1 00:00:00,027 --> 00:00:03,080 Sub extracted from file and improved by Se7enOfNin9 for addic7ed.com 2 00:00:07,507 --> 00:00:09,467 By the summer of 1944, 3 00:00:09,468 --> 00:00:11,719 the terror and tyranny of the Nazi Third Reich 4 00:00:11,720 --> 00:00:14,055 shrouds most of Europe. 5 00:00:14,056 --> 00:00:17,100 Occupied countries resist as they can. 6 00:00:17,768 --> 00:00:20,937 But with the advance of Soviet forces in the east 7 00:00:20,938 --> 00:00:24,216 and the success of the Normandy invasion in the west, 8 00:00:24,315 --> 00:00:25,918 two of the world's great cities 9 00:00:25,943 --> 00:00:28,987 organize in force and fight back. 10 00:00:29,488 --> 00:00:32,558 Even in the place of greatest horror, 11 00:00:33,091 --> 00:00:35,171 there is resistance. 12 00:00:37,537 --> 00:00:39,231 All wars change the world, 13 00:00:39,373 --> 00:00:41,391 but none of them changed the world 14 00:00:41,416 --> 00:00:43,068 like the Second World War did. 15 00:00:43,585 --> 00:00:45,002 Japan's on the march, 16 00:00:45,003 --> 00:00:46,713 Germany's on the march. 17 00:00:47,944 --> 00:00:49,608 No one can imagine the nightmare 18 00:00:49,633 --> 00:00:51,093 they're about to unleash. 19 00:00:51,611 --> 00:00:54,571 The most destructive war in human history. 20 00:00:54,596 --> 00:00:57,473 Suddenly, the world is turned upside down 21 00:00:57,474 --> 00:00:59,268 and all hell is let loose. 22 00:01:01,092 --> 00:01:04,230 The West is stunned by the speed of the advance. 23 00:01:05,440 --> 00:01:08,568 You get the Allies led by the big three: 24 00:01:08,569 --> 00:01:11,279 Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin. 25 00:01:11,280 --> 00:01:16,243 Men who are dealing with immensely complicated questions. 26 00:01:16,368 --> 00:01:20,705 It's the biggest military operation of human history. 27 00:01:20,706 --> 00:01:22,248 The Allies have to come together, 28 00:01:22,249 --> 00:01:25,163 not just militarily, but industrial scale. 29 00:01:25,188 --> 00:01:27,044 It's a global perspective. 30 00:01:27,045 --> 00:01:29,064 They have to fight in every climate 31 00:01:29,089 --> 00:01:32,174 from the Arctic to the jungles of the Pacific, 32 00:01:32,294 --> 00:01:35,548 to the deserts of Africa and the depths of the ocean. 33 00:01:38,599 --> 00:01:41,460 But there was no certainty of victory. 34 00:01:41,685 --> 00:01:44,755 It was going to be a horrific bloodbath. 35 00:01:44,896 --> 00:01:47,189 We see humans at their absolute worst, 36 00:01:47,190 --> 00:01:49,442 how they treat other human beings, 37 00:01:49,443 --> 00:01:51,277 and we see them at their absolute best, 38 00:01:51,278 --> 00:01:53,697 willing to give their lives that others might live. 39 00:01:53,989 --> 00:01:55,990 World War II was a struggle 40 00:01:55,991 --> 00:01:58,227 in which there could be one victor 41 00:01:58,810 --> 00:02:00,562 and one vanquished. 42 00:02:33,070 --> 00:02:34,737 Since the fall of France, 43 00:02:34,738 --> 00:02:36,197 the BBC has broadcast 44 00:02:36,198 --> 00:02:39,059 daily radio programming to occupied Europe. 45 00:02:40,060 --> 00:02:43,954 Embedded within the broadcasts are coded messages. 46 00:02:48,752 --> 00:02:50,544 The night before D-Day, 47 00:02:50,545 --> 00:02:53,130 the Allied invasion of Western Europe, 48 00:02:53,131 --> 00:02:55,007 the broadcast to occupied France 49 00:02:55,008 --> 00:02:57,995 includes a line from a poem by Paul Verlaine. 50 00:03:06,144 --> 00:03:08,187 The French resistance is waiting, 51 00:03:08,188 --> 00:03:09,605 and when the BBC announces: 52 00:03:09,606 --> 00:03:12,233 "Wound my heart with a monotonous languor," 53 00:03:12,234 --> 00:03:14,460 this is the word that they have been waiting to hear. 54 00:03:14,485 --> 00:03:16,780 The invasion is on. 55 00:03:18,865 --> 00:03:21,867 The Allies want that resistance movement to rise up, 56 00:03:21,868 --> 00:03:23,869 to blow up German railroads, 57 00:03:23,870 --> 00:03:25,663 to ambush German patrols, 58 00:03:25,664 --> 00:03:28,875 and to disrupt the Germans in any way they can. 59 00:03:29,969 --> 00:03:31,627 All of their planning, 60 00:03:31,628 --> 00:03:33,754 all of their networking now goes into action 61 00:03:33,755 --> 00:03:36,398 to slow the German response 62 00:03:36,423 --> 00:03:38,032 so that the Allies can win the race 63 00:03:38,057 --> 00:03:39,661 to build up and break out. 64 00:03:40,011 --> 00:03:42,721 So many men and women throughout France 65 00:03:42,722 --> 00:03:46,001 have risked so much to get to this night 66 00:03:46,626 --> 00:03:49,421 and the beginning of their country's liberation. 67 00:03:52,172 --> 00:03:54,442 After the fall of France in 1940, 68 00:03:54,443 --> 00:03:55,651 there are two Frances. 69 00:03:55,652 --> 00:03:58,822 There's the France that is directly occupied by the Germans, 70 00:03:58,847 --> 00:04:00,110 including Paris, 71 00:04:00,176 --> 00:04:03,951 and there is a puppet regime with its capital at Vichy. 72 00:04:03,952 --> 00:04:06,997 So resistance groups form in each one. 73 00:04:08,992 --> 00:04:10,493 From the start, 74 00:04:10,518 --> 00:04:13,419 the inspiration for French resistance to Germany 75 00:04:13,420 --> 00:04:15,447 was embodied by one man. 76 00:04:18,408 --> 00:04:20,473 A veteran of the Great War, 77 00:04:20,633 --> 00:04:22,760 General Charles De Gaulle. 78 00:04:23,113 --> 00:04:26,002 Charles De Gaulle fought all the way through 79 00:04:26,027 --> 00:04:28,613 the German invasion of France in 1940. 80 00:04:29,102 --> 00:04:30,910 Rather than surrender to the Germans, 81 00:04:30,935 --> 00:04:32,831 rather than go along with the French government, 82 00:04:32,856 --> 00:04:35,434 he arrives in Britain by himself and just says, 83 00:04:35,459 --> 00:04:37,544 "By the way, I'm now the leader of the Free French." 84 00:04:37,569 --> 00:04:39,028 He's self-appointed. 85 00:04:39,029 --> 00:04:42,281 Churchill goes, "Eh, he might be useful." 86 00:04:42,282 --> 00:04:44,241 He gives him an office, gives him a radio, 87 00:04:44,242 --> 00:04:45,827 lets him do some broadcasts. 88 00:04:53,137 --> 00:04:54,753 He's gonna announce: 89 00:04:54,754 --> 00:04:56,629 "The Vichy government is illegitimate." 90 00:04:56,630 --> 00:04:59,006 "Anybody who's in France should come over to England, 91 00:04:59,007 --> 00:05:00,901 and we're gonna start to put together an army 92 00:05:00,926 --> 00:05:02,384 that's gonna liberate ourselves. 93 00:05:02,385 --> 00:05:05,763 If you can't get here, you should start resisting while you're there." 94 00:05:06,939 --> 00:05:09,141 This is an extremely important event 95 00:05:09,142 --> 00:05:11,102 in galvanizing the French people. 96 00:05:11,473 --> 00:05:14,313 Up to that point, they'd been in a state of despondency 97 00:05:14,314 --> 00:05:17,551 at the rapid defeat at the hands of the Germans. 98 00:05:17,884 --> 00:05:21,930 Now, here was a voice, one of their own, offering them hope. 99 00:05:23,014 --> 00:05:26,116 He says, "The flame of French resistance 100 00:05:26,117 --> 00:05:28,118 "Must not be extinguished 101 00:05:28,119 --> 00:05:30,246 and will not be extinguished." 