Original subtitles

Narrator: An astonishing treasure trove of trains

Hidden in the heart of africa...

Bell: It's like a train graveyard with shrubs and earth

Gradually burying the remains.

Narrator: ...A mystical complex of structures

Shrouded in intrigue...

Selwood: Skulls have been found at this site,

But they're not to do with burials.

It's believed these were taken as trophies.

Narrator: ...And vast relics of industry

Rusting in the american midwest.

This is just a small part of what was here,

Shows you the scale of this facility.

♪

Narrator: Decaying relics,

Ruins of lost worlds,

Forged through years of toil,

Now haunted by the past,

Their secrets waiting to be revealed.

-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

Captions paid for by discovery communications

♪

On the peaceful shores of lake michigan,

In the heart of the american midwest,

Stands a series of sites with an intriguing past.

Meigs: There's not much left in the way of clues

To tell you what it was for.

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

This place has a top secret feel to it.

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

You see control towers of some kind.

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

Wawro: And that, in turn, begs the question,

So what were these things for?

Narrator: A scope of the surrounding area

Reveals something more perplexing -- the remnants

Of a second related site lie covered in undergrowth.

This site is, if anything, even more mysterious.

You just have this large concrete pad,

And then these steel doors open to something underground,

But you can't see what.

Narrator: What was so deadly that it was kept underground

At this disturbing site in indiana.

And what links these two compounds

To one of the most perilous periods of american history?

Local entrepreneur virgil frey is keen to preserve

The long forgotten buildings of this cryptic site.

Vestiges of a barrack suggest

It was some kind of military center back in the 1950s.

This is the part of the property that housed

Over 90 men when it was an active base.

We have 17 full buildings.

The admin building.

That's where the commander would have been.

We have two full barracks buildings.

We have a mess hall.

We have a generator room to produce power for the base.

Narrator: The true purpose of this place

Was a well-guarded secret.

All 23 acres were surrounded by barbed wire.

There were dogs or kennels

And extra security that would be here.

The general public knew very little about the property

And what went on here at the time.

Narrator: One building on this site

Explains this level of security.

Frey: So this is the communications building.

So this building would have housed racks

And racks of computers.

Narrator: This provides a clue to what would have once

Topped the site's five looming towers.

So each one of these towers housed

A different set of radar.

When the base was active,

There was dishes along the top of that tower.

The key elements of the property

Were really gathering the information from the towers,

Putting that together in the communications room.

Wawro: So the towers themselves are essentially platforms

For radar arrays and communication systems.

Narrator: But what was this highly sophisticated

Surveillance system designed to detect?

The answer can be found almost a mile away

At a second, more remote site

With its ominous-looking doors in the ground.

Meigs: What we're looking at here is the command

And control center for an installation

Of very sophisticated antiaircraft missiles.

Narrator: This pair of derelict sites worked in tandem.

The first site was a listening station and control center.

Wawro: The radar sets will relay the coordinates over

To the launch site where the missiles will be prepared.

There's three of them behind these steel doors.

Narrator: The missiles launched from the second site

Were interceptors designed

To take out invading enemy aircraft.

But why would anyone want to attack the american midwest?

A clue sits 10 miles away from the missile sites

In a vast industrial wasteland.

These two areas of abandoned infrastructure

Are linked in history.

This whole region is full of this kind of

Abandoned infrastructure on a very large scale.

It looks like some post-apocalyptic vision.

What is the connection between these sites?

And did the same thing destroy all of them?

Narrator: The answer lies in the history of this derelict place.

50 years ago, it was a hive of activity.

This was really the beating heart of american industry,

This whole new industrial zone created along the shores

Of lake michigan near chicago.

Narrator: And this is the town of gary, indiana,

Once dubbed the city of the century.

The colossal scale of this place

Was born out of one hugely prized product -- steel.

Meigs: When u.S. Steel set up shop

On the banks of lake michigan in 1906,

That was really the start of gary's rise

To being an industrial powerhouse and a region

Of enormous strategic importance to the country.

It was vitally important for the military, as well.

Wawro: And in world war ii, the steelworks at gary

Are producing all the steel needed for, you know, ships,

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

Gary is chosen as an industrial site for many reasons.

