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These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 1 00:00:00,354 --> 00:00:02,143 (dramatic music) 2 00:00:02,143 --> 00:00:03,608 When Adolf Hitler came to power 3 00:00:03,608 --> 00:00:04,920 in Germany in 1933, 4 00:00:04,920 --> 00:00:06,603 he set up concentration camps 5 00:00:06,603 --> 00:00:10,186 to incarcerate the opponents to his regime. 6 00:00:11,169 --> 00:00:12,268 In less than a decade, 7 00:00:12,268 --> 00:00:15,128 these deadly camps spawned evil killing factories, 8 00:00:15,128 --> 00:00:17,577 theaters for a kind of barbarism and genocide 9 00:00:17,577 --> 00:00:21,871 that is unique in the history of humanity. 10 00:00:21,871 --> 00:00:22,930 Few know the real truth 11 00:00:22,930 --> 00:00:25,298 regarding the story of the concentration camps, 12 00:00:25,298 --> 00:00:26,924 one of the darkest events of which 13 00:00:26,924 --> 00:00:30,924 took place in Berlin itself on January 20, 1942. 14 00:00:32,680 --> 00:00:34,633 The minutes of this meeting list the number of Jews 15 00:00:34,633 --> 00:00:37,050 to be eliminated, 11 million. 16 00:00:39,898 --> 00:00:41,181 In addition to concentration camps 17 00:00:41,181 --> 00:00:42,459 designed for imprisonment, 18 00:00:42,459 --> 00:00:45,563 ghettos were created, along with extermination centers, 19 00:00:45,563 --> 00:00:48,308 those gruesome factories of death. 20 00:00:48,308 --> 00:00:51,999 Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Auschwitz-Birkenau 21 00:00:51,999 --> 00:00:53,582 were the main ones. 22 00:00:55,063 --> 00:00:56,780 But how did these camps become machines 23 00:00:56,780 --> 00:01:00,207 to crush and destroy entire populations? 24 00:01:00,207 --> 00:01:01,378 We were absolutely surprised 25 00:01:01,378 --> 00:01:03,086 by the number of camps that we found. 26 00:01:03,086 --> 00:01:04,291 Himmler couldn't cope 27 00:01:04,291 --> 00:01:05,442 with the scene before him. 28 00:01:05,442 --> 00:01:08,678 He put someone in ice cold water until they died. 29 00:01:08,678 --> 00:01:10,582 How did these camps function? 30 00:01:10,582 --> 00:01:12,914 Exactly how many were there? 31 00:01:12,914 --> 00:01:14,496 How was it that a secret operation 32 00:01:14,496 --> 00:01:18,722 invented the gassing process as early on as 1939? 33 00:01:18,722 --> 00:01:20,951 Hitler of course could make a huge decision 34 00:01:20,951 --> 00:01:23,246 that had big impact. 35 00:01:23,246 --> 00:01:25,105 More than 70 years after the events, 36 00:01:25,105 --> 00:01:28,318 research is still going on into the Nazi camps. 37 00:01:28,318 --> 00:01:29,844 We have met the last survivors, 38 00:01:29,844 --> 00:01:31,685 researchers, and archeologists, 39 00:01:31,685 --> 00:01:33,385 and have access to unseen remains 40 00:01:33,385 --> 00:01:35,579 that have only recently been uncovered. 41 00:01:35,579 --> 00:01:38,621 You can see here, a coin with the victress from France, 42 00:01:38,621 --> 00:01:40,096 from Drancy. 43 00:01:40,096 --> 00:01:41,750 Arriving in Auschwitz 44 00:01:41,750 --> 00:01:44,333 was like facing the apocalypse. 45 00:01:45,471 --> 00:01:46,922 We have traveled to France, 46 00:01:46,922 --> 00:01:48,362 Germany, the US, and Poland 47 00:01:48,362 --> 00:01:51,822 to understand the nebulous history of the Nazi camps, 48 00:01:51,822 --> 00:01:52,888 and to uncover the secrets 49 00:01:52,888 --> 00:01:56,971 of how Adolf Hitler's killing machine functioned. 50 00:02:00,018 --> 00:02:03,768 (melancholic dramatic music) 51 00:02:56,902 --> 00:03:00,037 The Nazi regime surrender on May 8, 1945, 52 00:03:00,037 --> 00:03:01,866 leaving behind it millions of victims 53 00:03:01,866 --> 00:03:03,783 and traumatized people. 54 00:03:05,806 --> 00:03:07,442 For the entire world, it was a time 55 00:03:07,442 --> 00:03:11,055 to face up to one of the worst killing machines in history, 56 00:03:11,055 --> 00:03:12,668 a macabre multifaceted machine 57 00:03:12,668 --> 00:03:17,289 serving Adolf Hitler's racist, antisemitic dictatorship, 58 00:03:17,289 --> 00:03:21,456 concentration camps and centers for extermination. 59 00:03:23,500 --> 00:03:24,417 April 1945. 60 00:03:25,833 --> 00:03:28,516 17 kilometers from the German city of Munich, 61 00:03:28,516 --> 00:03:29,975 Dachau was one of the last camps 62 00:03:29,975 --> 00:03:32,725 to be liberated by the Americans. 63 00:03:34,332 --> 00:03:37,003 George Stevens, employed by the military's film department, 64 00:03:37,003 --> 00:03:39,086 went ahead of the troops. 65 00:03:40,845 --> 00:03:42,688 He filmed the camp in color, 66 00:03:42,688 --> 00:03:46,855 and what he saw scarred him for the rest of his life. 67 00:03:47,958 --> 00:03:49,170 Indeed, he was so traumatized 68 00:03:49,170 --> 00:03:51,454 that his films were kept hidden in his house 69 00:03:51,454 --> 00:03:53,621 in Los Angeles until 1984. 70 00:03:55,508 --> 00:03:58,605 When it was liberated, Dachau had seen 200,000 prisoners 71 00:03:58,605 --> 00:04:00,061 pass through its gates 72 00:04:00,061 --> 00:04:03,439 and the deaths of 30,000 people, if not more. 73 00:04:03,439 --> 00:04:04,913 But above all, it was the nerve center 74 00:04:04,913 --> 00:04:06,167 for a model of terror, 75 00:04:06,167 --> 00:04:09,399 at the very source of the concentration camp nightmare. 76 00:04:09,399 --> 00:04:12,103 The concentration camps had a very definite set of rules 77 00:04:12,103 --> 00:04:14,751 based on the practices that were developed 78 00:04:14,751 --> 00:04:17,305 at the original camp at Dachau. 79 00:04:17,305 --> 00:04:18,606 The Nazi state 80 00:04:18,606 --> 00:04:20,669 owed the development of this model to two men, 81 00:04:20,669 --> 00:04:23,479 Heinrich Himmler and Theodor Eicke. 82 00:04:23,479 --> 00:04:24,876 They were both very close to Hitler, 83 00:04:24,876 --> 00:04:27,543 the new chancellor of the Reich. 84 00:04:31,390 --> 00:04:32,307 March 1933. 85 00:04:33,848 --> 00:04:36,185 Adolf Hitler had only been in power for a few weeks, 86 00:04:36,185 --> 00:04:37,622 but the order had already been given 87 00:04:37,622 --> 00:04:40,913 to imprison the political opponents of the Nazi regime 88 00:04:40,913 --> 00:04:42,526 in camps. 89 00:04:42,526 --> 00:04:44,581 The aim of the concentration camps in '33 90 00:04:44,581 --> 00:04:48,166 was to reeducate those who'd been judged as deviants. 91 00:04:48,166 --> 00:04:50,546 But there's no legal framework for these camps, 92 00:04:50,546 --> 00:04:52,093 which were opened in random locations 93 00:04:52,093 --> 00:04:55,239 by the police and the Sturmabteilung, or the SA, 94 00:04:55,239 --> 00:04:58,776 the paramilitary wing of the Nazi party. 95 00:04:58,776 --> 00:05:00,231 Meanwhile, the elite SS guard 96 00:05:00,231 --> 00:05:02,542 was determined to end the involvement of the SA 97 00:05:02,542 --> 00:05:04,608 and to transform the chaotic camp system 98 00:05:04,608 --> 00:05:07,525 into a machine to serve the Fuhrer. 99 00:05:10,414 --> 00:05:12,770 It was within this context that Dachau was created, 100 00:05:12,770 --> 00:05:15,601 near Munich in the south of Germany. 101 00:05:15,601 --> 00:05:17,134 The place that would change the history 102 00:05:17,134 --> 00:05:19,350 of the concentration camps. 103 00:05:19,350 --> 00:05:21,337 It was the first major project of Heinrich Himmler, 104 00:05:21,337 --> 00:05:22,871 one of Hitler's closest collaborators 105 00:05:22,871 --> 00:05:24,788 and the head of the SS. 106 00:05:26,604 --> 00:05:29,439 Heinrich Himmler was the head of the SS. 107 00:05:29,439 --> 00:05:32,542 He had started life as a chicken farmer. 108 00:05:32,542 --> 00:05:35,387 He spent some of his time strangling chickens, 109 00:05:35,387 --> 00:05:37,430 so it was good preparation, you could say, 110 00:05:37,430 --> 00:05:39,705 for the job that he later took on. 111 00:05:39,705 --> 00:05:42,875 It was only in 1922 that he joined the Nazi party, 112 00:05:42,875 --> 00:05:47,042 and then Hitler promoted him to be the leader of his SS. 113 00:05:48,329 --> 00:05:50,165 On March 22, 1933, 114 00:05:50,165 --> 00:05:53,835 96 prisoners were taken to the site of a disused factory. 115 00:05:53,835 --> 00:05:56,029 They didn't know it yet, but the plans 116 00:05:56,029 --> 00:05:57,535 for the camp they were about to build 117 00:05:57,535 --> 00:06:01,330 came from the highest levels within the Reich. 118 00:06:01,330 --> 00:06:03,320 When new director Theodor Eicke arrived, 119 00:06:03,320 --> 00:06:05,027 Dachau became a laboratory, 120 00:06:05,027 --> 00:06:07,256 and its detainees were the guinea pigs 121 00:06:07,256 --> 00:06:09,089 for a diabolical plan. 122 00:06:14,500 --> 00:06:17,275 Eicke was a Nazi from the outset. 123 00:06:17,275 --> 00:06:18,655 As soon as he arrived in Dachau, 124 00:06:18,655 --> 00:06:21,043 he established the basis for the concentration camp system 125 00:06:21,043 --> 00:06:23,460 according to the Eicke model. 126 00:06:24,752 --> 00:06:27,257 His aim was to reeducate prisoners by breaking them, 127 00:06:27,257 --> 00:06:30,105 both psychologically and physically. 128 00:06:30,105 --> 00:06:31,521 In the Nazi mindset, 129 00:06:31,521 --> 00:06:33,425 there was that idea that Aryan blood, 130 00:06:33,425 --> 00:06:35,132 German blood, was rare. 131 00:06:35,132 --> 00:06:38,428 So it was better to reeducate than to kill. 132 00:06:38,428 --> 00:06:39,427 For the time being, 133 00:06:39,427 --> 00:06:40,484 the camps were prisons 134 00:06:40,484 --> 00:06:42,330 from which one might potentially be freed. 135 00:06:42,330 --> 00:06:43,491 They were aimed at Germans 136 00:06:43,491 --> 00:06:45,929 who had strayed from the proper path. 137 00:06:45,929 --> 00:06:48,564 When Adolf Hitler dismantled the SA in 1934, 138 00:06:48,564 --> 00:06:50,735 the camps were left with a single commander, 139 00:06:50,735 --> 00:06:54,137 Himmler, the Fuhrer's second-in-command. 