102 00:05:30,247 --> 00:05:31,705 These are words 103 00:05:31,706 --> 00:05:34,543 that French men and women were longing to hear. 104 00:05:35,282 --> 00:05:37,461 It's not only the beginning of the resistance, 105 00:05:37,462 --> 00:05:40,255 it's the beginning of the rise of Charles De Gaulle 106 00:05:40,256 --> 00:05:42,200 to political power in France. 107 00:05:44,453 --> 00:05:47,622 Resistance pops up all over the country. 108 00:05:47,623 --> 00:05:49,783 But these groups aren't connected, 109 00:05:49,808 --> 00:05:51,835 and they all stand for different things. 110 00:05:52,712 --> 00:05:55,038 There are aristocratic Catholics, 111 00:05:55,063 --> 00:05:57,271 Communists, or Republicans. 112 00:05:57,296 --> 00:05:58,959 There are all different groups 113 00:05:58,984 --> 00:06:00,902 jockeying for position between themselves 114 00:06:00,903 --> 00:06:03,180 and fighting against the Germans as well. 115 00:06:04,431 --> 00:06:06,907 A cross-section of French citizens, 116 00:06:06,908 --> 00:06:10,494 teachers, lawyers, farmers, factory workers, 117 00:06:10,495 --> 00:06:12,606 take part in the resistance. 118 00:06:14,458 --> 00:06:16,860 Women play a substantial role. 119 00:06:19,404 --> 00:06:22,590 One of the most important activities of the resistance 120 00:06:22,591 --> 00:06:26,927 was a network of agents and secret codes and safe houses 121 00:06:26,928 --> 00:06:30,264 that helped smuggle downed Allied flyers 122 00:06:30,265 --> 00:06:33,293 out of France and back to safety in Britain. 123 00:06:33,793 --> 00:06:35,352 This underground railroad 124 00:06:35,353 --> 00:06:39,524 helped about 5,000 Allied flyers make it to freedom 125 00:06:39,525 --> 00:06:40,926 in the course of the war. 126 00:06:42,344 --> 00:06:45,321 It's the potential of the Allied invasion 127 00:06:45,322 --> 00:06:46,864 eventually reaching France 128 00:06:46,865 --> 00:06:50,769 that cause volunteers to flock to the resistance. 129 00:06:52,854 --> 00:06:56,582 They're gathering equipment, supplies, weapons 130 00:06:56,583 --> 00:06:59,168 because they think: "Eventually, we will be freed. 131 00:06:59,169 --> 00:07:01,321 How do we help accelerate that?" 132 00:07:06,093 --> 00:07:07,676 The night before D-Day, 133 00:07:07,677 --> 00:07:11,138 dozens of Allied agents are dropped behind German lines 134 00:07:11,139 --> 00:07:14,391 to coordinate with groups of the French resistance, 135 00:07:14,392 --> 00:07:17,295 so-called Jedburgh teams. 136 00:07:18,588 --> 00:07:20,123 Three-man teams 137 00:07:20,148 --> 00:07:22,692 who parachute into occupied France: 138 00:07:22,693 --> 00:07:26,238 an American, a British, and a French agent. 139 00:07:27,429 --> 00:07:29,096 They bring weapons with them. 140 00:07:29,121 --> 00:07:31,582 They'd bring a radio set so they could communicate. 141 00:07:32,838 --> 00:07:34,746 They coordinate activities, 142 00:07:34,771 --> 00:07:38,066 and they inform the groups what the Allies are up to. 143 00:07:38,942 --> 00:07:41,152 The Jedburghs have an ultimate goal, 144 00:07:41,403 --> 00:07:42,920 and that is to ease 145 00:07:42,921 --> 00:07:46,408 the invasion plan for June, 1944. 146 00:07:51,236 --> 00:07:53,612 Once the Allies land in June 6th, 147 00:07:53,637 --> 00:07:55,917 the resistance becomes emboldened. 148 00:07:57,711 --> 00:08:00,589 But many pay a grievous price for their courage. 149 00:08:00,839 --> 00:08:03,482 Germans, with the help of French collaborators, 150 00:08:03,483 --> 00:08:06,636 hunt down anyone assisting the Allies. 151 00:08:07,262 --> 00:08:09,363 The costs of being in the resistance 152 00:08:09,364 --> 00:08:11,824 or around the resistance are incredibly high. 153 00:08:11,825 --> 00:08:13,618 They could be arrested and put in jail, 154 00:08:13,619 --> 00:08:15,327 they could be sent to a labor camp, 155 00:08:15,328 --> 00:08:18,623 hung oftentimes without trial and in public 156 00:08:18,624 --> 00:08:20,400 as a deterrence to everyone else. 157 00:08:21,735 --> 00:08:24,571 The Gestapo carryout reprisals. 158 00:08:24,821 --> 00:08:26,881 "For every one of our soldiers killed, 159 00:08:26,882 --> 00:08:29,051 we will kill 50 resistance fighters." 160 00:08:32,586 --> 00:08:35,087 Four days after the invasion, 161 00:08:35,112 --> 00:08:37,850 near the village of Oradour-sur-Glane, 162 00:08:37,851 --> 00:08:41,896 the local resistance kills an SS battalion commander. 163 00:08:42,201 --> 00:08:46,217 Nazi retribution is swift and merciless. 164 00:08:46,824 --> 00:08:48,473 They take all the men 165 00:08:48,498 --> 00:08:50,849 and they shove them into a bunch of barns, shoot them, 166 00:08:50,874 --> 00:08:52,600 and set the barns on fire. 167 00:08:53,274 --> 00:08:54,950 They take all the women and children 168 00:08:54,951 --> 00:08:56,478 and put them in a church 169 00:08:57,062 --> 00:08:59,189 and then burn the church to the ground, 170 00:08:59,731 --> 00:09:02,209 shooting anyone who tries to climb out. 171 00:09:02,763 --> 00:09:06,588 Collective vengeance for the act of resistance. 172 00:09:10,226 --> 00:09:11,685 On July 25th, 173 00:09:11,686 --> 00:09:14,988 the Americans launch a massive air and ground attack: 174 00:09:15,013 --> 00:09:16,873 Operation Cobra. 175 00:09:18,970 --> 00:09:21,327 After a month and a half of combat 176 00:09:21,352 --> 00:09:23,405 among the hedge rows of Normandy, 177 00:09:23,406 --> 00:09:28,009 the Allies now break through the German defensive perimeter. 178 00:09:30,079 --> 00:09:33,840 Paris is the center of the German occupying force. 179 00:09:33,865 --> 00:09:37,227 But the Allies were not super interested in Paris. 180 00:09:37,936 --> 00:09:40,638 Cities are an enormous military problem. 181 00:09:40,663 --> 00:09:43,002 Do you go into Paris knowing that you could end up 182 00:09:43,003 --> 00:09:45,769 fighting an urban battle that you don't want to fight? 183 00:09:45,794 --> 00:09:48,062 The streets narrow your ability to maneuver. 184 00:09:48,087 --> 00:09:49,773 So fighting inside a city 185 00:09:49,798 --> 00:09:52,643 is nobody's idea of what you want to do. 186 00:09:52,644 --> 00:09:55,678 Of course, if you're French, the situation is completely different. 187 00:09:56,940 --> 00:10:00,359 The French people are thinking that the Allies are 188 00:10:00,360 --> 00:10:03,787 just a few hundred kilometers from the city of Paris, 189 00:10:03,812 --> 00:10:06,581 and they believe that Paris will be next 190 00:10:06,606 --> 00:10:09,793 in the great capitals of Europe to be liberated 191 00:10:09,818 --> 00:10:11,152 from Nazi fascism. 192 00:10:11,913 --> 00:10:14,473 To the French, Paris is not just the capital of France. 193 00:10:15,166 --> 00:10:18,218 It is the most important, most symbolic city 194 00:10:18,243 --> 00:10:19,863 that you're going to liberate. 195 00:10:19,888 --> 00:10:22,347 And the man who thinks he's going to take control 196 00:10:22,372 --> 00:10:24,332 of all of this is Charles De Gaulle. 197 00:10:26,928 --> 00:10:30,063 Throughout the war, he builds up Free French forces 198 00:10:30,088 --> 00:10:32,214 in London and in Africa. 