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

Because it's so far inland.

Nusbacher: You could not fly a plane

From germany or japan or russia to bomb

Gary, indiana.

Narrator: But after the second world war,

Tensions between the u.S. And the soviet union

Drove a fast-paced race

For a technological and military supremacy.

And the u.S.S.R. Soon came up with

A long-range high-flying bomber.

Nusbacher: If the soviets had ordered an attack on america,

Big soviet bomber aircraft filled with nuclear weapons,

Escorted by regiment after regiment of fighter aircraft,

Would have crossed north over the pole

And moved south towards the american heartland.

It starts to become possible to nuke gary.

Narrator: The launch and control sites

Now sinking into the indiana shrubland

Date back to that time when 150 million americans

Were suddenly living within range

Of soviet nuclear warheads.

The u.S. Military

Had to defend the american heartland,

But did these overgrown sites live up to the job?

♪

Narrator: In the 1950s, this pair of dilapidated sites

Concealed the capability to blast

State-of-the-art soviet bombers out of the sky.

These are the remains of the nike missile project.

Wawro: These nike missiles were regarded

As the ultimate defensive measure

Against the ultimate soviet weapon at the time,

The heavy bomber coming in over the north pole.

Narrator: There were more than 20 paired nike missile sites

In the lake michigan area.

This pair is nike c-47.

Together, they were designed to defend gary, indiana,

And the dilapidated communication room

Was mission control.

So, should the decision have been made

To actually launch a missile,

This is where it would have happened from.

The missile that they would have been firing obviously needs

To strike that target,

Or a lot of people's lives are on the line.

I couldn't imagine how it must have felt

To have to actually make those decisions.

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

If you were a missile operator,

A radar operator at an installation like this,

You really just get one shot at it.

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

Narrator: But the advance of the cold war technology race

Meant that the missiles of nike's c-47

Were never called into action.

Even as they were being built,

The technology was changing and the threat was changing.

In the 1960s, the soviet union

Develops intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Meigs: There was no real defense

Against an intercontinental ballistic missile.

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

Wawro: Suddenly, this cutting-edge defensive weapon

Is no longer useful.

And so what we see here in the land around gary

Is just a moment in that history.

Narrator: And in the coming decades,

The industry of gary, indiana,

Would also be rendered obsolete.

Not at the hands of communism, but capitalist markets.

Nusbacher: Nobody had to blow it up with a nuclear weapon.

The realities of economics and politics changed gary

Into the rubble we see there today.

These missile bases

Were very much part of the story of gary, indiana,

Just as much as those big factories.

♪

Narrator: Today, beyond the industrial wasteland,

Encroaching undergrowth engulfs

The once-cutting-edge defense system.

The place is a real monument

To the pace of technological change during the cold war.

♪

Narrator: In the north of England,

A collection of crumbling structures

Once marked the edge of the known world.

♪

Selwood: Britain represented something that was unknown, barbaric.

It was a place of myth and speculation and mystery.

Meigs: Here and there you see

The remnants of stone foundations.

It suggests something significant was built here.

Jerram: This site is located amongst a sort of network

Of streams and waterways.

Could have sustained quite a lot of people living there.

Narrator: But any trace of those who walked these stone pathways

Has long since vanished.

Whoever built this put a lot of engineering ingenuity

And craftsmanship into building this.

You have a commanding view of the whole region,

Which suggests that it had military importance.

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

Selwood: The vast wall was designed to protect those

In the south from the people to the north,

But the question this poses is

Who was these people to the north of the wall?

Narrator: Evidence suggests that beyond this wall

Lived a feared painted people.

Jerram: This is really venturing into the dark and mysterious.

And you could imagine that it would have been both exciting,

But also quite scary.

Narrator: Further excavation reveals oppression

And treachery were at play here.

Skulls have been found at this site,

But they're not to do with burials.

It's believed these were taken as trophies.

These foundations are just the surface.

Underneath is an epic and bloody history.

Narrator: What links the monumental wall

That cuts through the wilds of northern England

To this eerie abandoned place?

♪

This ancient site is known as vindolanda.

Archaeologist andrew birley has spent his life

Figuring out what went on here,

Like his father and grandfather before him.