140 00:06:54,137 --> 00:06:56,273 It was the SS who took over the control 141 00:06:56,273 --> 00:06:58,491 of the concentration camps completely, 142 00:06:58,491 --> 00:07:03,434 including all of the death camps in the Holocaust. 143 00:07:03,434 --> 00:07:05,097 In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws 144 00:07:05,097 --> 00:07:07,674 adopted during the Annual Nazi Party Conference 145 00:07:07,674 --> 00:07:08,893 strengthened measures 146 00:07:08,893 --> 00:07:13,002 to exclude the entire Jewish population. 147 00:07:13,002 --> 00:07:14,637 It was at that point that the camps 148 00:07:14,637 --> 00:07:17,253 became an instrument of persecution. 149 00:07:17,253 --> 00:07:19,596 When the Nazis came to power, 150 00:07:19,596 --> 00:07:21,196 the first policy they introduced 151 00:07:21,196 --> 00:07:23,476 aimed to rid the German territory 152 00:07:23,476 --> 00:07:27,643 of any Jewish presence, by forcing the Jews to emigrate. 153 00:07:29,162 --> 00:07:30,360 At that time, 154 00:07:30,360 --> 00:07:33,309 Jews were imprisoned on a political pretext. 155 00:07:33,309 --> 00:07:37,547 The extermination camps didn't yet exist. 156 00:07:37,547 --> 00:07:40,217 But Eicke's model was evolving. 157 00:07:40,217 --> 00:07:43,967 Prisoners now wore a striped uniform and cap. 158 00:07:45,401 --> 00:07:47,598 Thousands of times over, 159 00:07:47,598 --> 00:07:50,485 the men had to simultaneously remove their caps 160 00:07:50,485 --> 00:07:52,866 with the same gesture, 161 00:07:52,866 --> 00:07:56,567 and slap them against their thighs. 162 00:07:56,567 --> 00:07:57,937 If they didn't get it right, 163 00:07:57,937 --> 00:08:02,104 the session could last for three, four, or even six hours. 164 00:08:03,810 --> 00:08:05,794 Different colored triangles were now used 165 00:08:05,794 --> 00:08:08,490 to categorize and rank the prisoners. 166 00:08:08,490 --> 00:08:09,902 There were badges for everybody 167 00:08:09,902 --> 00:08:12,038 who was in a concentration camp. 168 00:08:12,038 --> 00:08:13,756 For example, if you were a criminal 169 00:08:13,756 --> 00:08:15,619 your badge was green. 170 00:08:15,619 --> 00:08:17,788 If you were what was none as an antisocial, 171 00:08:17,788 --> 00:08:19,520 your badge was purple. 172 00:08:19,520 --> 00:08:22,352 If you were gay, your badge was pink. 173 00:08:22,352 --> 00:08:25,650 If you had a green badge indicating you were a criminal, 174 00:08:25,650 --> 00:08:27,389 usually a hardened criminal, 175 00:08:27,389 --> 00:08:29,260 you were treated quite well 176 00:08:29,260 --> 00:08:31,373 because the SS guards used the criminals 177 00:08:31,373 --> 00:08:32,956 to police the camp. 178 00:08:34,682 --> 00:08:36,986 These criminals were selected to become Kapos, 179 00:08:36,986 --> 00:08:41,896 who managed the other prisoners with considerable power. 180 00:08:41,896 --> 00:08:43,532 None of the prisoners had any idea 181 00:08:43,532 --> 00:08:46,065 how long their sentence was. 182 00:08:46,065 --> 00:08:49,569 The novel way Dachau functioned proved to be very effective. 183 00:08:49,569 --> 00:08:51,965 As such, Eicke established the operating manual 184 00:08:51,965 --> 00:08:53,770 for the perfect camp. 185 00:08:53,770 --> 00:08:55,175 Eicke developed 186 00:08:55,175 --> 00:08:56,770 a certain number of basic rules 187 00:08:56,770 --> 00:09:00,864 that would become the norm for all Nazi concentration camps. 188 00:09:00,864 --> 00:09:02,703 Three years after it was created, 189 00:09:02,703 --> 00:09:05,417 the Dachau model was exported within Germany, 190 00:09:05,417 --> 00:09:07,707 to create a new, even more successful camp 191 00:09:07,707 --> 00:09:11,653 that the war would turn into a killing machine. 192 00:09:11,653 --> 00:09:13,918 Somewhat surprisingly, the name of this bloody camp 193 00:09:13,918 --> 00:09:16,501 is rarely heard, Sachsenhausen. 194 00:09:18,666 --> 00:09:22,393 (gentle dramatic music) 195 00:09:22,393 --> 00:09:26,560 Around 30 kilometers from Berlin is the town of Oranienburg. 196 00:09:27,769 --> 00:09:29,835 It was home to a unique concentration camp 197 00:09:29,835 --> 00:09:33,222 that played a key role in Nazi persecution. 198 00:09:33,222 --> 00:09:36,012 The camp was called Sachsenhausen. 199 00:09:36,012 --> 00:09:37,332 This camp went way beyond Dachau 200 00:09:37,332 --> 00:09:40,802 in terms of the horror it contained. 201 00:09:40,802 --> 00:09:45,553 Gunter Morsch, curator of the memorial, showed us around. 202 00:09:45,553 --> 00:09:48,418 The camp is perfectly preserved. 203 00:09:48,418 --> 00:09:49,738 This is Tower A, 204 00:09:49,738 --> 00:09:53,899 which is the entrance to what was called the prison camp. 205 00:09:53,899 --> 00:09:55,467 For the row, we can see four barracks 206 00:09:55,467 --> 00:09:58,195 that are connected together. 207 00:09:58,195 --> 00:09:59,991 Far off to the right is the wash house, 208 00:09:59,991 --> 00:10:03,289 and on the other side the prisoner's kitchen. 209 00:10:03,289 --> 00:10:04,603 To the left is a small camp 210 00:10:04,603 --> 00:10:06,995 containing barracks for the Jews. 211 00:10:06,995 --> 00:10:08,087 Over there, the cells 212 00:10:08,087 --> 00:10:11,627 and of course a great many watchtowers. 213 00:10:11,627 --> 00:10:16,133 And right over their on the right, the medical facility. 214 00:10:16,133 --> 00:10:18,710 Until the camp was liberated in 1945, 215 00:10:18,710 --> 00:10:22,908 some 200,000 prisoners passed through Sachsenhausen. 216 00:10:22,908 --> 00:10:25,479 More than 90,000 died there. 217 00:10:25,479 --> 00:10:27,021 But how did this place become a symbol 218 00:10:27,021 --> 00:10:30,309 of the horrors of the concentration camps? 219 00:10:30,309 --> 00:10:33,395 In July 1936, when the first stone was laid, 220 00:10:33,395 --> 00:10:37,611 Berlin was celebrating, but for different reasons. 221 00:10:37,611 --> 00:10:41,778 The Nazis build Sachsenhausen in 1936 222 00:10:42,946 --> 00:10:45,029 during the Olympic games. 223 00:10:47,395 --> 00:10:50,913 While almost 2,000 prisoners were building the camp, 224 00:10:50,913 --> 00:10:54,620 Berlin was welcoming around a million foreign visitors, 225 00:10:54,620 --> 00:10:59,148 just 30 kilometers away from where we are now. 226 00:10:59,148 --> 00:11:00,156 Sachsenhausen 227 00:11:00,156 --> 00:11:02,085 was Heinrich Himmler's special project. 228 00:11:02,085 --> 00:11:03,221 He presented this camp 229 00:11:03,221 --> 00:11:07,176 as the most modern and the most adaptable ever built. 230 00:11:07,176 --> 00:11:09,097 Sachsenhausen was the first camp 231 00:11:09,097 --> 00:11:11,680 to be designed by an architect. 232 00:11:14,445 --> 00:11:15,772 The plans were drawn up 233 00:11:15,772 --> 00:11:17,433 to create a symbol of Nazi power, 234 00:11:17,433 --> 00:11:20,266 something powerful and terrifying. 235 00:11:21,340 --> 00:11:23,351 It would be an equilateral triangle, 236 00:11:23,351 --> 00:11:27,518 with barracks arranged symmetrically around a central axis. 237 00:11:28,991 --> 00:11:31,475 Himmler's idea of modern 238 00:11:31,475 --> 00:11:35,545 is translated by the architectural model of Sachsenhausen. 239 00:11:35,545 --> 00:11:39,712 That is, a kind of geometry to evoke total terror. 240 00:11:40,589 --> 00:11:42,052 From a single spot on the site, 241 00:11:42,052 --> 00:11:45,593 they could manage all the prisoners. 242 00:11:45,593 --> 00:11:47,021 On the edges of the triangle, 243 00:11:47,021 --> 00:11:49,830 the towers each bore a letter of the alphabet. 244 00:11:49,830 --> 00:11:51,502 Tower A was the main entrance, 245 00:11:51,502 --> 00:11:55,306 but also the nerve center of the SS. 246 00:11:55,306 --> 00:11:59,815 On the gate, you can read the words work sets you free. 247 00:11:59,815 --> 00:12:01,185 This phrase was found at the entrance 248 00:12:01,185 --> 00:12:03,518 of more camps that followed. 249 00:12:06,337 --> 00:12:07,696 But once through the gates, 250 00:12:07,696 --> 00:12:10,738 the prisoners entered Hell on Earth. 251 00:12:10,738 --> 00:12:11,866 On one side, 252 00:12:11,866 --> 00:12:13,120 there were disciplinary punishments. 253 00:12:13,120 --> 00:12:15,651 You could get up to 25 blows with a stick. 254 00:12:15,651 --> 00:12:19,235 But on the other, you could also be sentenced to death. 255 00:12:19,235 --> 00:12:20,690 The camp was initially planned 256 00:12:20,690 --> 00:12:22,467 for 7,000 prisoners. 257 00:12:22,467 --> 00:12:23,987 But it was modular, and its capacity 258 00:12:23,987 --> 00:12:27,040 was increased exponentially over the years. 259 00:12:27,040 --> 00:12:29,267 The first detainees were political opponents, 260 00:12:29,267 --> 00:12:30,814 Jews, and homosexuals. 261 00:12:30,814 --> 00:12:33,946 Each had their position in the camp's social hierarchy, 262 00:12:33,946 --> 00:12:37,113 a position justified by Nazi ideology. 263 00:12:39,677 --> 00:12:41,449 Right at the top of the hierarchy 264 00:12:41,449 --> 00:12:43,596 were naturally the German prisoners, 265 00:12:43,596 --> 00:12:47,500 including political detainees and criminals. 266 00:12:47,500 --> 00:12:49,694 At the other end were the Jews, the Gypsies, 267 00:12:49,694 --> 00:12:51,944 Roms, gays, and Ukrainians. 268 00:12:54,097 --> 00:12:56,314 Camps were run according to rules 269 00:12:56,314 --> 00:12:58,098 that were part of the Nazi legal system 270 00:12:58,098 --> 00:13:03,002 because they corresponded to the will of the Fuhrer. 271 00:13:03,002 --> 00:13:04,064 Prior to the war, 272 00:13:04,064 --> 00:13:06,682 Sachsenhausen was a showcase camp for the Nazis. 273 00:13:06,682 --> 00:13:07,852 This is unimaginable 274 00:13:07,852 --> 00:13:11,435 given how the camp then evolved up to 1945. 275 00:13:12,638 --> 00:13:13,892 The International Chamber 276 00:13:13,892 --> 00:13:14,995 of Trade and Industry 277 00:13:14,995 --> 00:13:16,063 came to Sachsenhausen 278 00:13:16,063 --> 00:13:18,011 with a delegation of 165 people 279 00:13:18,011 --> 00:13:20,511 from many different countries. 