199 00:10:32,215 --> 00:10:34,909 French soldiers flock to his colors. 200 00:10:35,687 --> 00:10:37,229 And, by D-Day, 201 00:10:37,230 --> 00:10:40,524 he has something of a Free French armed force. 202 00:10:40,525 --> 00:10:44,702 And De Gaulle is astonished and appalled to hear 203 00:10:44,727 --> 00:10:48,206 that the Allies are not focusing on Paris 204 00:10:48,231 --> 00:10:49,940 as a key objective. 205 00:10:49,941 --> 00:10:53,820 Paris is like the beating heart of the French republic. 206 00:10:53,970 --> 00:10:56,139 There is no France without Paris. 207 00:10:56,457 --> 00:11:00,101 And De Gaulle said, "If you're not going, I'm going." 208 00:11:05,550 --> 00:11:07,884 Allied forces advance across France 209 00:11:07,885 --> 00:11:11,112 to force the Wehrmacht's retreat to the Rhine and beyond. 210 00:11:13,766 --> 00:11:16,401 Liberating Paris from German occupation 211 00:11:16,426 --> 00:11:19,104 is not their main strategic concern. 212 00:11:19,105 --> 00:11:22,332 But Parisians have other ideas. 213 00:11:22,465 --> 00:11:24,247 The problem for Paris is that, 214 00:11:24,272 --> 00:11:25,726 when the Normandy invasion happens, 215 00:11:25,727 --> 00:11:28,855 it cuts the city off from its principal food supply. 216 00:11:29,017 --> 00:11:30,706 And the Germans are trying to take 217 00:11:30,732 --> 00:11:32,524 everything that they can out of the city. 218 00:11:32,525 --> 00:11:36,659 So it's a very, very unstable, very insecure place. 219 00:11:37,458 --> 00:11:39,114 And so there is the beginnings 220 00:11:39,115 --> 00:11:41,408 of popular uprising in Paris. 221 00:11:41,409 --> 00:11:44,744 A lot of that is being driven by the communist resistance. 222 00:11:44,769 --> 00:11:47,640 De Gaulle is quite keen to get to Paris because what he doesn't want 223 00:11:47,665 --> 00:11:50,226 is Paris to become liberated 224 00:11:50,251 --> 00:11:52,586 by the communist resistance. 225 00:11:52,587 --> 00:11:54,939 He does not want to liberate France 226 00:11:54,964 --> 00:11:57,408 only for it to fall into the hands of communism. 227 00:11:59,244 --> 00:12:02,679 To ensure that French troops liberate Paris, 228 00:12:02,680 --> 00:12:04,874 General De Gaulle requires the support 229 00:12:04,899 --> 00:12:08,920 of the Supreme Allied Commander: General Dwight Eisenhower. 230 00:12:10,088 --> 00:12:12,230 De Gaulle didn't have that many cards 231 00:12:12,231 --> 00:12:14,042 to play in 1944, 232 00:12:14,067 --> 00:12:16,903 but he played them as skillfully as anybody. 233 00:12:17,069 --> 00:12:19,255 There is a French unit, the Second Armored Division, 234 00:12:19,280 --> 00:12:21,007 controlled by General Philippe Leclerc, 235 00:12:21,032 --> 00:12:22,675 that has been disobeying American orders 236 00:12:22,700 --> 00:12:24,993 to get closer and closer and closer to the city 237 00:12:24,994 --> 00:12:27,205 so that it could go into Paris if it had to. 238 00:12:28,378 --> 00:12:31,249 And so De Gaulle became very aggressive about 239 00:12:31,250 --> 00:12:34,211 steering the Second Armored Division toward the city. 240 00:12:34,212 --> 00:12:37,224 He gave General Leclerc specific instructions 241 00:12:37,249 --> 00:12:39,150 to, "No matter what these Americans tell you, 242 00:12:39,175 --> 00:12:41,077 I need you to get to Paris." 243 00:12:41,857 --> 00:12:43,787 As Winston Churchill would say, 244 00:12:43,812 --> 00:12:46,098 he tends to love to bite the hand that feeds him. 245 00:12:46,099 --> 00:12:49,393 You have to give him credit, though, for he has his eye on one thing, 246 00:12:49,394 --> 00:12:51,353 and that's a free France. 247 00:12:57,723 --> 00:12:59,569 Shortly after D-Day, 248 00:12:59,570 --> 00:13:02,114 in coordination with their Western allies, 249 00:13:02,115 --> 00:13:05,117 the Soviets throw the massed might of the Red Army 250 00:13:05,118 --> 00:13:06,644 against the Germans. 251 00:13:08,104 --> 00:13:11,498 Operation Bagration is the gigantic Soviet offensive 252 00:13:11,499 --> 00:13:13,083 in summer of 1944. 253 00:13:13,084 --> 00:13:14,835 Roughly timed to coincide 254 00:13:14,836 --> 00:13:17,196 with the Allies landing in Normandy. 255 00:13:18,197 --> 00:13:21,367 It is just a monstrous offensive. 256 00:13:21,659 --> 00:13:24,970 About two and a half million Soviets are thrown into battle. 257 00:13:24,971 --> 00:13:29,208 Half a million Germans are killed, wounded, or captured. 258 00:13:30,543 --> 00:13:34,563 It erased an entire German army group from the map, 259 00:13:34,564 --> 00:13:38,718 the entire central portion of the German front in the east. 260 00:13:41,721 --> 00:13:44,823 Now the Soviet army is moving into Poland, 261 00:13:44,824 --> 00:13:47,117 and you've gotta remember that, of course, 262 00:13:47,118 --> 00:13:49,479 Poland was the reason the war started. 263 00:13:50,897 --> 00:13:53,248 In the fall of 1939, 264 00:13:53,249 --> 00:13:57,153 Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin agreed to divide Poland. 265 00:13:58,279 --> 00:14:00,130 When Hitler took Poland, 266 00:14:00,131 --> 00:14:02,966 he treated it like the laboratory 267 00:14:02,967 --> 00:14:05,719 for his racial ideas, 268 00:14:05,720 --> 00:14:09,639 his plans to annihilate the Jewish people 269 00:14:09,640 --> 00:14:14,186 and to treat the Eastern Slavic people 270 00:14:14,187 --> 00:14:18,608 as essentially a slave race to work to death. 271 00:14:20,343 --> 00:14:24,279 Poland has been stained in blood and killing, 272 00:14:24,280 --> 00:14:26,948 crushed beneath the German jackboot, 273 00:14:26,949 --> 00:14:29,284 its soil watered with the blood 274 00:14:29,285 --> 00:14:32,021 of vast numbers of its Jewish community. 275 00:14:33,856 --> 00:14:35,332 The Poles have been 276 00:14:35,333 --> 00:14:38,486 living through hell for five years. 277 00:14:38,820 --> 00:14:40,462 If you're a resident of Warsaw, 278 00:14:40,463 --> 00:14:43,032 you are one of the most unlucky people ever to have lived. 279 00:14:46,561 --> 00:14:48,595 Throughout this horror show 280 00:14:48,596 --> 00:14:50,555 that has been inflicted upon the Poles, 281 00:14:50,556 --> 00:14:53,183 they have maintained a shadow government, 282 00:14:53,184 --> 00:14:54,911 a kind of national cohesion. 283 00:14:54,936 --> 00:14:57,062 They have a government-in-exile in London, 284 00:14:57,063 --> 00:14:58,647 and that is sending orders 285 00:14:58,648 --> 00:15:01,275 to a home army, a sort of secret army 286 00:15:01,276 --> 00:15:04,012 of underground resistance fighters in Poland. 287 00:15:06,431 --> 00:15:08,282 The Polish Home Army was formed 288 00:15:08,283 --> 00:15:11,952 really immediately after the Germans invaded. 289 00:15:11,953 --> 00:15:14,997 There was a real sense in amongst the Polish community 290 00:15:14,998 --> 00:15:17,541 and especially the young people: "We're gonna fight." 291 00:15:17,542 --> 00:15:20,794 It was always set up as a formal military organization. 292 00:15:20,795 --> 00:15:23,489 It wasn't just an ad hoc bunch of partisans. 