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

Most secrets have changed our perceptions.

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

About what happened here almost two thousand years ago.

Narrator: Relics of walls,

Broken steps, and remnants of strange foundations

Provide the barest outline of what once stood here.

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

Really, really impressive.

Digging deep between these desolate ruins,

Andrew's father unearthed an incredible clue

As to who lived here.

We found the remains of a bonfire site,

And included on that bonfire was something like 320 or 330

Letters, documents.

Narrator: Who carved out these ancient words two millennia ago?

And why did they vanish?

♪

Narrator: On a windy outcrop in northern England,

The ancient ruins of vindolanda are giving up

Tantalizing secrets from the past.

The biggest indication as to who built this site lies

Not within it, but scattered all around.

Nearby, you've got this long,

Straight road running from east to west,

And that might give us an indication

As to who built this and why.

Narrator: Back then, the only people to build roads like this

Where the romans.

Birley: I'm standing here on one of the major roman roads.

On either side of me, solid walls of stone,

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

Narrator: In the location of vindolanda

Indicates a military purpose.

Vindolanda sits on the border between England and scotland,

At the northern edge of the roman empire,

Which once spread from northern britain to the middle east.

So vindolanda was a frontier conquest fort.

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

They put a fort down here

As part of something called the roman frontier.

So wherever you go inside this fort,

You're reminded of structure, rank, status,

And the huge impact of rome.

For the romans, britain was beyond the known world.

It was a land of mystery.

It was a land where things were unknown.

It was a place where they speculated

About myth and mystery.

Narrator: They were especially terrified of the warring

Barbarians of the north.

Selwood: The romans called the people north of the wall

"the painted people," picti,

From where we get the word "picts."

They thought they were deeply uncivilized

But respected them as great and fearsome warriors.

Narrator: Evidence of how the romans tried to control

The northern tribes lies within sight of vindolanda.

Jerram: As you sort of rise up and look into the distance,

You can see the walls snaking along the landscape,

Using every sort of nook and cranny of the landscape

To help fortify its protection.

Selwood: The vast wall runs across the whole

Of northern britain from coast to coast.

Narrator: This extraordinary 73-mile long construction

Is hadrian's wall.

It was built by one of rome's most ruthless emperors.

Hadrian was a volatile character.

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

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

And when hadrian came to britain in 122 a.D.,

He was determined that the northern tribes

Would not get the better of him.

Birley: So here we are at hadrian's wall,

Created by 15,000 roman soldiers in a decade of hard work,

Sweat, and tears, separating out people on this side --

Part of the roman empire -- for the other side,

The barbarians to the north.

Jerram: Large parts of it are built using the landscape

As part of the defense.

There's a big structure along large parts of the wall

Called the whin sill.

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

You've got this cliff of rock.

What a formidable thing to try and get past.

Narrator: The configuration of the site reveals how

Hadrian's wall was designed to subjugate the rebellious picts.

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

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

Imagine this twice the height

With a walkway, crenellations across the top.

And even at nighttime,

This would be so visible in the landscape.

Would also be a wall of light.

The soldiers with their torches would run across the top,

Giving you this contrast between what's inside the roman empire

And what's outside.

Selwood: For those people who were looking at it

From the north, on seeing this cutting-edge

Roman military fortification,

It must have been the most awe-inspiring sight,

Unlike anything they'd ever seen.

Narrator: Hadrian's wall was the most

Unconquerable defense system in the world at the time.

Birley: So every mile, you get two towers,

Which command tremendous views right across as far as the eye

Can see to the north, 30, 40 miles in some places.

Nothing can get under the roman radar.

Narrator: The romans built 16 defensive forts along the wall

To keep the northern hordes at bay.

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

The sprawling fortress sits a mile away from hadrian's wall.

So was the unprecedented wall strong enough

To protect the ancient letter writers who lived here,

Or did they fall victim to the marauding picts?

♪

Narrator: Ruins of the roman fort of vindolanda

In northern England

Show that 2,000 years ago this place was thriving.

Birley: The population numbers alone at this site range

From 2,500 to 6,000 or 7,000 people.

You had people from what is today belgium,

People from modern germany, people from switzerland,

Even north africa living and patrolling this area.