280 00:13:21,601 --> 00:13:23,129 By the end of the 1930s, 281 00:13:23,129 --> 00:13:25,026 Sachsenhausen had become the official school 282 00:13:25,026 --> 00:13:27,332 for those SS officers who would then go on 283 00:13:27,332 --> 00:13:29,693 to run different camps such as Buchenwald, 284 00:13:29,693 --> 00:13:33,443 Ravensbruck, and one of the worst, Auschwitz. 285 00:13:37,623 --> 00:13:39,687 With the war, the nature of Sachsenhausen changed 286 00:13:39,687 --> 00:13:43,346 and it became a center for the coming genocide. 287 00:13:43,346 --> 00:13:46,121 This was mainly due to its proximity to a key location, 288 00:13:46,121 --> 00:13:48,455 but one that was little known, 289 00:13:48,455 --> 00:13:51,009 a central place in terms of the organization of the camps 290 00:13:51,009 --> 00:13:52,843 and the mass murders. 291 00:13:52,843 --> 00:13:54,406 This place besides Sachsenhausen 292 00:13:54,406 --> 00:13:56,709 was also perfectly symmetrical. 293 00:13:56,709 --> 00:14:00,626 It was T-shaped, T for tot in German, or death. 294 00:14:04,291 --> 00:14:05,295 Himmler was convinced 295 00:14:05,295 --> 00:14:08,327 that the camps needed a shared management structure. 296 00:14:08,327 --> 00:14:11,244 In 1933, this was simply an office. 297 00:14:12,859 --> 00:14:15,053 Five years later, the Concentration Camps Inspectorate 298 00:14:15,053 --> 00:14:18,419 set up shop in a huge building beside Sachsenhausen, 299 00:14:18,419 --> 00:14:21,336 T-building, as the Nazis called it. 300 00:14:22,600 --> 00:14:24,434 The Concentration Camps Inspectorate 301 00:14:24,434 --> 00:14:28,718 directed the camps right down to the slightest detail. 302 00:14:28,718 --> 00:14:30,014 At the heart of the system, 303 00:14:30,014 --> 00:14:34,181 prisoners became victims, imprisoned within rules. 304 00:14:36,362 --> 00:14:38,800 These rules were so tough, 305 00:14:38,800 --> 00:14:41,284 setting prisoner rations to the nearest gram 306 00:14:41,284 --> 00:14:44,411 and enforcing labor for 12 hours a day, 307 00:14:44,411 --> 00:14:47,411 that they worked prisoners to death. 308 00:14:48,947 --> 00:14:49,949 Inspectorate 309 00:14:49,949 --> 00:14:51,934 soon became a central organization. 310 00:14:51,934 --> 00:14:54,474 Hitler did not appear in the organization chart, 311 00:14:54,474 --> 00:14:56,635 but he was not short on ideas. 312 00:14:56,635 --> 00:14:58,908 But Hitler, of course, could make a huge decision 313 00:14:58,908 --> 00:15:00,173 that had a big impact. 314 00:15:00,173 --> 00:15:02,207 For example in the summer of 1942, 315 00:15:02,207 --> 00:15:04,319 he gives the order that the General Government, 316 00:15:04,319 --> 00:15:05,541 that's most of Poland, 317 00:15:05,541 --> 00:15:09,082 has to be cleared of Jews by the end of the year. 318 00:15:09,082 --> 00:15:10,996 In the hushed rooms of T-building, 319 00:15:10,996 --> 00:15:13,604 Nazis like Glucks, Heydrich, and Mueller 320 00:15:13,604 --> 00:15:16,499 worked with Himmler on organizing deportations, 321 00:15:16,499 --> 00:15:20,337 medical experiments on detainees, and genocide, 322 00:15:20,337 --> 00:15:21,420 camp by camp. 323 00:15:23,130 --> 00:15:25,361 If you needed a wheelbarrow, 324 00:15:25,361 --> 00:15:27,940 a truck, or to transport some Zyklon B, 325 00:15:27,940 --> 00:15:32,318 you needed to obtain a request from the Inspectorate. 326 00:15:32,318 --> 00:15:33,317 But T-building 327 00:15:33,317 --> 00:15:36,800 didn't become the nerve center for the camps by chance. 328 00:15:36,800 --> 00:15:38,518 (gentle dramatic music) 329 00:15:38,518 --> 00:15:41,188 Its construction coincided with a toughening of Nazi policy 330 00:15:41,188 --> 00:15:45,021 with a regard to their opponents and the Jews. 331 00:15:46,723 --> 00:15:48,410 German Jews began being deported 332 00:15:48,410 --> 00:15:51,184 to the camps in November 1938. 333 00:15:51,184 --> 00:15:53,213 6,000 were sent to Sachsenhausen 334 00:15:53,213 --> 00:15:55,816 simply because they were Jewish. 335 00:15:55,816 --> 00:15:57,779 And the Inspectorate had some special treatment 336 00:15:57,779 --> 00:15:59,079 in store for them. 337 00:15:59,079 --> 00:16:00,818 The Reich had to be rid of the Jews, 338 00:16:00,818 --> 00:16:04,684 and this idea was shared by everyone across the regime. 339 00:16:04,684 --> 00:16:06,022 Germany didn't know it yet, 340 00:16:06,022 --> 00:16:07,879 but the foundation stone of the Holocaust 341 00:16:07,879 --> 00:16:11,453 had just been laid amidst general indifference. 342 00:16:11,453 --> 00:16:14,123 (speaking in German) 343 00:16:14,123 --> 00:16:17,105 In January 1939, the words Adolf Hitler spoke 344 00:16:17,105 --> 00:16:19,002 in front of the Reichstag in Berlin 345 00:16:19,002 --> 00:16:20,728 now ring out like a morbid prophecy 346 00:16:20,728 --> 00:16:23,537 which provoked thunderous applause. 347 00:16:23,537 --> 00:16:26,246 (crowd applauding) 348 00:16:26,246 --> 00:16:28,425 The speech in January 1939 349 00:16:28,425 --> 00:16:30,992 was one of the few speeches Hitler gave 350 00:16:30,992 --> 00:16:33,432 where he talks about the Jewish question 351 00:16:33,432 --> 00:16:37,265 in terms which mention the word extermination. 352 00:16:39,610 --> 00:16:40,631 Nine months later, 353 00:16:40,631 --> 00:16:42,350 Adolf Hitler triggered the Second World War 354 00:16:42,350 --> 00:16:46,100 by invading Poland, a country that was home 355 00:16:46,100 --> 00:16:50,267 to the biggest Jewish community in Europe at the time. 356 00:16:52,949 --> 00:16:54,032 October 1939. 357 00:16:56,881 --> 00:16:58,557 The Nazis set up the General Government 358 00:16:58,557 --> 00:17:01,724 in the annexed territory of Poland. 359 00:17:01,724 --> 00:17:03,420 But just when Hitler wanted to rid Germany 360 00:17:03,420 --> 00:17:04,861 of any Jewish presence, 361 00:17:04,861 --> 00:17:07,172 he found himself with two million Jews to manage 362 00:17:07,172 --> 00:17:09,005 in this new territory. 363 00:17:10,028 --> 00:17:12,031 It would be a systematic problem 364 00:17:12,031 --> 00:17:13,348 for the Nazis. 365 00:17:13,348 --> 00:17:15,658 The flip side to their territorial victories 366 00:17:15,658 --> 00:17:17,191 was the problem of the Jewish people 367 00:17:17,191 --> 00:17:19,358 who lived in those places. 368 00:17:20,639 --> 00:17:22,288 Immediately, the Reich mobilized 369 00:17:22,288 --> 00:17:23,664 every means at their disposal 370 00:17:23,664 --> 00:17:26,245 to deal with the Jewish question. 371 00:17:26,245 --> 00:17:29,328 But no satisfactory solution emerged. 372 00:17:30,275 --> 00:17:32,720 Meanwhile, the Eisatzgruppen were created, 373 00:17:32,720 --> 00:17:35,140 who followed the armies and killed everyone they encoutered 374 00:17:35,140 --> 00:17:38,155 in the dark forests of Poland. 375 00:17:38,155 --> 00:17:40,502 (gentle dramatic music) 376 00:17:40,502 --> 00:17:41,967 There were killing units 377 00:17:41,967 --> 00:17:43,755 that followed along behind the army 378 00:17:43,755 --> 00:17:46,338 and shot large numbers of Jews. 379 00:17:49,664 --> 00:17:51,162 It was decided to place the Jews 380 00:17:51,162 --> 00:17:53,305 from occupied territories in ghettos, 381 00:17:53,305 --> 00:17:57,547 to isolate them from the rest of the population. 382 00:17:57,547 --> 00:18:00,888 We define ghettos as places where Jews were held 383 00:18:00,888 --> 00:18:03,074 as a sort of ad hoc measure, 384 00:18:03,074 --> 00:18:04,975 when the Nazis did not yet know 385 00:18:04,975 --> 00:18:07,927 exactly what to do with them. 386 00:18:07,927 --> 00:18:09,386 Everyone knows about the Warsaw Ghetto 387 00:18:09,386 --> 00:18:10,778 because it was so huge 388 00:18:10,778 --> 00:18:13,592 and had a very high death rate. 389 00:18:13,592 --> 00:18:14,777 The latest research 390 00:18:14,777 --> 00:18:16,849 shows that almost 12,000 ghettos were created 391 00:18:16,849 --> 00:18:18,682 between 1939 and 1945. 392 00:18:20,500 --> 00:18:22,727 In these ghettos, the Jews were enrolled 393 00:18:22,727 --> 00:18:25,376 in forced labor schemes. 394 00:18:25,376 --> 00:18:28,883 Many died from epidemics and famines. 395 00:18:28,883 --> 00:18:31,966 Some were murdered to set an example. 396 00:18:33,580 --> 00:18:35,431 Operation Reinhard, the codename given 397 00:18:35,431 --> 00:18:38,076 to the extermination of all the Polish Jews, 398 00:18:38,076 --> 00:18:41,921 had not yet been launched, but it was being developed. 399 00:18:41,921 --> 00:18:43,951 The Reich was already testing a special system 400 00:18:43,951 --> 00:18:47,175 for gassing a particular population. 401 00:18:47,175 --> 00:18:49,675 Its codename was Operation T4. 402 00:18:50,613 --> 00:18:51,789 This was the starting point 403 00:18:51,789 --> 00:18:54,815 for what history now calls the gas chambers. 404 00:18:54,815 --> 00:18:58,148 (gentle dramatic music) 405 00:19:01,588 --> 00:19:04,045 In December 1939, the Reich recruited people 406 00:19:04,045 --> 00:19:09,030 to man the secret operation known as Operation T4. 407 00:19:09,030 --> 00:19:11,293 The name referred to the central office of the program, 408 00:19:11,293 --> 00:19:15,404 located at 4 Tiergarten Strasse in Berlin. 409 00:19:15,404 --> 00:19:17,854 Its aims had been defined by Adolf Hitler, 410 00:19:17,854 --> 00:19:19,549 to exterminate every physically 411 00:19:19,549 --> 00:19:22,521 or mentally handicapped person in the Reich. 412 00:19:22,521 --> 00:19:24,494 This was an assassination operation 413 00:19:24,494 --> 00:19:28,175 that was planned, thought out, and decided by Nazi leaders, 414 00:19:28,175 --> 00:19:31,159 and specifically by Hitler. 415 00:19:31,159 --> 00:19:33,562 Hitler even signed a secret classified document 416 00:19:33,562 --> 00:19:36,277 protecting the murderers involved in the program. 417 00:19:36,277 --> 00:19:39,019 It was backdated to the first of September, 1939, 418 00:19:39,019 --> 00:19:41,936 to make it seem like a war measure. 419 00:19:43,465 --> 00:19:45,993 The victims were transported in trucks to sanatoriums 420 00:19:45,993 --> 00:19:48,576 to undertake fake examinations. 