293 00:15:24,198 --> 00:15:27,050 They undertook intelligence gatherings of troop movements. 294 00:15:27,051 --> 00:15:28,426 They gathered information 295 00:15:28,427 --> 00:15:31,080 about the camps, about Auschwitz, and others. 296 00:15:32,915 --> 00:15:36,309 The Home Army is led by a former cavalry officer 297 00:15:36,310 --> 00:15:39,505 who has been fighting the Germans since 1939. 298 00:15:41,507 --> 00:15:44,427 General Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski. 299 00:15:48,487 --> 00:15:51,324 On July 29th, 1944, 300 00:15:51,325 --> 00:15:53,994 as the Allies are slicing through France, 301 00:15:53,995 --> 00:15:57,148 the Soviets reach the outskirts of Warsaw. 302 00:16:00,335 --> 00:16:02,711 The Polish Home Army is waiting for the moment 303 00:16:02,712 --> 00:16:04,546 when the Germans are about to retreat 304 00:16:04,547 --> 00:16:07,549 and just before the Soviets arrive. 305 00:16:07,550 --> 00:16:09,426 Because that is the opportunity 306 00:16:09,427 --> 00:16:13,915 to reassert Polish independence, the Polish state. 307 00:16:15,917 --> 00:16:18,261 They wanted to prove to the world that they 308 00:16:18,286 --> 00:16:22,023 stood on their own feet and that they fought to liberate their own country. 309 00:16:22,024 --> 00:16:24,816 They don't want to give up the Nazi dictatorship 310 00:16:24,817 --> 00:16:27,570 and just have it replaced with a Soviet dictatorship. 311 00:16:30,257 --> 00:16:34,159 The Polish Home Army and General Bór-Komorowski 312 00:16:34,160 --> 00:16:36,312 have long planned for this moment. 313 00:16:38,106 --> 00:16:41,833 There are weapons caches, command structures. 314 00:16:41,834 --> 00:16:45,212 There are instructions coming from senior officers based in London. 315 00:16:45,213 --> 00:16:46,505 There is a plan. 316 00:16:48,605 --> 00:16:51,468 Tens of thousands of Home Army troops 317 00:16:51,469 --> 00:16:53,261 will go all over the city 318 00:16:53,262 --> 00:16:55,031 and go for the most important things: 319 00:16:55,056 --> 00:16:59,185 the airports, the bridges, the main focal points of Nazi power. 320 00:17:00,356 --> 00:17:03,688 It was a moment where timing was everything. 321 00:17:03,689 --> 00:17:07,275 If they did it too soon, the Germans would crush them. 322 00:17:07,276 --> 00:17:10,304 If they did it too late, the Soviets would conquer them. 323 00:17:15,568 --> 00:17:17,118 The Red Army was coming. 324 00:17:17,119 --> 00:17:19,096 It looked as if there was just this juggernaut 325 00:17:19,121 --> 00:17:21,232 that was gonna force the Germans out of the city. 326 00:17:23,209 --> 00:17:24,794 Outside Warsaw, 327 00:17:24,795 --> 00:17:28,114 the Germans regroup on the banks of the Vistula River. 328 00:17:29,593 --> 00:17:31,718 The Poles hear the sounds of fighting, 329 00:17:31,719 --> 00:17:33,277 think the Red Army's gonna win, 330 00:17:33,302 --> 00:17:35,746 and they're about to come into Warsaw. 331 00:17:36,289 --> 00:17:39,075 General Bór-Komorowski gives the order 332 00:17:39,100 --> 00:17:41,043 to begin the uprising. 333 00:17:47,675 --> 00:17:49,752 The Poles have been resisting the Germans 334 00:17:49,777 --> 00:17:51,404 for almost five years. 335 00:17:51,405 --> 00:17:54,724 Now, with the Soviets on the other side of the Vistula, 336 00:17:54,909 --> 00:17:58,411 the Polish Home Army seizes its opportunity. 337 00:17:58,609 --> 00:18:00,888 Because of the Red Army coming so quickly 338 00:18:00,913 --> 00:18:02,556 up to the gates of Warsaw, 339 00:18:02,581 --> 00:18:04,350 General Bór-Komorowski gives the order 340 00:18:04,375 --> 00:18:06,002 to start the uprising. 341 00:18:06,253 --> 00:18:08,880 The Polish Home Army think this is the right moment. 342 00:18:08,881 --> 00:18:10,715 The Russians are approaching, 343 00:18:10,716 --> 00:18:13,718 the Germans are clearly preparing to evacuate, 344 00:18:13,719 --> 00:18:16,471 and the Poles appear out of the sewers, 345 00:18:16,472 --> 00:18:19,056 out of the backstreets, out of the cellars, 346 00:18:19,081 --> 00:18:21,834 and they raise the flag of rebellion. 347 00:18:23,729 --> 00:18:26,064 Civilians are thrilled, they're jubilant. 348 00:18:26,065 --> 00:18:27,973 For the first time since 1939, 349 00:18:27,998 --> 00:18:29,792 they can sing the national anthem. 350 00:18:29,817 --> 00:18:32,586 They push trams over, they build barricades, 351 00:18:32,611 --> 00:18:34,338 and they make it very, very difficult 352 00:18:34,363 --> 00:18:36,474 for the Germans to fight there. 353 00:18:37,409 --> 00:18:40,577 It's a heroic moment, an exciting moment. 354 00:18:40,624 --> 00:18:44,649 Poland is rising like a phoenix out of the ashes. 355 00:18:46,961 --> 00:18:49,837 But the attack does not go as well as it was hoped. 356 00:18:49,838 --> 00:18:53,190 They do manage to seize the post office, 357 00:18:53,215 --> 00:18:55,985 they manage to seize an important German arsenal, 358 00:18:56,010 --> 00:18:58,070 but they don't manage to secure the airport. 359 00:18:58,095 --> 00:19:00,740 So it's up for grabs by the end of that day. 360 00:19:00,765 --> 00:19:03,701 You get this sort of twisted patchwork 361 00:19:03,726 --> 00:19:05,745 of Polish and German control, 362 00:19:05,770 --> 00:19:08,064 which ensures that there is gonna be 363 00:19:08,065 --> 00:19:10,316 the mother of all street fights. 364 00:19:12,069 --> 00:19:13,627 The Polish Home Army 365 00:19:13,652 --> 00:19:15,755 expected the Germans controlling Warsaw 366 00:19:15,780 --> 00:19:17,515 to be in retreat. 367 00:19:20,910 --> 00:19:24,939 Instead, the Wehrmacht attacks the Red Army at the Vistula 368 00:19:25,481 --> 00:19:27,817 and retains their grip on Warsaw. 369 00:19:32,006 --> 00:19:34,132 Adolf Hitler meets with Heinrich Himmler, 370 00:19:34,133 --> 00:19:36,242 head of the Nazi SS. 371 00:19:37,743 --> 00:19:40,554 On the night of the 1st of August, 1944, 372 00:19:40,579 --> 00:19:43,366 Himmler goes up to the Wolfsschanze, he sees Hitler, 373 00:19:43,391 --> 00:19:45,785 and Hitler's raging around. 374 00:19:45,810 --> 00:19:48,204 And Himmler goes, "You know, Mein Fuhrer, 375 00:19:48,229 --> 00:19:50,581 let's use this as a moment 376 00:19:50,606 --> 00:19:52,875 to erase Warsaw from the map. 377 00:19:52,900 --> 00:19:55,461 Because this wretched city has stood in our way 378 00:19:55,504 --> 00:19:57,797 of German expansion to the East for hundreds of years. 379 00:19:57,822 --> 00:19:59,432 So let's just do it." 380 00:19:59,932 --> 00:20:01,366 So that evening, 381 00:20:01,367 --> 00:20:03,561 they give what's called the Order for Warsaw. 382 00:20:05,187 --> 00:20:06,788 The Germans have a plan 383 00:20:06,789 --> 00:20:10,192 to wipe Poland literally from the face of the Earth. 384 00:20:11,027 --> 00:20:13,671 One, you wanna send a message to everybody else 385 00:20:13,672 --> 00:20:15,756 that this is the cost of defying me. 386 00:20:15,757 --> 00:20:18,221 But the other reason is you want to destroy Poland 387 00:20:18,259 --> 00:20:20,453 as a national identity. 388 00:20:21,889 --> 00:20:24,473 Every combatant is to be killed. 