Over 45 days,

the two squadrons based at Puerto San Julian

flew more than 150 sorties against British ships.

There were, allegedly, seven ships sunk.

Nobody in the world, especially Britain,

expected Argentine aircraft to hit even one ship.

The Argentine Air Force is immensely successful

at blunting the British attack.

For a moment, it seemed the Argentinian underdogs

might have the upper hand.

But the pilots' efforts would be in vain.

The Argentine forces were not strong enough.

Those poor Argentine conscripts,

freezing in trenches in the Falklands,

they had no chance.

The British Army manages to kill or capture

all the Argentines.

They surrender.

And the Union Flag...

flew once again.

The conflict lasted just 74 days, and it cost the lives

of 649 Argentines, 255 British,

and three Falkland Islanders.

The British had regained their strategic foothold

in the South Atlantic.

And by the end of the year,

the airfield at Puerto San Julian, had been abandoned.

After the conflict ended, the hangers were basically left to their own devices,

and life in this sleepy port town went back to normal.

Currently, the Falkland Islands is still in British hands,

but for many, the dispute remains.

If you ask me what I think,

well, geographically and historically,

the Falklands are Argentinian,

and have always been Argentinian.