421 00:19:49,755 --> 00:19:51,302 They were pushed into a shower room, 422 00:19:51,302 --> 00:19:53,923 which was in actual fact a carbon monoxide gas chamber, 423 00:19:53,923 --> 00:19:56,550 where they were asphyxiated. 424 00:19:56,550 --> 00:20:00,483 Their bodies were then incinerated in crematory ovens. 425 00:20:00,483 --> 00:20:02,401 Officially, these euthanasia centers 426 00:20:02,401 --> 00:20:04,700 were halted in the summer of 1941, 427 00:20:04,700 --> 00:20:07,951 when the secret of their existence was revealed. 428 00:20:07,951 --> 00:20:10,868 (melancholy music) 429 00:20:13,534 --> 00:20:16,182 But in actual fact, the T4 program continued in secret 430 00:20:16,182 --> 00:20:20,349 until 1945, killing perhaps as many as 300,000 people. 431 00:20:23,056 --> 00:20:24,993 And many of the source of techniques 432 00:20:24,993 --> 00:20:27,536 that ended up being used in the Holocaust 433 00:20:27,536 --> 00:20:29,429 were used in the T4 program. 434 00:20:29,429 --> 00:20:32,587 And many of the people who participated in the T4 program 435 00:20:32,587 --> 00:20:34,326 ended up in the death camps. 436 00:20:34,326 --> 00:20:36,031 It was like a training ground, really, 437 00:20:36,031 --> 00:20:37,948 for the Final Solution. 438 00:20:38,834 --> 00:20:40,770 The medical personnel didn't know it yet, 439 00:20:40,770 --> 00:20:42,467 but these killers had just provided the answer 440 00:20:42,467 --> 00:20:46,264 to the Jewish question the Reich had been pondering. 441 00:20:46,264 --> 00:20:48,931 The Final Solution was in place. 442 00:20:51,834 --> 00:20:52,751 April 1940. 443 00:20:54,553 --> 00:20:56,237 A new camp was opened in Poland, 444 00:20:56,237 --> 00:20:58,849 in a deserted military base. 445 00:20:58,849 --> 00:21:00,635 Precisely here on this area, 446 00:21:00,635 --> 00:21:03,664 before the war existed were Polish military barracks. 447 00:21:03,664 --> 00:21:05,905 After the September campaign in '39, 448 00:21:05,905 --> 00:21:07,487 when Poland was invaded, 449 00:21:07,487 --> 00:21:10,029 so these barracks were empty, simply. 450 00:21:10,029 --> 00:21:12,107 This town wasn't chosen at random. 451 00:21:12,107 --> 00:21:14,174 It was at the center of Europe. 452 00:21:14,174 --> 00:21:15,950 The town was Oswiecim. 453 00:21:15,950 --> 00:21:17,700 In German, Auschwitz. 454 00:21:19,886 --> 00:21:21,708 The first camp at Auschwitz wasn't designed 455 00:21:21,708 --> 00:21:24,283 to implement the Final Solution, 456 00:21:24,283 --> 00:21:27,730 but to imprison the Polish intelligentsia. 457 00:21:27,730 --> 00:21:30,254 Initially, Auschwitz had nothing to do 458 00:21:30,254 --> 00:21:33,063 with the Final Solution or the Jews. 459 00:21:33,063 --> 00:21:35,107 It was a concentration camp that was created 460 00:21:35,107 --> 00:21:37,429 within a very particular context, 461 00:21:37,429 --> 00:21:42,152 that of the German colonization of Eastern Europe. 462 00:21:42,152 --> 00:21:43,710 So how did this ordinary camp 463 00:21:43,710 --> 00:21:45,765 evolve into a center for slavery and killing 464 00:21:45,765 --> 00:21:49,258 that would eventually become a symbol of the Holocaust? 465 00:21:49,258 --> 00:21:53,241 (gentle dramatic music) 466 00:21:53,241 --> 00:21:56,107 Its destiny was closely connected to that of its director, 467 00:21:56,107 --> 00:21:59,395 Rudolf Hoss, an SS officer trained at Sachsenhausen 468 00:21:59,395 --> 00:22:01,972 and a disciple of Eicke. 469 00:22:01,972 --> 00:22:04,724 Hoss considered himself to be, 470 00:22:04,724 --> 00:22:07,011 and indeed was, a student of Eicke's. 471 00:22:07,011 --> 00:22:08,364 And if you look at his memoirs, 472 00:22:08,364 --> 00:22:12,781 he continually refers to what Eicke instilled in him. 473 00:22:12,781 --> 00:22:15,126 Auschwitz, with its room for 10,000 prisoners, 474 00:22:15,126 --> 00:22:17,510 was the biggest camp ever opened. 475 00:22:17,510 --> 00:22:19,980 In 1940, it had 20 brick barracks, 476 00:22:19,980 --> 00:22:23,083 including 14 single-story ones. 477 00:22:23,083 --> 00:22:26,868 New floors and buildings would gradually be added. 478 00:22:26,868 --> 00:22:30,677 Rudolf Hoss immediately began applying Eicke's rules there. 479 00:22:30,677 --> 00:22:33,104 The first 30 prisoners at Auschwitz 480 00:22:33,104 --> 00:22:34,555 were German criminals 481 00:22:34,555 --> 00:22:37,039 who came from another camp, Sachsenhausen, 482 00:22:37,039 --> 00:22:38,630 and who were sent to Auschwitz 483 00:22:38,630 --> 00:22:41,451 to set up the internal administration of the camps, 484 00:22:41,451 --> 00:22:42,809 the administration of the prisoners 485 00:22:42,809 --> 00:22:44,476 who'd run the place. 486 00:22:45,596 --> 00:22:46,780 Among these criminals 487 00:22:46,780 --> 00:22:48,707 recognizable by their green triangles, 488 00:22:48,707 --> 00:22:50,852 the SS named block chiefs and Kapos 489 00:22:50,852 --> 00:22:53,769 to direct the Kommando labor gangs. 490 00:22:55,331 --> 00:22:58,119 Auschwitz is a huge place made up of numbered blocks, 491 00:22:58,119 --> 00:23:01,702 where the prisoners squeezed into at night. 492 00:23:02,980 --> 00:23:05,254 They slept on straw mattresses on the ground 493 00:23:05,254 --> 00:23:09,004 or on wooden beds, sometimes three to a bunk. 494 00:23:09,929 --> 00:23:12,999 The sanitary facilities were rudimentary. 495 00:23:12,999 --> 00:23:17,210 Over the years, these conditions deteriorated. 496 00:23:17,210 --> 00:23:20,453 Auschwitz has up to 20,000 prisoners by 1942, 497 00:23:20,453 --> 00:23:22,653 crammed into a section of the 28 blocks 498 00:23:22,653 --> 00:23:26,153 that made up this 20 hectares site. 499 00:23:26,153 --> 00:23:27,964 The living conditions, the working conditions 500 00:23:27,964 --> 00:23:30,514 were so harsh that even, 501 00:23:30,514 --> 00:23:33,133 except from the master extermination, 502 00:23:33,133 --> 00:23:34,735 even without gas chambers, 503 00:23:34,735 --> 00:23:38,902 the normal every day mortality rate was extremely high. 504 00:23:40,224 --> 00:23:41,467 The prisoners' clothes 505 00:23:41,467 --> 00:23:43,673 were soon filthy and full of bugs. 506 00:23:43,673 --> 00:23:45,475 Every three months, the clothes and barracks 507 00:23:45,475 --> 00:23:46,890 were cleaned with a product 508 00:23:46,890 --> 00:23:49,933 that would later be used for something completely different, 509 00:23:49,933 --> 00:23:50,766 Zyklon B. 510 00:23:53,566 --> 00:23:55,166 From 1940 to 1945, 511 00:23:55,166 --> 00:23:59,083 more than 1.1 million people died in Auschwitz. 512 00:24:00,428 --> 00:24:02,845 90% of them were Jewish. 513 00:24:07,150 --> 00:24:09,507 Daniel Urbejtel was deported there with his brother 514 00:24:09,507 --> 00:24:11,737 from the French camp at Drancy. 515 00:24:11,737 --> 00:24:13,792 He recalls their arrival. 516 00:24:13,792 --> 00:24:15,635 Arriving in Auschwitz 517 00:24:15,635 --> 00:24:18,040 was like facing the apocalypse. 518 00:24:18,040 --> 00:24:20,733 We had to hurry off the cattle trucks, 519 00:24:20,733 --> 00:24:23,733 and if we missed our step we'd fall. 520 00:24:24,574 --> 00:24:26,110 The dogs were biting at our calves 521 00:24:26,110 --> 00:24:28,812 and we had to rush over to be presented one-by-one 522 00:24:28,812 --> 00:24:31,845 for an initial selection in front of an SS officer 523 00:24:31,845 --> 00:24:35,171 who was picking out what he needed. 524 00:24:35,171 --> 00:24:37,474 Those who were fit enough went to work, 525 00:24:37,474 --> 00:24:39,926 and the others were killed. 526 00:24:39,926 --> 00:24:42,619 Daniel Urbejtel and his brother were lucky. 527 00:24:42,619 --> 00:24:45,622 They joined a labor Kommando. 528 00:24:45,622 --> 00:24:46,625 They quickly learned 529 00:24:46,625 --> 00:24:48,528 that the number one rule of survival at Auschwitz, 530 00:24:48,528 --> 00:24:51,672 like in any other camps, was to eat. 531 00:24:51,672 --> 00:24:54,979 There was a break from work at midday, 532 00:24:54,979 --> 00:24:58,812 when a siren sounded and soup was distributed. 533 00:25:01,100 --> 00:25:03,900 We lapped up every last drop, 534 00:25:03,900 --> 00:25:08,067 aware of the starvation rations we were being given. 535 00:25:09,589 --> 00:25:11,422 The prisoners tried to obtain extra food 536 00:25:11,422 --> 00:25:13,781 on the black market. 537 00:25:13,781 --> 00:25:18,420 They exchanged all kinds of things against a morsel of food. 538 00:25:18,420 --> 00:25:22,012 A crust of bread could be worth a life. 539 00:25:22,012 --> 00:25:23,718 There was a father and son 540 00:25:23,718 --> 00:25:25,468 in one of the blocks. 541 00:25:26,818 --> 00:25:29,616 I heard that one morning, they told the father 542 00:25:29,616 --> 00:25:32,533 that his son had died in the night. 543 00:25:35,828 --> 00:25:38,877 The father got up and went to his son's bed, 544 00:25:38,877 --> 00:25:40,715 lifted the mattress because he knew 545 00:25:40,715 --> 00:25:42,858 that's where his son kept his corner of bread 546 00:25:42,858 --> 00:25:44,191 for the morning. 547 00:25:46,276 --> 00:25:50,143 And it was only when he saw that the bread was gone 548 00:25:50,143 --> 00:25:52,060 that he started to cry. 549 00:25:54,346 --> 00:25:56,363 I don't know if he cried because the bread was gone 550 00:25:56,363 --> 00:25:58,696 or because his son was dead. 551 00:26:02,461 --> 00:26:03,968 (dramatic music) 552 00:26:03,968 --> 00:26:05,268 In addition to the hunger 553 00:26:05,268 --> 00:26:07,964 was the violence meted out by the guards. 554 00:26:07,964 --> 00:26:09,276 Anyone who transgressed the rules 555 00:26:09,276 --> 00:26:12,051 was punished with a whipping or was hanged in public, 556 00:26:12,051 --> 00:26:15,947 sometimes accompanied by the songs of the prisoners. 557 00:26:15,947 --> 00:26:17,676 But the most secret killings happened 558 00:26:17,676 --> 00:26:20,513 at the back end of the camp against the Wall of Death. 