389 00:20:24,600 --> 00:20:27,894 All men and women and children, civilians are to be killed. 390 00:20:27,895 --> 00:20:29,703 And then the city is to be looted, 391 00:20:29,728 --> 00:20:33,107 and then, glattrasiert, that means razed to the ground. 392 00:20:37,389 --> 00:20:40,423 The Germans poured in ruthless shock troops 393 00:20:40,448 --> 00:20:42,824 with the express purpose of destroying them. 394 00:20:42,825 --> 00:20:46,453 The Home Army used up their caches of weapons very fast. 395 00:20:48,956 --> 00:20:51,791 The Poles think the Red Army is coming. 396 00:20:51,792 --> 00:20:54,019 The whole thing depended upon the idea 397 00:20:54,044 --> 00:20:55,896 that Germans were either leaving 398 00:20:55,921 --> 00:20:59,617 or could not reinforce their existing troops within Warsaw. 399 00:21:00,201 --> 00:21:03,112 Neither of those two things turned out to be true. 400 00:21:03,137 --> 00:21:06,457 The Germans weren't leaving and the Soviets weren't coming. 401 00:21:06,957 --> 00:21:09,577 Stalin says, to everyone's surprise: 402 00:21:09,602 --> 00:21:11,337 "Halt the army." 403 00:21:12,088 --> 00:21:15,633 They can see across the river Warsaw is burning. 404 00:21:17,735 --> 00:21:20,363 Although the Soviets are right across the river, 405 00:21:20,364 --> 00:21:23,115 they make no effort to support 406 00:21:23,140 --> 00:21:25,910 the resistance in its uprising against the Germans. 407 00:21:25,911 --> 00:21:27,660 Rather, they sit across the river 408 00:21:27,685 --> 00:21:30,164 and watch the Germans crush the uprising. 409 00:21:31,540 --> 00:21:33,208 Stalin doesn't just do nothing. 410 00:21:33,209 --> 00:21:35,612 He actively interferes with the Allies' attempt 411 00:21:35,637 --> 00:21:37,988 to help the Home Army, the Polish uprising. 412 00:21:39,448 --> 00:21:41,384 From their air bases in Italy, 413 00:21:41,385 --> 00:21:45,579 the British and Americans try to drop supplies to the Poles. 414 00:21:46,038 --> 00:21:47,948 Churchill asks permission: 415 00:21:47,980 --> 00:21:50,075 "Can Allied planes carrying supplies 416 00:21:50,100 --> 00:21:53,662 use Soviet bases to refuel and carry out repairs?" 417 00:21:53,687 --> 00:21:54,964 Stalin says no. 418 00:21:56,275 --> 00:21:57,900 Stalin has always hated 419 00:21:57,901 --> 00:21:59,752 the Polish government in London, 420 00:21:59,777 --> 00:22:02,796 which he regards as bourgeois, imperialist, capitalist. 421 00:22:02,821 --> 00:22:07,034 He has a small Polish communist group. 422 00:22:07,035 --> 00:22:08,452 He is always planning 423 00:22:08,453 --> 00:22:11,397 to parachute them into Poland as his government. 424 00:22:11,647 --> 00:22:15,226 And so Stalin is content to watch the Germans 425 00:22:15,251 --> 00:22:17,228 utterly destroy the Polish Home Army, 426 00:22:17,253 --> 00:22:19,313 destroy the population of Warsaw, 427 00:22:19,338 --> 00:22:21,382 and destroy the city itself. 428 00:22:21,383 --> 00:22:23,718 Stalin wants to conquer Poland, 429 00:22:23,719 --> 00:22:25,303 but he wants to make sure 430 00:22:25,304 --> 00:22:29,265 that it's then turned into a communist vassal client state. 431 00:22:29,266 --> 00:22:30,850 He wants to wait 432 00:22:30,851 --> 00:22:34,479 until the Nazis have destroyed the Polish underground 433 00:22:34,480 --> 00:22:37,064 before he enters Warsaw. 434 00:22:37,065 --> 00:22:39,318 Let them do his work for him. 435 00:22:41,712 --> 00:22:46,573 Hitler sends in his most psychopathic crews 436 00:22:46,574 --> 00:22:50,644 of murderous, grotesque sadists. 437 00:22:52,372 --> 00:22:55,015 Some of them are the most brutal murderers 438 00:22:55,040 --> 00:22:56,809 of the entire Nazi regime. 439 00:22:56,834 --> 00:22:58,185 Like Oskar Dirlewanger. 440 00:22:58,210 --> 00:23:00,279 Even the SS doesn't wanna work with him. 441 00:23:01,215 --> 00:23:03,508 They go through building after building, 442 00:23:03,509 --> 00:23:05,718 then they round these people up by the thousands 443 00:23:05,719 --> 00:23:07,745 and then mow those people down. 444 00:23:09,330 --> 00:23:12,074 When 5,000, 6,000 bodies are lying there, 445 00:23:12,099 --> 00:23:14,451 then they bring in the Verbrennungskommando, 446 00:23:14,476 --> 00:23:16,979 these burning commandos, to burn the bodies, 447 00:23:16,980 --> 00:23:19,088 specialists from places like Treblinka 448 00:23:19,113 --> 00:23:22,366 who've now become specialists at burning human flesh. 449 00:23:24,179 --> 00:23:27,806 They loot the entire city and then they destroy it. 450 00:23:28,682 --> 00:23:32,094 Building by building, libraries, museums, 451 00:23:32,119 --> 00:23:33,662 everything is destroyed. 452 00:23:37,399 --> 00:23:39,860 The Polish Home Army surrenders. 453 00:23:41,320 --> 00:23:45,574 General Bór-Komorowski is imprisoned by the Nazis. 454 00:23:48,244 --> 00:23:50,154 By the end of the Warsaw Uprising, 455 00:23:50,179 --> 00:23:52,369 about 200,000 civilians have been killed. 456 00:23:54,184 --> 00:23:56,143 Then the remaining population 457 00:23:56,144 --> 00:23:58,212 are sent to camps like Auschwitz. 458 00:23:58,605 --> 00:24:01,399 Some are sent as slave laborers into the Reich. 459 00:24:01,400 --> 00:24:03,208 So the destruction of Warsaw 460 00:24:03,233 --> 00:24:05,169 is unique in the destruction of cities 461 00:24:05,194 --> 00:24:06,887 in the Second World War in Europe. 462 00:24:07,938 --> 00:24:09,632 In Warsaw, tragically, 463 00:24:09,657 --> 00:24:12,034 the Germans chose to meet 464 00:24:12,059 --> 00:24:14,516 that desire for Polish independence 465 00:24:14,541 --> 00:24:16,898 with overwhelming force. 466 00:24:18,834 --> 00:24:20,942 To kill and smash 467 00:24:20,967 --> 00:24:22,753 and eradicate Polish culture. 468 00:24:25,257 --> 00:24:27,941 To say, "No, you will not liberate yourselves. 469 00:24:27,966 --> 00:24:30,327 In fact, you have condemned yourselves." 470 00:24:38,378 --> 00:24:40,629 August, 1944. 471 00:24:40,814 --> 00:24:44,133 The Germans are in full retreat across France. 472 00:24:45,611 --> 00:24:47,928 They begin to evacuate Paris. 473 00:24:49,156 --> 00:24:52,725 Parisians sense a chance to recapture their city. 474 00:24:53,809 --> 00:24:55,519 But they need a spark. 475 00:24:55,766 --> 00:24:57,328 On the 15th of August, 476 00:24:57,329 --> 00:25:00,265 the Parisian police, which was 20,000 strong 477 00:25:00,290 --> 00:25:02,267 and had been collaborating with the Germans 478 00:25:02,292 --> 00:25:03,644 up to that moment, 479 00:25:03,669 --> 00:25:07,168 actually switches sides and raises the flag 480 00:25:07,193 --> 00:25:08,532 on their building, 481 00:25:08,866 --> 00:25:11,943 giving the sign to the rest of the city 482 00:25:11,968 --> 00:25:13,487 and of course to the partisans 483 00:25:13,512 --> 00:25:16,639 that this was the moment the uprising needed to start. 484 00:25:19,895 --> 00:25:23,339 And so the streets of Paris become a battlefield. 485 00:25:27,138 --> 00:25:30,629 The French resistance has been preparing for this moment 486 00:25:30,654 --> 00:25:32,323 for a very long time. 487 00:25:35,367 --> 00:25:38,220 And they act against the Germans quite rapidly 488 00:25:38,245 --> 00:25:39,772 and quite successfully. 