Narrator: Rubble at the site reveals that vindolanda

Was actually split into two parts,

The fort itself and a bustling roman town.

In their downtime, the soldiers manning hadrian's wall

Retreated to vindolanda.

Meigs: This was more like a small city.

People were there with their wives and their children,

And they were involved in farming and hunting

And all kinds of activities.

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

Narrator: By the fourth century,

The romans were severely overstretched

And no longer had the appetite for faraway wars.

Their vast empire declined and so did vindolanda.

The ancient letters found here

Were hastily destroyed by the romans as they retreated.

Birley: They lit the bonfire.

The rain had come along and put the bonfire out

And made it impossible to burn, and then, 2,000 years later,

We find the site of that bonfire,

And all the letters are still sitting there in a heap.

What they talk about is just sensational.

Everything from demands for beer to birthday party invitations.

They give the color and the detail,

The shades of gray to life at vindolanda.

Narrator: Today, vindolanda and hadrian's wall

Stand as a reminder of the hubris and ambition

Of the roman empire.

Birley: You can look at it as an incredible monument

To military architecture, the will of an empire.

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

A monument to the fact that the roman army

Never finished the job.

They couldn't quite beat everybody in britain.

♪

Narrator: In the horn of africa, in eastern ethiopia,

The city of dire dawa harbors is a site

Crowded with relics that have hit the end of the line.

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

But is now abandoned, with all the people

That were here mysteriously missing.

There's something really quite spooky about it.

Narrator: A closer inspection of this corroding place

Reveals european fingerprints all over it.

Barratt: We're in ethiopia,

But we've got french signs hanging up.

We've got locomotives abandoned,

We've got bits of rolling stock and lines.

Bell: A giant tooling shed, musty with dust and oil,

Brimming with 50-year-old lathes

And a brightly colored painted ticket office,

Now empty.

The once-vibrant paint peeling from its walls.

Narrator: If this place was once part of a railroad,

It was clearly the epicenter of a significant network.

Barratt: Looking at the scale of this place,

A huge amount of capital was invested.

And now we see it covered in grime.

It's a place where train enthusiasts

Would love to explore.

There are the trains, there are the signs.

There's just a sense of history.

Bell: Usually, when a rail line is decommissioned,

The cars and equipment are sold off.

But this harbor's remained, and the trains left abandoned.

So what's their story?

♪

Narrator: The story of this train graveyard

Can be traced back to the end of the 19th century

To the vision of one man,

Emperor menelik ii of ethiopia.

Barratt: Ethiopia is a landlocked, barren state,

But it has huge amounts of natural resources.

But they were only going to help the people

If they can be exploited.

And at the turn of the 20th century,

The emperor looked around and thought,

How are other countries succeeding in moving forward?

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

What was the game changer?

It was all about urbanization and industrialization,

And at the heart of that were the railways.

Mitchell: Emperor menelik really wanted to put ethiopia

On the map with an impressive engineering project,

And that was the railroad.

Narrator: Menelik's railroad

Would connect the ethiopian capital, addis ababa,

And other major trading centers to the red sea port of djibouti.

This provided a direct link to the coast

Where goods could be exported.

Narrator: This site is the remains

Of the dire dawa railway terminus,

Once pivotal to emperor menelik's

Ethio-djibouti railway, but whoever built this place

Left behind a distinctly european feel.

67-year-old basha ali omer

Has worked here all his life.

He knows how to decode the mysteries of this junkyard site.

His ability to speak french provides the first clue.

[ speaking native language ]

Interpreter: Once we'd learned that language,

We could come here and get a job.

We could work here then.

Because everything the company did was done in french.

♪

So here we have the accounting office...

Case office...

And an inspector bureau.

All of these are written in french.

Narrator: Back when menelik ii

Conceived the ethio-djibouti railway,

European powers vied for control of africa,

Menelik had just seen off an italian-attempted invasion,

So decided to grant the concession

To build his railroad to the french.

The french came in to set up ethiopia's railways,

And in 1897, they made a great start.

The terminus at dire dawa opened in 1984

And the city began to grow.

[ speaking native language ]

Interpreter: Dire dawa was founded because of this railway.