559 00:26:20,513 --> 00:26:22,266 It ran up against block number 10, 560 00:26:22,266 --> 00:26:26,071 the windows of which were shuttered tightly. 561 00:26:26,071 --> 00:26:27,422 (gun cocking) 562 00:26:27,422 --> 00:26:30,171 Thousands of Poles were killed here. 563 00:26:30,171 --> 00:26:31,866 On the ground, a thick layer of sand 564 00:26:31,866 --> 00:26:34,199 absorbed the victims' blood. 565 00:26:36,442 --> 00:26:38,801 Beside it was another block, number 11, 566 00:26:38,801 --> 00:26:42,097 a hellhole greatly feared by the prisoners. 567 00:26:42,097 --> 00:26:45,708 It would also be a key to future mass murders. 568 00:26:45,708 --> 00:26:47,573 Because in the spring of 1942, 569 00:26:47,573 --> 00:26:51,740 Auschwitz's destiny became far more horrific still. 570 00:26:55,409 --> 00:26:57,270 (cannons blasting) 571 00:26:57,270 --> 00:26:59,222 When war broke out, it served as a pretext 572 00:26:59,222 --> 00:27:01,182 to toughed up life in the camps, 573 00:27:01,182 --> 00:27:04,803 which were also places of slavery to serve the Reich. 574 00:27:04,803 --> 00:27:06,269 Nazi Germany reintroduced 575 00:27:06,269 --> 00:27:09,006 what the Romans had introduced centuries before, 576 00:27:09,006 --> 00:27:09,923 free labor. 577 00:27:11,490 --> 00:27:12,885 How many camps and ghettos 578 00:27:12,885 --> 00:27:14,968 thus served Nazi Germany? 579 00:27:15,914 --> 00:27:17,690 For many years, historians have estimated 580 00:27:17,690 --> 00:27:20,372 that there were around 5,000 detention centers, 581 00:27:20,372 --> 00:27:22,609 including six death camps. 582 00:27:22,609 --> 00:27:26,096 (gentle dramatic music) 583 00:27:26,096 --> 00:27:27,396 But recent research has shown 584 00:27:27,396 --> 00:27:30,996 that the total number has been largely underestimated. 585 00:27:30,996 --> 00:27:32,157 We were absolutely surprised 586 00:27:32,157 --> 00:27:34,699 by the number of camps that we found. 587 00:27:34,699 --> 00:27:38,076 We have a working figure of 42,500. 588 00:27:38,076 --> 00:27:40,655 (gentle dramatic music) 589 00:27:40,655 --> 00:27:42,338 June 1942. 590 00:27:42,338 --> 00:27:44,545 The first brothel was opened in the Mauthausen Camp 591 00:27:44,545 --> 00:27:49,257 to increase the productivity of the non-Jewish prisoners. 592 00:27:49,257 --> 00:27:52,356 The following year, Block 24 at Auschwitz 593 00:27:52,356 --> 00:27:57,022 was turned into an outright brothel to serve the camp. 594 00:27:57,022 --> 00:27:59,173 Access to the brothel 595 00:27:59,173 --> 00:28:02,780 was reserved for prisoners who had received a yield bonus, 596 00:28:02,780 --> 00:28:06,363 which was used to pay for the brothel pass. 597 00:28:08,230 --> 00:28:09,643 The rules surrounding the brothel 598 00:28:09,643 --> 00:28:10,643 were very strict, 599 00:28:10,643 --> 00:28:14,010 defined by the Camp Inspectorate in Sachsenhausen. 600 00:28:14,010 --> 00:28:15,364 The brothel rules 601 00:28:15,364 --> 00:28:18,197 included the opening and closing times. 602 00:28:18,197 --> 00:28:19,374 You can see in the archives 603 00:28:19,374 --> 00:28:21,912 how it was sometimes closed due to breakdowns, 604 00:28:21,912 --> 00:28:23,844 problems with the water supply, 605 00:28:23,844 --> 00:28:25,481 and also on one given date 606 00:28:25,481 --> 00:28:28,414 because the Fuhrer was giving a speech. 607 00:28:28,414 --> 00:28:30,099 So the brothel was closed that day 608 00:28:30,099 --> 00:28:34,581 because the Fuhrer was going to be speaking on the radio. 609 00:28:34,581 --> 00:28:35,582 But these brothels 610 00:28:35,582 --> 00:28:36,882 were reserved for an elite, 611 00:28:36,882 --> 00:28:39,819 a few hundred prisoners at most. 612 00:28:39,819 --> 00:28:43,152 (gentle dramatic music) 613 00:28:44,969 --> 00:28:46,209 The war was also a pretext 614 00:28:46,209 --> 00:28:48,811 for atrocities in the heart of the camps. 615 00:28:48,811 --> 00:28:50,946 All kinds of experiments were carried out on prisoners 616 00:28:50,946 --> 00:28:53,718 treated like guinea pigs. 617 00:28:53,718 --> 00:28:55,545 Experiments took place in Sachsenhausen 618 00:28:55,545 --> 00:28:59,712 in order to find a drug to heal the results of mustard gas. 619 00:29:01,559 --> 00:29:03,579 These experiments usually were classified 620 00:29:03,579 --> 00:29:06,006 as being top secret. 621 00:29:06,006 --> 00:29:08,839 In 1943, the appalling doctor Josef Mengele 622 00:29:08,839 --> 00:29:10,859 began subjecting Auschwitz prisoners 623 00:29:10,859 --> 00:29:13,007 to the worst kinds of horrors. 624 00:29:13,007 --> 00:29:15,989 He gave lethal injections and carried out amputations 625 00:29:15,989 --> 00:29:18,428 all in the name of science. 626 00:29:18,428 --> 00:29:21,366 He put someone in ice cold water until they died, 627 00:29:21,366 --> 00:29:24,419 and see how long it would take for them to die. 628 00:29:24,419 --> 00:29:28,355 Experiments in castration as well, on gay prisoners. 629 00:29:28,355 --> 00:29:32,522 What Mengele did was outright criminal. 630 00:29:34,381 --> 00:29:38,548 It was certainly no question of medical necessity. 631 00:29:39,628 --> 00:29:41,056 In Block 10, for example, 632 00:29:41,056 --> 00:29:43,294 Jewish women were attached to dissection tables 633 00:29:43,294 --> 00:29:44,711 to be sterilized. 634 00:29:45,642 --> 00:29:47,662 After the war, very few of these barbarous doctors 635 00:29:47,662 --> 00:29:52,016 were punished, their activities having been kept so secret. 636 00:29:52,016 --> 00:29:53,433 Worse still, some of their work 637 00:29:53,433 --> 00:29:56,403 even influenced current science. 638 00:29:56,403 --> 00:29:59,899 (gentle dramatic music) 639 00:29:59,899 --> 00:30:03,324 Many of the results of experiments in concentration camps 640 00:30:03,324 --> 00:30:06,784 were real useful for the medicine not only in Germany, 641 00:30:06,784 --> 00:30:08,201 but in the world. 642 00:30:09,907 --> 00:30:12,438 And Mengele himself actually escaped 643 00:30:12,438 --> 00:30:14,500 at the end of the Second World War. 644 00:30:14,500 --> 00:30:16,167 He was never caught. 645 00:30:18,731 --> 00:30:20,817 (gentle dramatic music) 646 00:30:20,817 --> 00:30:22,186 In June 1941, 647 00:30:22,186 --> 00:30:24,104 the biggest German military operation 648 00:30:24,104 --> 00:30:26,012 of the Second World War began, 649 00:30:26,012 --> 00:30:29,309 under the codename Operation Barbarossa. 650 00:30:29,309 --> 00:30:31,976 Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. 651 00:30:33,823 --> 00:30:35,254 A few weeks earlier, Heinrich Himmler 652 00:30:35,254 --> 00:30:37,629 had taken the decision to relieve the concentration camps 653 00:30:37,629 --> 00:30:39,962 of all non-useful prisoners. 654 00:30:41,674 --> 00:30:42,940 He contacted certain Nazis 655 00:30:42,940 --> 00:30:45,006 that had been involved in Operation T4 656 00:30:45,006 --> 00:30:47,839 and asked them to find a solution. 657 00:30:48,791 --> 00:30:50,463 It was established in Sachsenhausen, 658 00:30:50,463 --> 00:30:54,630 and the Camps Inspectorate gave it the codename 14 f 13. 659 00:30:55,931 --> 00:30:59,681 In April 1941 started the 14 f 13 campaign. 660 00:31:01,351 --> 00:31:03,764 14 f 13 was an abbreviation. 661 00:31:03,764 --> 00:31:07,783 14 f meant killing in concentration camp. 662 00:31:07,783 --> 00:31:10,700 And 13, the number 13 meant by gas. 663 00:31:12,743 --> 00:31:15,677 269 prisoners were selected from Sachsenhausen 664 00:31:15,677 --> 00:31:18,682 and then taken to Operation T4 euthanasia centers 665 00:31:18,682 --> 00:31:22,294 to be gassed with carbon monoxide. 666 00:31:22,294 --> 00:31:24,759 Similar operations took place in other camps, 667 00:31:24,759 --> 00:31:27,812 including Auschwitz and Mauthausen. 668 00:31:27,812 --> 00:31:29,960 On the end of 1941, 669 00:31:29,960 --> 00:31:32,874 Auschwitz concentrated on killing those prisoners 670 00:31:32,874 --> 00:31:37,041 who were unable to work, and Jews from forced labor camps. 671 00:31:38,199 --> 00:31:39,213 For the moment, 672 00:31:39,213 --> 00:31:42,807 Auschwitz had still not become a mass extermination center. 673 00:31:42,807 --> 00:31:43,991 More surprising perhaps 674 00:31:43,991 --> 00:31:45,931 is that when Himmler ordered the construction 675 00:31:45,931 --> 00:31:48,571 of the Auschwitz II camp in the village of Birkenau 676 00:31:48,571 --> 00:31:50,115 in the spring of 1941, 677 00:31:50,115 --> 00:31:51,991 a decision had still not yet been taken 678 00:31:51,991 --> 00:31:54,411 on the fate of the Jews. 679 00:31:54,411 --> 00:31:55,572 When the Nazis 680 00:31:55,572 --> 00:31:57,464 planned the invasion of the USSR, 681 00:31:57,464 --> 00:32:00,363 Himmler gave the order to build a new camp at Auschwitz. 682 00:32:00,363 --> 00:32:04,035 Not a camp for 10,000, as had been the case in early 1940, 683 00:32:04,035 --> 00:32:05,405 but a camp that would very quickly 684 00:32:05,405 --> 00:32:07,738 hold some 200,000 prisoners. 685 00:32:09,481 --> 00:32:13,579 Birkenau was just a camp for Soviet prisoners. 686 00:32:13,579 --> 00:32:16,992 Located just two-and-a-half kilometers from the main camp, 687 00:32:16,992 --> 00:32:18,281 it sadly left its mark 688 00:32:18,281 --> 00:32:22,577 as the biggest Nazi killing machine in history. 689 00:32:22,577 --> 00:32:26,269 Its final configuration covered 170 hectares, 690 00:32:26,269 --> 00:32:30,632 surrounded by 16 kilometers of electrified barbed wire. 691 00:32:30,632 --> 00:32:34,999 But how did this prison become a center for slaughter? 692 00:32:34,999 --> 00:32:37,658 To understand, we must travel 800 kilometers from here 693 00:32:37,658 --> 00:32:40,928 to Minsk, the capital of Belarus. 694 00:32:40,928 --> 00:32:44,261 (gentle dramatic music) 695 00:32:45,413 --> 00:32:47,410 In the middle of the summer of 1941, 696 00:32:47,410 --> 00:32:51,319 Himmler went to Minsk with Wehrmacht troops. 