489 00:25:42,524 --> 00:25:44,810 As this happened, Charles De Gaulle shows up 490 00:25:44,835 --> 00:25:47,479 to Supreme Allied Commander Eisenhower's headquarters 491 00:25:47,504 --> 00:25:49,448 and go, "We have to march on Paris." 492 00:25:50,427 --> 00:25:52,651 The Allies don't particularly like De Gaulle 493 00:25:52,676 --> 00:25:55,387 but see De Gaulle as a bulwark against communism. 494 00:25:55,520 --> 00:25:57,281 Eisenhower is smart enough to know 495 00:25:57,306 --> 00:25:58,939 that it would look really, really good 496 00:25:58,964 --> 00:26:02,086 if the first troops to enter Paris were the Free French. 497 00:26:03,337 --> 00:26:06,850 Eisenhower decides to allow the Free French forces 498 00:26:06,851 --> 00:26:08,977 to send one division into the city 499 00:26:08,978 --> 00:26:12,262 and to help the insurgents to free the city. 500 00:26:13,817 --> 00:26:16,443 Supported by the American Fourth Division, 501 00:26:16,444 --> 00:26:18,260 General De Gaulle orders 502 00:26:18,285 --> 00:26:21,647 the French Second Armored Division into Paris. 503 00:26:22,690 --> 00:26:24,165 Toward the bitter end, 504 00:26:24,166 --> 00:26:27,311 Adolf Hitler issues instructions to General von Choltitz, 505 00:26:27,336 --> 00:26:30,374 who was in control of Paris, to destroy the city. 506 00:26:30,375 --> 00:26:32,459 Hitler, during a phone call with von Choltitz, 507 00:26:32,460 --> 00:26:34,743 asks: "Is Paris burning?" 508 00:26:35,494 --> 00:26:37,404 And von Choltitz tells him: 509 00:26:37,429 --> 00:26:39,883 "Yes, my Fuhrer, we burned the city." 510 00:26:44,264 --> 00:26:47,131 Instead, he negotiates a surrender. 511 00:26:56,682 --> 00:26:58,383 It is the officers and men 512 00:26:58,408 --> 00:27:00,738 of that Second French Armored Division 513 00:27:00,739 --> 00:27:02,740 who first enter Paris. 514 00:27:07,611 --> 00:27:09,288 So De Gaulle can claim 515 00:27:09,289 --> 00:27:11,749 that the French have liberated their own capital. 516 00:27:11,750 --> 00:27:12,875 And not just any old French, 517 00:27:12,876 --> 00:27:14,626 not the communist French, not the resis... 518 00:27:14,627 --> 00:27:16,795 His French army. 519 00:27:21,926 --> 00:27:24,284 He is the one leading the parade 520 00:27:24,309 --> 00:27:26,787 through the streets of Paris, presenting himself 521 00:27:26,812 --> 00:27:29,433 as the legitimate leader of the French government. 522 00:27:34,401 --> 00:27:36,404 Everyone in the city has come out 523 00:27:36,405 --> 00:27:39,658 now because they feel that their moment of liberation is on them. 524 00:27:49,473 --> 00:27:53,130 But there are still German soldiers in Paris. 525 00:28:03,787 --> 00:28:06,034 General De Gaulle walked straight ahead 526 00:28:06,059 --> 00:28:08,311 into what appeared to me to be a hail of fire. 527 00:28:08,312 --> 00:28:11,266 But he went straight ahead without hesitation, 528 00:28:11,267 --> 00:28:13,175 his shoulders flung back. 529 00:28:17,404 --> 00:28:19,988 Most Germans have surrendered or fled. 530 00:28:20,069 --> 00:28:22,070 The last are tracked down, 531 00:28:22,111 --> 00:28:24,144 along with French collaborators. 532 00:28:47,922 --> 00:28:50,537 He presents the liberation of Paris 533 00:28:50,562 --> 00:28:52,558 as a story of self-liberation, 534 00:28:52,559 --> 00:28:54,958 a Paris that was able to free itself 535 00:28:54,983 --> 00:28:57,294 from the yoke of the German occupation 536 00:28:57,319 --> 00:28:59,221 without the help of the Allies. 537 00:29:05,530 --> 00:29:09,014 However, let's say the Allied presence in the region 538 00:29:09,039 --> 00:29:10,557 also played a major role 539 00:29:10,582 --> 00:29:12,901 in convincing the Germans that it was time to go. 540 00:29:14,747 --> 00:29:16,845 France will enter this post-war period 541 00:29:16,870 --> 00:29:18,656 with pride and with confidence. 542 00:29:18,751 --> 00:29:21,109 It's difficult to imagine how that would've happened 543 00:29:21,134 --> 00:29:23,775 if not for the efforts of all of the resistance groups 544 00:29:23,800 --> 00:29:25,906 that fought against Nazi aggression. 545 00:29:33,474 --> 00:29:36,425 But, in Warsaw, the outcome is different. 546 00:29:36,717 --> 00:29:39,553 The city is razed by the Nazis. 547 00:29:41,597 --> 00:29:45,559 And what remains is captured and controlled by the Soviets. 548 00:29:49,316 --> 00:29:52,441 Paris, the city of light, is saved. 549 00:29:54,067 --> 00:29:58,488 Warsaw and the hope of the Polish people is destroyed. 550 00:30:10,595 --> 00:30:13,203 Resistance is important 551 00:30:13,228 --> 00:30:15,265 for the people of a nation 552 00:30:15,266 --> 00:30:17,424 who do not want to be subjugated. 553 00:30:18,884 --> 00:30:22,981 While the French and the Poles rise up against the Germans 554 00:30:22,982 --> 00:30:26,433 within the extermination camps at Auschwitz and others, 555 00:30:27,320 --> 00:30:30,228 there is also this spirit of resistance. 556 00:30:35,432 --> 00:30:38,257 The deliberate killing of Jews by the Nazis 557 00:30:38,282 --> 00:30:40,072 began with bullets. 558 00:30:42,741 --> 00:30:44,359 Shortly after the Germans 559 00:30:44,384 --> 00:30:48,038 invaded the Soviet Union in June, 1941, 560 00:30:49,331 --> 00:30:52,918 they started to shoot Jewish children, women, and men, 561 00:30:53,721 --> 00:30:56,672 and bury them in ravines and forests. 562 00:30:59,983 --> 00:31:02,644 But eventually the Nazis required 563 00:31:02,726 --> 00:31:05,889 a more systematic method of murder. 564 00:31:06,618 --> 00:31:09,504 There were tens of thousands of the camps by the end of the war. 565 00:31:09,529 --> 00:31:10,934 It's a huge infrastructure. 566 00:31:10,959 --> 00:31:13,496 But there were a very small 567 00:31:13,497 --> 00:31:17,100 number of death camps within this enormous system. 568 00:31:17,125 --> 00:31:19,251 Six death camps. 569 00:31:19,252 --> 00:31:21,378 Chelmno, which is the original death camp, 570 00:31:21,379 --> 00:31:23,458 Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, 571 00:31:23,459 --> 00:31:26,660 and then Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek. 572 00:31:28,829 --> 00:31:31,415 As the Red Army pushes into Poland, 573 00:31:31,676 --> 00:31:34,344 the Nazis attempt to hide their great crime 574 00:31:34,345 --> 00:31:37,004 by dismantling the killing centers. 575 00:31:40,215 --> 00:31:41,935 They destroyed documents. 576 00:31:41,936 --> 00:31:43,752 They destroyed the major death camps 577 00:31:43,777 --> 00:31:46,023 at Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. 578 00:31:46,024 --> 00:31:48,215 They get rid of the vast majority of the buildings. 579 00:31:48,240 --> 00:31:49,591 They cover them over. 580 00:31:49,616 --> 00:31:51,343 They create farmhouses on the site 581 00:31:51,368 --> 00:31:52,969 to conceal everything that they've done. 582 00:31:52,994 --> 00:31:55,680 And then as the camps come into the path 583 00:31:55,705 --> 00:31:58,859 of invading Allied armies, they evacuate them. 584 00:32:03,236 --> 00:32:05,649 At Auschwitz-Birkenau, there are prisoners 585 00:32:05,674 --> 00:32:09,176 determined to document the Nazi murders. 