Which carried both freight and passengers through here.

They transported commodities like cereals from addis ababa

And delivered them to dire dawa.

Then it went back to djibouti

And transported goods back to the port.

Mitchell: Dire dawa had been a backwater.

What the railroad does is it transforms it

Into a hub that goods and people are going through.

Barratt: What we see here has been repeated

All across the world.

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

And you put a railway through it,

And suddenly, that village becomes bigger and bigger

Until you got a bustling town supporting not only the railway

But driving business, driving the economy.

Narrator: When the line was finally completed,

Four years after menelik's death,

A once treacherous journey of many weeks

Could now be made safely in 36 hours.

Barratt: Took a while, but by 1917,

Ethiopia had a bustling,

Thriving railway network ready to be exploited

By people and goods.

At its peak, nearly 4,000 passengers and 1,250 tons

Of cargo would pass through this station every single day.

Bell: Racial segregation that was commonplace

In many countries at the time wasn't tolerated in ethiopia.

And so you had europeans and africans

Sharing common areas on the passenger train.

Hundreds of people, black and white,

Traveling from here every day all together.

♪

Narrator: Menelik's vision for ethiopia was ahead of its time,

But the skeletons in this train graveyard

Suggest that the emperor's plan did not turn out as he dreamed.

♪

Narrator: Deep in the heart of ethiopia

Lies the remains of the dire dawa railroad station.

100 years ago, it was a thriving transport hub.

So where did it all go wrong?

Barratt: World war ii truly was a global war,

And ethiopia didn't escape.

The railway and the country were overtaken by italian fascists,

And they used the railway network to transport people,

Goods, and weapons,

Including tanks, using the railway system.

Narrator: In 1941, ethiopia was liberated by the allied forces,

But the railroad still didn't revive.

The end of world war ii triggered a global recession.

The railway line, in particular, fell into disrepair,

It limped along, but there was no reinvestment.

Bell: The railway suffered another blow in 1977.

As somali troops invaded ethiopia,

They took control of the railway and dire dawa station.

They blew up large portions of the railway,

Meaning operations were again cut in half.

Narrator: To add to this, in 1985,

A terrible accident shook ethiopia.

Barratt: A train was crossing a river

On a curved bridge and derailed,

And out of the 1,000 people on board, 400 people died.

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

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

Narrator: Today, a brand-new line

Runs alongside the old railroad

And the station at dire dawa is no longer needed.

♪

The ethio-djibouti railway represents a national dream

Which may yet be revived.

Bell: Plans are now afoot

To reinvigorate ethiopia's rail network,

Which the government hopes will kick-start industrialization,

Transforming a poor agricultural nation

Of nearly a 100,000,000 people

Into a middle-income country by 2025.

♪

Narrator: In eastern europe, in the heart of lithuania

Lies a ring of ruins that, at first sight,

Seems to make little sense.

♪

Somara: If you were to be dropped into the middle

Of this space, because of its vastness,

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

Auerbach: This is one of those structures

That you get a better idea from the air.

You can see angular shapes,

You can see the outlines of buildings.

Narrator: On the ground,

A series of mysterious features emerge.

Auerbach: It's overgrown, there are plants everywhere,

And there are these concrete mounds with large openings,

But it's not clear where they lead to.

Corum: You see long tunnels, many of them sloping

And going in different directions.

You see something of a dark interior maze.

Somara: It's thick, black,

And the smell is kind of damp and mossy,

And it's actually a really spooky place.

Narrator: Signs of violent struggle

Linger ominously all around.

This place clearly suffered from a major attack.

The sense of damage and devastation is obvious.

Somara: There are holes in the ceilings,

Holes in the walls, and just debris everywhere.

Auerbach: When you find out what really happened here,

It just sends a chill down your spine.

♪

Narrator: The origins of this vast ruin date

To a turbulent and bloody period of european history.

What happened in this place was very, very significant

And helped push the downfall of a great empire.

Narrator: In the late 1800s,

The area where this site is located was under russian rule.

As the end of the century approached,

Tensions between europe's superpowers were mounting,

And this borderland region was the first to feel the heat.