697 00:32:51,319 --> 00:32:54,179 He wanted to watch the work of an extermination squad, 698 00:32:54,179 --> 00:32:57,964 Einsatzgruppe B, which was killing Jews in its path. 699 00:32:57,964 --> 00:32:59,576 During this trip, 700 00:32:59,576 --> 00:33:01,795 he witnessed the shooting of 100 Jews 701 00:33:01,795 --> 00:33:04,465 executed in Minsk right in front of him, 702 00:33:04,465 --> 00:33:06,132 to show how it went. 703 00:33:08,483 --> 00:33:11,141 Except that Himmler quailed before the spectacle, 704 00:33:11,141 --> 00:33:14,644 not because he was traumatized by the fate of the Jews, 705 00:33:14,644 --> 00:33:16,767 but because killing men and women 706 00:33:16,767 --> 00:33:20,100 is an unpleasant job for an executioner. 707 00:33:21,962 --> 00:33:23,761 So Himmler asked Berlin 708 00:33:23,761 --> 00:33:27,261 to find a solution as quickly as possible. 709 00:33:28,203 --> 00:33:29,959 The aim was to kill large groups 710 00:33:29,959 --> 00:33:31,376 while protecting the soldiers 711 00:33:31,376 --> 00:33:34,313 whose job it was to kill them. 712 00:33:34,313 --> 00:33:35,975 The Germans are starting to figure out 713 00:33:35,975 --> 00:33:37,529 that shooting doesn't work so well. 714 00:33:37,529 --> 00:33:40,282 It's too public, it's too hard on the shooters, 715 00:33:40,282 --> 00:33:41,942 it's too difficult to keep it a secret, 716 00:33:41,942 --> 00:33:43,667 and logistically it's too difficult. 717 00:33:43,667 --> 00:33:45,367 It's easier to set up extermination centers 718 00:33:45,367 --> 00:33:47,840 and bring the Jews to them. 719 00:33:47,840 --> 00:33:50,808 The SS considered various options 720 00:33:50,808 --> 00:33:52,654 and tried various methods, 721 00:33:52,654 --> 00:33:54,606 eventually settling on gassing 722 00:33:54,606 --> 00:33:56,773 as used in the T4 program. 723 00:33:58,935 --> 00:34:00,507 Meanwhile in Auschwitz, 724 00:34:00,507 --> 00:34:03,010 Rudolf Hoss's assistant, Karl Fritzsch, 725 00:34:03,010 --> 00:34:04,907 noted the precautions being taken 726 00:34:04,907 --> 00:34:08,901 with a product used to disinfect the barracks in the camp, 727 00:34:08,901 --> 00:34:09,734 Zyklon B. 728 00:34:11,792 --> 00:34:13,261 It's an extremely toxic recipe 729 00:34:13,261 --> 00:34:15,761 that kills when it is inhaled. 730 00:34:16,655 --> 00:34:18,491 Hoss was on vacation and Karl Fritzsch 731 00:34:18,491 --> 00:34:20,196 was free to do as he pleased, 732 00:34:20,196 --> 00:34:23,958 so he tried it out on the prisoners. 733 00:34:23,958 --> 00:34:26,208 This was in September 1941. 734 00:34:28,264 --> 00:34:30,472 This insecticide was tested 735 00:34:30,472 --> 00:34:33,021 on a few hundred Polish and Soviet detainees 736 00:34:33,021 --> 00:34:37,188 who were at Auschwitz, in the basement of Block 11. 737 00:34:38,286 --> 00:34:40,613 Block 11 was an institution in Auschwitz 738 00:34:40,613 --> 00:34:41,780 feared by all. 739 00:34:42,930 --> 00:34:45,002 Isolated from the rest of the camp, 740 00:34:45,002 --> 00:34:46,891 it was used as an internal prison, 741 00:34:46,891 --> 00:34:48,044 but also as a place 742 00:34:48,044 --> 00:34:50,343 where rebellious prisoners were tortured. 743 00:34:50,343 --> 00:34:51,805 In the cellars of Block 11, 744 00:34:51,805 --> 00:34:55,693 Fritzsch's first gassing with Zyklon B was a great success. 745 00:34:55,693 --> 00:34:57,111 These people were murdered 746 00:34:57,111 --> 00:35:00,474 in the basement of block number 11 with Zyklon B. 747 00:35:00,474 --> 00:35:03,891 And that was the first test, first trial. 748 00:35:04,774 --> 00:35:05,970 The rest of the gassing 749 00:35:05,970 --> 00:35:08,150 was then carried out in the morgue at Auschwitz, 750 00:35:08,150 --> 00:35:09,557 which was more spacious, 751 00:35:09,557 --> 00:35:13,386 having been remodeled into a gas chamber. 752 00:35:13,386 --> 00:35:14,603 The bodies were transported 753 00:35:14,603 --> 00:35:16,810 by a special team of Sonderkommandos 754 00:35:16,810 --> 00:35:18,734 and then burned. 755 00:35:18,734 --> 00:35:21,366 (gentle dramatic music) 756 00:35:21,366 --> 00:35:23,099 When the people were gassed, 757 00:35:23,099 --> 00:35:26,080 they also got the people out of the gas chambers, 758 00:35:26,080 --> 00:35:27,778 led them to the crematoria, 759 00:35:27,778 --> 00:35:30,774 and then they burned them inside the crematoria. 760 00:35:30,774 --> 00:35:34,107 It was a terrible task to be picked out. 761 00:35:37,293 --> 00:35:38,303 For the Reich, 762 00:35:38,303 --> 00:35:39,650 the task now involved working out 763 00:35:39,650 --> 00:35:41,043 how to apply these deadly techniques 764 00:35:41,043 --> 00:35:43,710 to the entire Jewish population. 765 00:35:45,047 --> 00:35:47,346 (dramatic music) 766 00:35:47,346 --> 00:35:48,365 And it was this mission 767 00:35:48,365 --> 00:35:50,073 that Hitler's right-hand man Hermann Goering 768 00:35:50,073 --> 00:35:53,171 gave to the head of the SS, Reinhard Heydrich, 769 00:35:53,171 --> 00:35:56,754 in a secret dispatch in the summer of 1941. 770 00:35:58,039 --> 00:36:01,197 For this ambitious young Nazi, this was an honor. 771 00:36:01,197 --> 00:36:04,900 Heydrich was seen to be Hitler's natural successor. 772 00:36:04,900 --> 00:36:07,881 He was, if you'd like, the sort of poster boy 773 00:36:07,881 --> 00:36:09,611 of Nazi Germany. 774 00:36:09,611 --> 00:36:11,576 He was six-foot-four, he was blonde, 775 00:36:11,576 --> 00:36:13,526 he was tall, he was handsome, 776 00:36:13,526 --> 00:36:16,231 he looked good in his SS uniform. 777 00:36:16,231 --> 00:36:17,985 And so Hitler had picked him out, really, 778 00:36:17,985 --> 00:36:21,068 as this sort of golden boy of the SS. 779 00:36:22,396 --> 00:36:24,167 In December, after the Fuhrer 780 00:36:24,167 --> 00:36:25,702 had declared war on the United States 781 00:36:25,702 --> 00:36:27,749 and German troops were caught up in the east, 782 00:36:27,749 --> 00:36:32,319 Heydrich organized a meeting at the top level, 783 00:36:32,319 --> 00:36:34,928 a meeting to validate a new kind of camp, 784 00:36:34,928 --> 00:36:38,947 considered by the SS to be a state secret, 785 00:36:38,947 --> 00:36:41,114 the extermination centers. 786 00:36:42,069 --> 00:36:46,236 These deadly camps would kill almost three million Jews. 787 00:36:50,915 --> 00:36:52,799 January 1942. 788 00:36:52,799 --> 00:36:54,947 A big house in the Wannsee neighborhood of Berlin 789 00:36:54,947 --> 00:36:58,092 was chosen as the stage for a morbid, top secret meeting 790 00:36:58,092 --> 00:37:00,675 organized by Reinhard Heydrich, 791 00:37:02,871 --> 00:37:05,038 the Wannsee Conference. 792 00:37:05,038 --> 00:37:07,382 The conference had been planned 793 00:37:07,382 --> 00:37:10,800 and prepared in the utmost secrecy. 794 00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:12,899 We know, thanks to some of the participants, 795 00:37:12,899 --> 00:37:15,317 that there were just one or two secretaries, 796 00:37:15,317 --> 00:37:16,768 suggesting that the participants 797 00:37:16,768 --> 00:37:19,018 were carefully hand-picked. 798 00:37:22,744 --> 00:37:23,885 Before Heydrich, 799 00:37:23,885 --> 00:37:25,789 and on the request of both Goering and Hitler, 800 00:37:25,789 --> 00:37:27,489 15 or so Nazi dignitaries 801 00:37:27,489 --> 00:37:30,032 had to answer a single question, 802 00:37:30,032 --> 00:37:33,352 how to permanently rid the Reich of all Jews. 803 00:37:33,352 --> 00:37:35,170 And this was Heydrich's opportunity 804 00:37:35,170 --> 00:37:38,194 to pull representatives of other bureaucracies 805 00:37:38,194 --> 00:37:40,569 within the regime and explain to them 806 00:37:40,569 --> 00:37:43,729 that they were going to physically exterminate the Jews, 807 00:37:43,729 --> 00:37:46,562 and everyone was to report to him. 808 00:37:48,476 --> 00:37:49,637 It was a conference 809 00:37:49,637 --> 00:37:52,783 at which the question of genocide was openly debated, 810 00:37:52,783 --> 00:37:55,616 where they got right to the point. 811 00:37:56,781 --> 00:37:58,844 Heydrich's discourse was a veritable plea 812 00:37:58,844 --> 00:38:00,276 because he needed the cooperation 813 00:38:00,276 --> 00:38:02,502 of all the men present in the room. 814 00:38:02,502 --> 00:38:04,061 At the end of the meeting minutes, 815 00:38:04,061 --> 00:38:06,125 of which only 30 copies were produced, 816 00:38:06,125 --> 00:38:09,958 listed the number of Jews to kill, 11 million. 817 00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:12,978 Auschwitz thus became the camp 818 00:38:12,978 --> 00:38:14,450 where Jews from Western Europe 819 00:38:14,450 --> 00:38:17,843 were brought together and exterminated. 820 00:38:17,843 --> 00:38:19,165 The Jews in occupied Poland 821 00:38:19,165 --> 00:38:21,929 were deported to three other death camps. 822 00:38:21,929 --> 00:38:25,586 (gentle dramatic music) 823 00:38:25,586 --> 00:38:28,407 This operation for the physical elimination of Europe's Jews 824 00:38:28,407 --> 00:38:31,824 bore a wretched name, Operation Reinhard. 825 00:38:32,793 --> 00:38:35,857 The camps in Operation Reinhard 826 00:38:35,857 --> 00:38:39,182 were specifically designed to kill the prisoners 827 00:38:39,182 --> 00:38:42,932 in less than three hours after their arrival. 828 00:38:45,155 --> 00:38:46,306 In Eastern Poland, 829 00:38:46,306 --> 00:38:48,191 the towns of Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka 830 00:38:48,191 --> 00:38:49,931 were selected to host three death camps 831 00:38:49,931 --> 00:38:52,431 as part of Operation Reinhard. 832 00:38:53,822 --> 00:38:55,702 They were in operation virtually around the clock 833 00:38:55,702 --> 00:38:58,785 between March 1942 and November 1943. 834 00:38:59,672 --> 00:39:01,806 Then they were totally destroyed by the Nazis 835 00:39:01,806 --> 00:39:04,031 in order to destroy the evidence. 836 00:39:04,031 --> 00:39:07,270 Secrecy was the biggest factor in where they were located. 837 00:39:07,270 --> 00:39:09,348 Secrecy and access to railroad lines, 838 00:39:09,348 --> 00:39:13,641 because obviously they had to get people to the camps. 