586 00:32:09,177 --> 00:32:11,696 The extermination camp system 587 00:32:11,721 --> 00:32:13,884 includes the sorting of people. 588 00:32:13,885 --> 00:32:16,576 Some of them are left alive because they looked 589 00:32:16,601 --> 00:32:19,097 as if they were young or fit or healthy enough. 590 00:32:19,098 --> 00:32:22,107 Those people work in something called a Sonderkommando. 591 00:32:22,310 --> 00:32:25,312 They are supposed to sort the clothing, 592 00:32:25,313 --> 00:32:27,529 sort the hair that's been cut off people, 593 00:32:27,554 --> 00:32:29,191 to move the corpses, 594 00:32:29,192 --> 00:32:31,950 all these terrible, terrible jobs that they're given. 595 00:32:33,143 --> 00:32:35,452 In 1944 in Auschwitz-Birkenau, 596 00:32:35,453 --> 00:32:36,948 members of the resistance movement 597 00:32:36,949 --> 00:32:39,785 managed to smuggle a camera into the camp. 598 00:32:39,786 --> 00:32:42,567 The Sonderkommando, who were witnessing all of these things 599 00:32:42,592 --> 00:32:44,427 on a day-to-day basis, secure this camera, 600 00:32:44,452 --> 00:32:47,524 and their ambition is to use this camera to record 601 00:32:47,589 --> 00:32:50,443 images of what's happening within the camp 602 00:32:50,468 --> 00:32:54,289 in order for those pictures to stir the world to respond. 603 00:32:55,040 --> 00:32:58,710 One prisoner manages to photograph the horror. 604 00:33:06,521 --> 00:33:08,845 Four images of hell. 605 00:33:09,888 --> 00:33:12,382 The really extraordinary thing about them 606 00:33:12,407 --> 00:33:14,778 is that the images themselves are framed 607 00:33:14,779 --> 00:33:18,824 from within the doorway of the gas chamber building itself. 608 00:33:18,825 --> 00:33:22,499 So the images testify to the bravery 609 00:33:22,500 --> 00:33:24,519 of what this man was doing 610 00:33:24,544 --> 00:33:29,157 and the appalling depravity of the process at that stage. 611 00:33:30,169 --> 00:33:32,295 And what we see within these images 612 00:33:32,296 --> 00:33:35,789 are the burning of bodies outside the crematoria. 613 00:33:37,635 --> 00:33:40,118 And we see people being undressed, 614 00:33:40,143 --> 00:33:42,472 waiting to be brought into the gas chamber. 615 00:33:45,810 --> 00:33:48,793 The film is put into a tube of toothpaste 616 00:33:48,818 --> 00:33:51,555 and then smuggled out to the Polish Home Army. 617 00:33:53,025 --> 00:33:55,659 This is perhaps the single most 618 00:33:55,684 --> 00:33:58,119 valuable photographic evidence 619 00:33:58,185 --> 00:34:00,174 to emerge from Auschwitz. 620 00:34:03,286 --> 00:34:07,812 The Jews fought back from 1933 to the end of the war. 621 00:34:07,837 --> 00:34:09,255 There are escapes. 622 00:34:09,256 --> 00:34:13,318 There are individual killings of guards by prisoners. 623 00:34:13,343 --> 00:34:16,413 The Jews are fighting back this entire time. 624 00:34:17,038 --> 00:34:19,307 Resistance is what gives us 625 00:34:19,332 --> 00:34:21,810 testimony of what happened in those places. 626 00:34:26,106 --> 00:34:28,268 In the fall of 1944, 627 00:34:28,269 --> 00:34:32,570 Nazi Germany is retreating on all fronts except one: 628 00:34:33,028 --> 00:34:35,432 their war against the Jews. 629 00:34:36,433 --> 00:34:39,661 Auschwitz-Birkenau is now the frontline. 630 00:34:43,696 --> 00:34:46,059 Killing Jews is not a secondary byproduct 631 00:34:46,084 --> 00:34:47,185 of their military goals. 632 00:34:47,210 --> 00:34:49,196 It is their military goal. 633 00:34:51,656 --> 00:34:53,144 From Hitler's perspective, 634 00:34:53,168 --> 00:34:55,545 it's worth apportioning resources to it 635 00:34:55,546 --> 00:34:58,138 despite what's happening elsewhere. 636 00:34:58,163 --> 00:35:01,249 In fact, they accelerate the process of mass murder. 637 00:35:03,805 --> 00:35:07,747 In 1944, the Nazis decide to exterminate 638 00:35:07,772 --> 00:35:10,018 the Hungarian Jewish population. 639 00:35:10,019 --> 00:35:13,420 So a special train line is built into Auschwitz-Birkenau, 640 00:35:13,445 --> 00:35:17,067 and hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews are rounded up, 641 00:35:17,068 --> 00:35:18,586 and many of them are murdered 642 00:35:18,611 --> 00:35:21,895 within a few hours of their arriving at the camp. 643 00:35:23,605 --> 00:35:27,750 1944 is when Auschwitz hits its 644 00:35:27,751 --> 00:35:30,061 terrible, appalling peak 645 00:35:30,086 --> 00:35:33,073 in terms of the number of people killed. 646 00:35:37,901 --> 00:35:40,799 Requests start to come to the U.S. government 647 00:35:40,800 --> 00:35:43,199 to bomb either the rail lines, 648 00:35:43,224 --> 00:35:46,286 the gas chambers at Auschwitz, the crematoria, 649 00:35:46,311 --> 00:35:49,339 the bridges leading to these camps. 650 00:35:51,091 --> 00:35:52,788 The idea of bombing death camps 651 00:35:52,812 --> 00:35:55,553 is difficult operationally and it's difficult morally. 652 00:35:56,023 --> 00:35:59,240 You're going to kill the very people that you're trying to rescue. 653 00:36:01,946 --> 00:36:03,863 Churchill and Roosevelt's perspective: 654 00:36:03,864 --> 00:36:05,305 humanitarian concerns 655 00:36:05,330 --> 00:36:07,437 were always secondary to winning the war. 656 00:36:07,462 --> 00:36:08,592 They would say: 657 00:36:08,617 --> 00:36:10,251 "The best thing that we can do 658 00:36:10,252 --> 00:36:11,452 to help these people 659 00:36:11,477 --> 00:36:14,155 is to bring the war to an end as quickly as possible." 660 00:36:17,053 --> 00:36:19,134 Prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau 661 00:36:19,135 --> 00:36:21,955 cannot afford to wait for the war to end. 662 00:36:22,163 --> 00:36:25,250 They want to survive, they want to escape, 663 00:36:25,792 --> 00:36:28,253 and they want to stop the killing. 664 00:36:35,561 --> 00:36:36,936 From the beginning, 665 00:36:36,937 --> 00:36:39,631 there has been an underground of resistance 666 00:36:39,656 --> 00:36:41,240 at Auschwitz-Birkenau 667 00:36:41,241 --> 00:36:43,385 made up of various groups of prisoners, 668 00:36:43,410 --> 00:36:45,312 including the Sonderkommando. 669 00:36:46,604 --> 00:36:48,807 The Sonderkommando starts to realize 670 00:36:48,832 --> 00:36:50,266 that there are fewer and fewer 671 00:36:50,291 --> 00:36:52,626 of these transports coming from Hungary. 672 00:36:52,627 --> 00:36:56,731 "The extermination process is finishing, our time is coming, 673 00:36:56,756 --> 00:36:59,784 and if we don't act quickly, we're going to be killed." 674 00:37:00,493 --> 00:37:03,762 So they started to look at ways they could resist. 675 00:37:03,763 --> 00:37:05,556 They might die trying, 676 00:37:05,557 --> 00:37:07,599 there's a very good chance that they'll die trying, 677 00:37:07,600 --> 00:37:10,170 but at least they can give themselves a chance. 678 00:37:10,478 --> 00:37:13,564 Because they're determined to do whatever they can 679 00:37:13,565 --> 00:37:16,301 to meet the moment on their own terms. 