Germany, which had always been separated

Into smaller kingdoms and states,

Finally unified in 1871 and, for the first time in its history,

The russian empire now had a single, powerful nation

On its western border.

Narrator: And when germany got a new emperor in 1888,

He was no longer interested in the old alliance with russia.

In anticipation of war,

The russians built this -- the fortress of kaunas.

The russian czar likes fortifications,

So this idea of fortress cities comes into being and russia

Will pour in a lot of its military wealth.

Narrator: In 1882, construction began.

Valdas rakutis is a local historian

Fascinated by this structure's gory past.

♪

♪

This was the golden age of fortress building.

This is really the last time you see wide-scale,

Large-scale building of fortresses.

♪

♪

Auerbach: Basically, all roads lead to the city.

You couldn't go around it.

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

And rail was the way to move troops

And supplies in this period of warfare.

Narrator: Kaunas was so vital,

The russians didn't stop at one fort -- they built nine.

Auerbach: You need to set up your fortifications

So there's no safe approaches,

So that every direction

Is covered.

Corum: When they were built,

They were pretty much state of the art,

But the state of the art in the late 1890s

Was changing very rapidly.

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

Because, within that short space of time,

Technology was progressing, artillery was changing,

And the threats were becoming more and more dangerous.

Auerbach: Pretty soon, new weapons, airplanes, tanks --

They're gonna make fixed fortifications largely obsolete.

♪

Narrator: And when the first world war broke out

Across europe, the 20th century's new weapons of war

Would put the imperious fort to the test.

♪

Narrator: In the first world war,

The bitter conflict between two of europe's great superpowers

Was focused on the lithuanian fortress town of kaunas.

The germans put all their might behind conquering

The coveted fortress.

Corum: The germans poured reinforcements into

The northern part of their flank,

And they moved down, and by August of 1915,

They're now at the gates of kaunas.

Auerbach: For 10 days, hell rained down

On forts 1, 2, and 3.

But fort 4 was supposed to be the toughest,

Really the hardest nut to crack,

And the russians were hoping the germans would focus

Their efforts there, but they didn't.

♪

♪

Narrator: With the german army bearing down

And supported by superior weaponry,

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

Auerbach: The most terrifying of these new weapons

Was an artillery piece called "big bertha."

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

It was the largest artillery piece ever built.

♪

♪

Somara: Once that breach was made,

The germans flooded into the city and then took over.

What is absolutely incredible

Is that all those years of planning and construction

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

Narrator: The germans held much of lithuania

Until the war's bitter conclusion.

But even after german withdrawal,

The suffering didn't end.

Auerbach: When they left, there was a power vacuum,

And you had to have three civil wars

As lithuania finally established itself as a separate nation.

But as much as there was violence and horror there,

The darkest days of the fortress were yet to come.

Narrator: As hitler's nazi war machine trampled its enemies,

This site bore witness to unspeakable horrors.

Auerbach: The forts are a perfect location

For the perpetration of the worst of the german war crimes,

Particularly those against civilians.

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

Somara: And that's exactly what made it, sadly,

An ideal place for mass execution.

Narrator: And lithuania's jewish population

Suffered the greatest cruelty.

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Narrator: In a single day, over 1,800 jews were shot here.

Tragically, this genocide

Was echoed in the other forts around kaunas.

Auerbach: Fort number 9 saw the worst

Of these crimes against humanity.

Tens of thousands were murdered in and around the fort.

Narrator: As the end of the war drew closer, for one final time,

The forts would be used for their intended purpose.

Here, the nazis attempted to make a last stand

Against the advancing forces of stalin's russia.

Corum: These forts were useless

Against a massive soviet tank force,

And in fact, these fortresses that held out

For 11 days in world war I fell in 45 minutes.

Auerbach: And then the germans are driven out,

But lithuania isn't going to find the independence

It struggled so hard to achieve before the war.

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

That of the soviets,

And that's gonna last for another half century.

♪

Narrator: In 1990, after the iron curtain fell,

Lithuania finally became an independent nation.

Now the abandoned forts serve as a reminder

Of this resilient nation's tumultuous past.

What can we find on this site today

Besides the remnants of these fortifications?

We find a memorial to all the lives

That were lost there under the german occupation.

♪