839 00:39:13,641 --> 00:39:14,863 The mission was entrusted 840 00:39:14,863 --> 00:39:18,799 to the head of the SS in Lublin, Odilo Globocnik. 841 00:39:18,799 --> 00:39:21,466 He was a rampant antisemite. 842 00:39:21,466 --> 00:39:23,222 It's said at the the trial 843 00:39:23,222 --> 00:39:25,611 that he tied a Jew to the back of his car 844 00:39:25,611 --> 00:39:27,959 and he drove the Jew all the way through a town, 845 00:39:27,959 --> 00:39:29,794 obviously killing him. 846 00:39:29,794 --> 00:39:31,604 Globocnik wanted to make Operation Reinhard 847 00:39:31,604 --> 00:39:33,996 a reference for the extermination of the Jews, 848 00:39:33,996 --> 00:39:36,876 and also to steal their property. 849 00:39:36,876 --> 00:39:38,582 To design the gas chambers, 850 00:39:38,582 --> 00:39:41,561 he called upon the experts from Operation T4, 851 00:39:41,561 --> 00:39:43,470 and mainly Christian Wirth, 852 00:39:43,470 --> 00:39:45,729 who had played a role in the assassination 853 00:39:45,729 --> 00:39:48,658 of disabled people in the Reich. 854 00:39:48,658 --> 00:39:49,723 The idea 855 00:39:49,723 --> 00:39:51,400 came directly from Hitler's chancellery, 856 00:39:51,400 --> 00:39:53,211 where those responsible for Operation T4 857 00:39:53,211 --> 00:39:55,378 would meet with Globocnik. 858 00:39:56,261 --> 00:39:58,337 The gas chambers 859 00:39:58,337 --> 00:40:00,508 in Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka 860 00:40:00,508 --> 00:40:03,133 used carbon monoxide to gas their victims, 861 00:40:03,133 --> 00:40:06,212 killing them in a matter of minutes. 862 00:40:06,212 --> 00:40:09,879 Their bodies were then burned on huge pyres. 863 00:40:11,156 --> 00:40:13,424 In these three centers, 864 00:40:13,424 --> 00:40:15,537 they used the engines from Soviet trucks 865 00:40:15,537 --> 00:40:17,139 with heavy diesel motors, 866 00:40:17,139 --> 00:40:19,624 and Wirth made them use showerheads 867 00:40:19,624 --> 00:40:23,809 to trick the victims right up to the very end. 868 00:40:23,809 --> 00:40:25,440 (melancholy music) 869 00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:26,874 They tricked their victims 870 00:40:26,874 --> 00:40:27,986 right up to the last minute 871 00:40:27,986 --> 00:40:30,984 by making them believe they had arrived in a transit camp. 872 00:40:30,984 --> 00:40:33,360 That was one of the signatures of Operation Reinhard, 873 00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:35,704 to avoid mass panic. 874 00:40:35,704 --> 00:40:39,483 Belzec was the first center to open. 875 00:40:39,483 --> 00:40:41,629 That was the one that had the shortest life, 876 00:40:41,629 --> 00:40:45,614 operating from March 1942 to December 1942. 877 00:40:45,614 --> 00:40:47,236 And during that very short time, 878 00:40:47,236 --> 00:40:51,403 between 430 and 460,000 Polish Jews were murdered. 879 00:40:53,865 --> 00:40:54,977 When they arrived, 880 00:40:54,977 --> 00:40:57,175 the victims had to get undressed. 881 00:40:57,175 --> 00:41:00,194 The SS officers gave them a pebble with a number on it 882 00:41:00,194 --> 00:41:03,583 so they could get their things back at the exit. 883 00:41:03,583 --> 00:41:05,047 But there was no selection 884 00:41:05,047 --> 00:41:07,207 and all the prisoners were systematically dispatched 885 00:41:07,207 --> 00:41:09,408 to the gas chambers. 886 00:41:09,408 --> 00:41:12,325 (melancholy music) 887 00:41:13,683 --> 00:41:15,090 In the spring of 1942, 888 00:41:15,090 --> 00:41:19,257 the second Operation Reinhard center was opened, Sobibor. 889 00:41:20,129 --> 00:41:23,612 There, 250,000 people, including French people from Drancy, 890 00:41:23,612 --> 00:41:24,779 were murdered. 891 00:41:26,874 --> 00:41:28,557 Nothing remains today of the camp, 892 00:41:28,557 --> 00:41:33,050 so determined were the Nazis to hide their crimes. 893 00:41:33,050 --> 00:41:34,049 And they succeeded. 894 00:41:34,049 --> 00:41:36,633 That is, until a team of Polish and Israeli archeologists 895 00:41:36,633 --> 00:41:41,479 decided to carry out soil analysis in the early 2000s. 896 00:41:41,479 --> 00:41:44,786 Among them was Wojciech Mazurek. 897 00:41:44,786 --> 00:41:47,713 We are now outside of the camp, Sobibor. 898 00:41:47,713 --> 00:41:50,083 We are on the other side of the railway. 899 00:41:50,083 --> 00:41:52,666 So it was freedom on this side. 900 00:41:53,647 --> 00:41:55,656 From here, we can still see the green house 901 00:41:55,656 --> 00:41:58,628 where the SS commander of the camp lived back then, 902 00:41:58,628 --> 00:42:02,295 and also the station sign, now sadly famous. 903 00:42:03,875 --> 00:42:06,092 By analyzing the soil in different places, 904 00:42:06,092 --> 00:42:08,078 the archeologists found remains of the camp 905 00:42:08,078 --> 00:42:11,410 that enabled them to work out how it was organized. 906 00:42:11,410 --> 00:42:15,412 On the map, we can recognize all of our results. 907 00:42:15,412 --> 00:42:19,579 And we have recognized the most important part of the camp. 908 00:42:21,495 --> 00:42:23,427 In 2014, Wojciech Mazurek 909 00:42:23,427 --> 00:42:26,457 made a very significant discovery. 910 00:42:26,457 --> 00:42:28,254 We discovered remains of the crematorias. 911 00:42:28,254 --> 00:42:31,344 It's very sensitive because of the place 912 00:42:31,344 --> 00:42:33,511 of clear sand was changed, 913 00:42:36,048 --> 00:42:40,076 was not yellow sand but black and brown. 914 00:42:40,076 --> 00:42:42,409 And you can feel the smells. 915 00:42:44,368 --> 00:42:45,449 The archeologist 916 00:42:45,449 --> 00:42:46,845 showed us some exceptional pieces 917 00:42:46,845 --> 00:42:49,513 found during the most recent excavation. 918 00:42:49,513 --> 00:42:53,370 They have never been shown to the general public before. 919 00:42:53,370 --> 00:42:56,063 We had found not only personal finds, 920 00:42:56,063 --> 00:42:57,433 for example of the victims, 921 00:42:57,433 --> 00:42:59,566 but also remains of the camp, 922 00:42:59,566 --> 00:43:01,677 like barbed wire pieces, the nails, 923 00:43:01,677 --> 00:43:05,344 and also some pieces of concrete, of bricks, 924 00:43:06,517 --> 00:43:10,684 connected for example with the gas chamber fundaments. 925 00:43:11,522 --> 00:43:13,612 This cup once belonged to one of the children 926 00:43:13,612 --> 00:43:15,605 who lost their life here. 927 00:43:15,605 --> 00:43:18,046 So before the Second World War, 928 00:43:18,046 --> 00:43:21,259 it was also the sign of the kids. 929 00:43:21,259 --> 00:43:24,604 (melancholy music) 930 00:43:24,604 --> 00:43:27,973 You can see here, a coin with the Victress from France, 931 00:43:27,973 --> 00:43:28,973 from Drancy. 932 00:43:30,594 --> 00:43:33,587 Coins, jewelry, little bottles of perfume. 933 00:43:33,587 --> 00:43:35,983 All these objects belonged to men, women, and children 934 00:43:35,983 --> 00:43:39,839 who thought they'd arrived in a transit camp. 935 00:43:39,839 --> 00:43:42,753 (melancholy music) 936 00:43:42,753 --> 00:43:44,866 More moving still are the things that were forgotten 937 00:43:44,866 --> 00:43:48,082 or deliberately hidden by the Sonderkommandos, 938 00:43:48,082 --> 00:43:49,719 like these gold teeth, 939 00:43:49,719 --> 00:43:52,552 just more proof of Nazi barbarism. 940 00:43:54,524 --> 00:43:56,336 1.6 million Jews were killed 941 00:43:56,336 --> 00:43:59,759 in the three Operation Reinhard centers. 942 00:43:59,759 --> 00:44:01,387 In this macabre operation, 943 00:44:01,387 --> 00:44:04,238 they were helped by another nearby camp in Majdanek, 944 00:44:04,238 --> 00:44:07,988 which became a death camp at the end of 1942. 945 00:44:10,207 --> 00:44:12,416 On his own initiative 946 00:44:12,416 --> 00:44:14,628 without being requested by Himmler, 947 00:44:14,628 --> 00:44:16,677 Odilo Globocnik created three gas chambers 948 00:44:16,677 --> 00:44:18,427 in the Majdanek camp. 949 00:44:20,296 --> 00:44:21,892 Before entering the gas chambers, 950 00:44:21,892 --> 00:44:25,145 the victims were bundled into real showers. 951 00:44:25,145 --> 00:44:27,742 This allowed the SS to pick out those in better health 952 00:44:27,742 --> 00:44:28,992 who could work. 953 00:44:30,613 --> 00:44:34,909 The rest were gassed with carbon monoxide or Zyklon B. 954 00:44:34,909 --> 00:44:37,063 (gentle dramatic music) 955 00:44:37,063 --> 00:44:40,586 On the fourth of June, 1942, Reinhard Heydrich had died. 956 00:44:40,586 --> 00:44:41,919 He was murdered. 957 00:44:42,813 --> 00:44:44,627 And it was in homage to him 958 00:44:44,627 --> 00:44:47,842 that Operation Reinhard bore his name. 959 00:44:47,842 --> 00:44:50,731 (gentle dramatic music) 960 00:44:50,731 --> 00:44:55,528 On November 4, 1943, Globocnik wrote to Himmler. 961 00:44:55,528 --> 00:44:56,527 He congratulated him 962 00:44:56,527 --> 00:44:58,083 on seeing the project through to the end 963 00:44:58,083 --> 00:45:00,149 and destroying all the camps. 964 00:45:00,149 --> 00:45:04,791 Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka were wiped off the map. 965 00:45:04,791 --> 00:45:07,680 But the massacre was far from finished, 966 00:45:07,680 --> 00:45:09,490 because in the west of Poland 967 00:45:09,490 --> 00:45:13,605 the Auschwitz complex had been transformed. 968 00:45:13,605 --> 00:45:15,516 The second camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau 969 00:45:15,516 --> 00:45:17,516 had become a death camp. 970 00:45:20,732 --> 00:45:22,565 In the spring of 1942, 971 00:45:23,482 --> 00:45:26,063 the situation at Auschwitz changed radically 972 00:45:26,063 --> 00:45:27,916 with the introduction of prisoner selection 973 00:45:27,916 --> 00:45:31,076 when the Jewish convoys arrived at the camp. 974 00:45:31,076 --> 00:45:32,282 Of all the death camps, 975 00:45:32,282 --> 00:45:33,629 Auschwitz was the only one 976 00:45:33,629 --> 00:45:36,079 where any form of work the SS called selection 977 00:45:36,079 --> 00:45:37,424 was carried out. 978 00:45:37,424 --> 00:45:40,744 20% of the Jews arriving there were spared, so to speak, 979 00:45:40,744 --> 00:45:44,533 and placed in the concentration camp system. 