680 00:37:17,135 --> 00:37:19,596 Auschwitz is a death camp, 681 00:37:19,804 --> 00:37:22,432 and it's also a forced labor facility. 682 00:37:22,615 --> 00:37:24,467 And so there were women 683 00:37:24,492 --> 00:37:26,594 who were working in the armaments factories 684 00:37:26,619 --> 00:37:28,163 nearby Auschwitz 685 00:37:28,188 --> 00:37:30,523 who had access to gunpowder. 686 00:37:31,611 --> 00:37:33,413 One member of the underground 687 00:37:33,438 --> 00:37:35,061 is part of a slave labor unit 688 00:37:35,086 --> 00:37:38,698 that sorts the clothing of the dead: Roza Robota. 689 00:37:38,840 --> 00:37:41,242 She makes contact with the Sonderkommando. 690 00:37:41,384 --> 00:37:44,371 They form a plan to destroy the crematoria, 691 00:37:44,554 --> 00:37:48,917 provoke a wider uprising, and attempt to escape. 692 00:37:49,834 --> 00:37:53,997 Robota enlists Jewish women working in the munitions factory 693 00:37:54,022 --> 00:37:55,924 to smuggle gunpowder: 694 00:37:56,458 --> 00:38:01,087 Ala Gertner, Regina Safirsztajn, and Esther Wajcblum. 695 00:38:01,112 --> 00:38:03,958 So they secured these explosives at enormous risk, 696 00:38:03,983 --> 00:38:06,926 and they're smuggling them through various kind of ingenious means. 697 00:38:06,951 --> 00:38:09,989 They create little packets of fabric that they hide them in, 698 00:38:10,014 --> 00:38:11,731 and they get them through. 699 00:38:13,274 --> 00:38:15,375 The women are collecting the gunpowder 700 00:38:15,376 --> 00:38:17,216 to hand them off to their friend Roza. 701 00:38:17,241 --> 00:38:18,938 She is going to get the gunpowder 702 00:38:18,963 --> 00:38:20,672 into the hands of the Sonderkommando, 703 00:38:20,673 --> 00:38:22,984 who are going to use it to try to blow up 704 00:38:23,009 --> 00:38:24,911 the crematoria where they're working. 705 00:38:27,455 --> 00:38:29,056 At a certain moment, 706 00:38:29,057 --> 00:38:30,724 an individual takes an improvised weapon 707 00:38:30,725 --> 00:38:33,227 and launches at a member of the SS, 708 00:38:33,228 --> 00:38:35,562 and that kickstarts the whole thing. 709 00:38:37,966 --> 00:38:40,502 There's smoke, there's noise, there's shouting, 710 00:38:40,527 --> 00:38:42,095 and there's gunfire. 711 00:38:45,573 --> 00:38:49,201 The resistors end up blowing up, in part, 712 00:38:49,202 --> 00:38:51,604 one of the crematoria, Crematoria IV. 713 00:38:52,897 --> 00:38:55,225 It's put permanently out of commission. 714 00:38:55,250 --> 00:38:58,528 So the Sonderkommando would've considered that to be a a success. 715 00:38:59,404 --> 00:39:01,231 And in another crematory building, 716 00:39:01,256 --> 00:39:03,966 the Sonderkommando force some the guards 717 00:39:03,967 --> 00:39:06,119 into one of the ovens alive. 718 00:39:09,789 --> 00:39:11,515 Some prisoners escape 719 00:39:11,516 --> 00:39:13,726 but are quickly caught and executed. 720 00:39:17,396 --> 00:39:19,523 The three women who have been 721 00:39:19,524 --> 00:39:21,066 stealing the gunpowder 722 00:39:21,067 --> 00:39:24,279 plus Roza Robota are to be hanged. 723 00:39:24,990 --> 00:39:27,599 And just as the noose is put around her neck, 724 00:39:27,951 --> 00:39:32,145 she yells out to the group of prisoners assembled: 725 00:39:33,938 --> 00:39:37,025 "Vengeance," or, "Sisters, avenge." 726 00:39:38,109 --> 00:39:40,019 It is a passionate message 727 00:39:40,044 --> 00:39:43,406 of resilience, resistance, and continue the fight. 728 00:39:46,637 --> 00:39:48,054 In December, 729 00:39:48,055 --> 00:39:51,080 the Red Army advances on Auschwitz-Birkenau. 730 00:39:55,145 --> 00:39:58,838 The SS forced prisoners on marches into Germany. 731 00:40:01,985 --> 00:40:03,502 Thousands die. 732 00:40:07,407 --> 00:40:10,767 On January 27th, 1945, 733 00:40:10,952 --> 00:40:15,146 Soviet soldiers arrive at the gates of Auschwitz-Birkenau. 734 00:40:17,357 --> 00:40:19,751 Auschwitz really became 735 00:40:19,776 --> 00:40:23,554 the center of the mass murder of Europe's Jews quite late in the war. 736 00:40:23,648 --> 00:40:25,721 The important thing to know is that 737 00:40:25,795 --> 00:40:29,360 80% of the Jews murdered in the Holocaust 738 00:40:29,385 --> 00:40:30,862 were not murdered at Auschwitz, 739 00:40:30,887 --> 00:40:32,387 but elsewhere in places 740 00:40:32,388 --> 00:40:36,084 that are either forgotten or largely overlooked. 741 00:40:40,157 --> 00:40:42,606 The Nazis and their collaborators 742 00:40:42,607 --> 00:40:45,526 murder six million Jews during the war. 743 00:40:46,690 --> 00:40:49,847 Millions of others die at their hands. 744 00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:55,619 But in the face of unimaginable conditions 745 00:40:55,620 --> 00:40:57,814 and inconceivable cruelty, 746 00:41:01,013 --> 00:41:03,736 some find a way to resist. 747 00:41:05,446 --> 00:41:07,782 Resistance takes so many forms. 748 00:41:08,032 --> 00:41:10,342 There's armed resistance and uprising, 749 00:41:10,343 --> 00:41:12,761 and that happens throughout Europe. 750 00:41:12,762 --> 00:41:15,138 There is spiritual resistance. 751 00:41:15,139 --> 00:41:17,766 Just the idea that you are not going to die 752 00:41:17,767 --> 00:41:19,267 just because the Nazis want you to, 753 00:41:19,268 --> 00:41:20,894 you are going to try to survive. 754 00:41:20,895 --> 00:41:24,398 You are going to document what is happening, write letters, 755 00:41:24,399 --> 00:41:27,150 write diaries, bury them in the ground 756 00:41:27,151 --> 00:41:29,361 so that someday we will be able 757 00:41:29,362 --> 00:41:31,139 to talk about what you went through. 758 00:41:33,808 --> 00:41:35,325 The nature of tyranny 759 00:41:35,326 --> 00:41:37,369 becomes evident in World War II. 760 00:41:37,370 --> 00:41:39,913 The Nazis and the Japanese imperialists 761 00:41:39,914 --> 00:41:41,498 are invading their neighbors, 762 00:41:41,499 --> 00:41:43,375 kidnapping, slave laborers, 763 00:41:43,376 --> 00:41:45,903 murdering those who disagree with them. 764 00:41:46,469 --> 00:41:48,255 It was a natural reaction 765 00:41:48,256 --> 00:41:50,507 on the part of the occupied peoples 766 00:41:50,508 --> 00:41:53,176 to organize some form of resistance. 767 00:41:53,177 --> 00:41:56,247 And it happens all over the world in World War II. 768 00:41:59,469 --> 00:42:02,629 After surviving Auschwitz and Buchenwald, 769 00:42:02,770 --> 00:42:05,465 Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel said: 770 00:42:05,673 --> 00:42:08,134 "We must always take sides. 771 00:42:08,159 --> 00:42:11,278 Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. 772 00:42:11,279 --> 00:42:15,808 Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. 773 00:42:16,017 --> 00:42:18,911 Sometimes we must interfere." 774 00:42:20,022 --> 00:42:23,232 In the Pacific, President Franklin Roosevelt, 775 00:42:23,483 --> 00:42:26,460 General Douglas MacArthur, and Admiral Chester Nimitz 776 00:42:26,461 --> 00:42:29,004 meet in Pearl Harbor to draw a plan 777 00:42:29,005 --> 00:42:32,116 for the final defeat of Imperial Japan.