980 00:45:44,533 --> 00:45:46,396 The mass killings were first carried out 981 00:45:46,396 --> 00:45:49,411 in the little red house in Birkenau, 982 00:45:49,411 --> 00:45:51,269 a Polish peasant house at the end of the camp 983 00:45:51,269 --> 00:45:54,852 that had been converted into a gas chamber. 984 00:45:55,832 --> 00:45:57,825 But very soon, more space was needed 985 00:45:57,825 --> 00:45:59,187 and a company was selected 986 00:45:59,187 --> 00:46:01,729 to construct a huge crematorium. 987 00:46:01,729 --> 00:46:03,889 (gentle dramatic music) 988 00:46:03,889 --> 00:46:05,932 The representatives of a German company, 989 00:46:05,932 --> 00:46:08,115 Topf & Sohne, visited Auschwitz 990 00:46:08,115 --> 00:46:11,284 and decided to support the concentration camp 991 00:46:11,284 --> 00:46:14,953 with four complete burning capacities, 992 00:46:14,953 --> 00:46:19,120 with an efficiency of more than 4,500 bodies a day. 993 00:46:21,919 --> 00:46:23,577 In the basement were the changing rooms 994 00:46:23,577 --> 00:46:26,714 and the gas chambers that killed in 20 minutes. 995 00:46:26,714 --> 00:46:29,059 On the ground floor were four crematoria 996 00:46:29,059 --> 00:46:31,450 where the bodies were burned. 997 00:46:31,450 --> 00:46:34,830 This barbary had reached its peak. 998 00:46:34,830 --> 00:46:36,966 In May and June 1944, 999 00:46:36,966 --> 00:46:39,377 the killing at Auschwitz reached its peak. 1000 00:46:39,377 --> 00:46:41,284 It's estimated that some 12,000 people 1001 00:46:41,284 --> 00:46:43,784 were being executed every day. 1002 00:46:46,711 --> 00:46:48,580 (melancholy music) 1003 00:46:48,580 --> 00:46:49,765 Thomas Buergenthal 1004 00:46:49,765 --> 00:46:53,712 was only 10 when he arrived in Auschwitz with his parents. 1005 00:46:53,712 --> 00:46:56,649 His memories are very clear. 1006 00:46:56,649 --> 00:46:59,458 And he wrote them down in a book, A Lucky Child, 1007 00:46:59,458 --> 00:47:03,473 that has been translated into a dozen languages. 1008 00:47:03,473 --> 00:47:06,342 I do remember the train to Birkenau. 1009 00:47:06,342 --> 00:47:10,454 They told us that we're all going towards Germany to work. 1010 00:47:10,454 --> 00:47:13,374 And my father, who knew that area very well, 1011 00:47:13,374 --> 00:47:15,629 said for a while, "Oh, they are right. 1012 00:47:15,629 --> 00:47:17,536 "We're going towards Germany." 1013 00:47:17,536 --> 00:47:19,022 And then at one moment, he said, 1014 00:47:19,022 --> 00:47:23,733 "No, they've turned and we're going to Auschwitz." 1015 00:47:23,733 --> 00:47:25,326 Thomas had come from a labor camp 1016 00:47:25,326 --> 00:47:29,061 and no selection was made on his arrival. 1017 00:47:29,061 --> 00:47:30,597 He was separated from his mother 1018 00:47:30,597 --> 00:47:32,257 and entered the huge complex 1019 00:47:32,257 --> 00:47:35,368 of Auschwitz-Birkenau with his father. 1020 00:47:35,368 --> 00:47:36,771 There was a table 1021 00:47:36,771 --> 00:47:39,304 with two or three people sitting at the table 1022 00:47:39,304 --> 00:47:41,522 who were doing the tattooing. 1023 00:47:41,522 --> 00:47:43,190 I was walking ahead of my father, 1024 00:47:43,190 --> 00:47:46,190 so my number's B2930, and his B2931. 1025 00:47:48,708 --> 00:47:51,228 (melancholy music) 1026 00:47:51,228 --> 00:47:53,033 He remembers the pain, the hunger, 1027 00:47:53,033 --> 00:47:54,689 and the horror of the crematoria 1028 00:47:54,689 --> 00:47:56,487 from the time he spent there. 1029 00:47:56,487 --> 00:47:58,826 The smoke going out of the crematorium 1030 00:47:58,826 --> 00:48:00,509 was there all the time. 1031 00:48:00,509 --> 00:48:03,122 You knew that that's where people were dying. 1032 00:48:03,122 --> 00:48:04,208 Thomas Buergenthal 1033 00:48:04,208 --> 00:48:06,524 was reunited with his mother in 1946. 1034 00:48:06,524 --> 00:48:09,018 70 years later, the emotion is still too strong 1035 00:48:09,018 --> 00:48:11,211 for him to be able to talk about it. 1036 00:48:11,211 --> 00:48:13,926 My mother only survived, my father did not. 1037 00:48:13,926 --> 00:48:15,309 I'd rather not talk about it 1038 00:48:15,309 --> 00:48:18,291 because to this day, I cannot talk about it. 1039 00:48:18,291 --> 00:48:19,791 It was so special. 1040 00:48:23,683 --> 00:48:25,712 Researchers have found six death camps, 1041 00:48:25,712 --> 00:48:28,078 including Majdanek and Chelmno, 1042 00:48:28,078 --> 00:48:30,382 a center that was open before Operation Reinhard 1043 00:48:30,382 --> 00:48:31,880 in the north of Poland, 1044 00:48:31,880 --> 00:48:34,547 using mobile gas trucks to kill. 1045 00:48:35,421 --> 00:48:38,854 But another needs to be added that history had forgotten, 1046 00:48:38,854 --> 00:48:41,894 that of Maly Trostinets in Belarus, 1047 00:48:41,894 --> 00:48:44,394 which had some 60,000 victims. 1048 00:48:45,658 --> 00:48:48,111 But how many were killed in total? 1049 00:48:48,111 --> 00:48:49,341 Historians will never be able 1050 00:48:49,341 --> 00:48:53,996 to provide an accurate answer to that question. 1051 00:48:53,996 --> 00:48:56,353 Of course we don't know everything, 1052 00:48:56,353 --> 00:48:59,012 but we aren't able to find out more. 1053 00:48:59,012 --> 00:49:01,567 There's nothing, not now, not in the future, 1054 00:49:01,567 --> 00:49:06,376 that could change the image we now know only so well. 1055 00:49:06,376 --> 00:49:07,399 It's estimated 1056 00:49:07,399 --> 00:49:09,105 that more than three-and-a-half million victims 1057 00:49:09,105 --> 00:49:10,556 died in the Nazi camps, 1058 00:49:10,556 --> 00:49:13,757 including just under three million Jews. 1059 00:49:13,757 --> 00:49:15,095 (gentle dramatic music) 1060 00:49:15,095 --> 00:49:17,464 In the spring of 1944, the Nazis, 1061 00:49:17,464 --> 00:49:20,119 caught in a vice by the approaching Allied forces, 1062 00:49:20,119 --> 00:49:21,979 ordered the evacuation of the camps 1063 00:49:21,979 --> 00:49:25,591 and the start of the death marches. 1064 00:49:25,591 --> 00:49:28,157 Thousands died because it was determined 1065 00:49:28,157 --> 00:49:31,710 that no prisoner should fall into enemy hands. 1066 00:49:31,710 --> 00:49:33,951 (gentle dramatic music) 1067 00:49:33,951 --> 00:49:35,854 Those who were too sick or weak to continue 1068 00:49:35,854 --> 00:49:38,328 were left where they fell, sure to die, 1069 00:49:38,328 --> 00:49:41,028 as the Allies moved ever closer. 1070 00:49:41,028 --> 00:49:43,861 (cannon blasting) 1071 00:49:45,247 --> 00:49:47,127 January 1945. 1072 00:49:47,127 --> 00:49:49,224 Six months after they discovered the Majdanek camp 1073 00:49:49,224 --> 00:49:51,249 and the remains of Operation Reinhard, 1074 00:49:51,249 --> 00:49:55,586 the Soviets arrived by chance at the gates of Auschwitz. 1075 00:49:55,586 --> 00:49:57,647 The Auschwitz site and the camps there 1076 00:49:57,647 --> 00:50:00,421 were discovered and not-strictly-speaking liberated 1077 00:50:00,421 --> 00:50:03,914 by the Soviets on the 27th of January, '45. 1078 00:50:03,914 --> 00:50:06,351 The Soviets came upon them completely by chance. 1079 00:50:06,351 --> 00:50:08,850 It wasn't part of their marching orders. 1080 00:50:08,850 --> 00:50:11,869 Among them was the soldier Ivan Martinouchkine. 1081 00:50:11,869 --> 00:50:13,619 He will never forget. 1082 00:50:16,255 --> 00:50:18,034 We found exhausted people, 1083 00:50:18,034 --> 00:50:20,784 their faces and bodies blackened. 1084 00:50:22,016 --> 00:50:23,990 We didn't know whether we were dealing with young people 1085 00:50:23,990 --> 00:50:28,157 or the very old, they were in such a terrible state. 1086 00:50:30,453 --> 00:50:32,743 The Nazis took care to dynamite the crematoria 1087 00:50:32,743 --> 00:50:34,174 before they left. 1088 00:50:34,174 --> 00:50:36,933 (gentle dramatic music) 1089 00:50:36,933 --> 00:50:38,177 In the north of Germany, 1090 00:50:38,177 --> 00:50:39,754 the British were liberating other camps 1091 00:50:39,754 --> 00:50:43,817 while the Americans reached Dachau and Buchenwald. 1092 00:50:43,817 --> 00:50:46,171 Inhabitants of the neighboring towns 1093 00:50:46,171 --> 00:50:49,704 were requisitioned by the American Army to help. 1094 00:50:49,704 --> 00:50:53,787 They all pretended not to know anything about it. 1095 00:50:55,496 --> 00:50:57,326 When the crematoria were functioning, 1096 00:50:57,326 --> 00:51:00,997 you could smell them for miles around. 1097 00:51:00,997 --> 00:51:02,265 Of course the Germans 1098 00:51:02,265 --> 00:51:05,644 knew all about this top secret state project. 1099 00:51:05,644 --> 00:51:07,498 There were too many people involved 1100 00:51:07,498 --> 00:51:09,591 in running the gas chambers. 1101 00:51:09,591 --> 00:51:14,021 Word of this got out, and it got out very broadly. 1102 00:51:14,021 --> 00:51:15,858 Almost 150,000 Nazis 1103 00:51:15,858 --> 00:51:18,658 were directly involved in the genocide, 1104 00:51:18,658 --> 00:51:22,524 and millions of Germans closed their eyes to it. 1105 00:51:22,524 --> 00:51:24,901 I suppose it was Heinrich Heine who said 1106 00:51:24,901 --> 00:51:27,865 when the Nazis burned books in 1933, 1107 00:51:27,865 --> 00:51:31,197 "Where you burn books, you'll eventually burn people." 1108 00:51:31,197 --> 00:51:34,528 And that's exactly what happened in the Holocaust. 1109 00:51:34,528 --> 00:51:36,176 On April 30, 1945, 1110 00:51:36,176 --> 00:51:37,976 the day after Dachau was liberated, 1111 00:51:37,976 --> 00:51:41,496 the very day the Soviets reached Ravensbruck, 1112 00:51:41,496 --> 00:51:46,435 Adolf Hitler killed himself with a bullet to the brain. 1113 00:51:46,435 --> 00:51:48,467 Historical investigations would show 1114 00:51:48,467 --> 00:51:51,837 that he never visited a single camp. 1115 00:51:51,837 --> 00:51:54,587 (dramatic music) 85494

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