Original subtitles

[narrator] An industrial powerhouse that transformed the American skyline.

[man 1] There's a kind of futuristic look to this place,

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

[narrator] A holy relic that helped shape modern England.

[man 2] It has all the hallmarks

of a monastic complex and, for many today,

remains a mecca of Christian history in Britain.

[narrator] And a gothic building in Poland

that leaves few clues to its past life.

that leaves few clues to its past life.

These walls hide an incredibly dark history,

one that is still shrouded in mystery to this day.

[narrator] Decaying relics.

Ruins of lost worlds.

Sites haunted by the past,

their secrets waiting to be revealed.

Near the quiet Pennsylvanian town of Bethlehem,

an industrial relic punches out of the landscape.

[man 1] There's a kind of futuristic look to this place,

like something out of Blade Runner has been dropped out of the sky.

[woman 1] This isn't just one set of pipes or one set of chimneys.

[woman 1] This isn't just one set of pipes or one set of chimneys.

It's row upon row of decaying structures.

It feels like it stretches on for a mile.

[man 2] You enter one of these buildings,

and inside is this bizarre spaghetti of chains

suspending metal boxes from the ceiling.

Like, what could this all be for?

It's really strange.

When you came through the gate,

it was like you were coming into another world,

another town, another era.

[narrator] A key development forged in this complex

[narrator] A key development forged in this complex

would pave the way for the construction

of one of America's most iconic creations.

This was a revolution in structural engineering.

[woman 1] It is in many regards,

responsible for so much of New York City's skyline.

It makes New York City in a way.

[narrator] But this site wouldn't just build the nation,

it would help save it.

Bethlehem Steel, once a giant of American manufacturing

Bethlehem Steel, once a giant of American manufacturing

that employed 30,000 men and women.

Charlene Donchez Mowers is a historian at the site,

and well aware of the hazards workers faced on a daily basis.

Everything was so dangerous

you couldn't wear a wedding ring.

Anything could get caught.

All your clothing had to be natural fibers,

because synthetic would melt if a spark hit it.

[narrator] The strange, overhanging objects

[narrator] The strange, overhanging objects

offered security, as well as safety.

[Charlene] These baskets that you see hanging

from the ceiling have chains on them.

The chain would come down and get attached

to these pipe-like things, and they would put

their own lock on it and then no one could touch their things.

[narrator] This complex had long been the lifeblood of the community.

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

blue-collar workers of the USA.

[Prof. Mitchell] A lot of the workers are European immigrants,

[Prof. Mitchell] A lot of the workers are European immigrants,

especially Eastern European immigrants,

and Latino workers.

You also have Black workers, like my grandfather,

who came from, in many cases, from the South.

So they actually had a fairly diverse workforce,

and that spilled over into steel towns

where you would have people living side by side,

going to school with each other.

Not always comfortably, but living side by side.

[narrator] Dating back to 1857, the Bethlehem Steel Company

[narrator] Dating back to 1857, the Bethlehem Steel Company

was founded to help build America.

[Rob] This place was started by people

who wanted to make iron railroad tracks.

This was when America still had a frontier,

and the iron horses connected

these disparate parts of the country.

[Prof. Jerram] With Bethlehem, it was its position geographically,

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

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

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

[Charlene] This is like baking a cake.

You have to have the key ingredients,

iron, ore, coke, and limestone.

[narrator] Situated in so-called Carbon County,

they had everything they needed close by.

And the infrastructure put in place to exploit these resourced

was of epic proportions.

[Charlene] This blast furnace is from the early 1900s.

Right in front of us is an inclined plane,

Right in front of us is an inclined plane,

and there are two what are called skip cars,

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

[narrator] They would take the raw materials up the tracks

to be weighed and tipped into the furnace,

which reached temperatures of over 3,000 degrees.

[Prof. Jerram] The ultimate goal is to create your iron as pure as possible.

And then, it's in its liquid form

you can literally open the gate of the furnace

you can literally open the gate of the furnace

and this stuff pours out.

But what's great about steel in its molten form is you can mold it.

[narrator] Soon, their ambitions extended well beyond railroad tracks.

In 1907, an invention came out of this site

that would radically transform the American skyline.

[Prof. Mitchell] The Bethlehem beam is also known

as a wide-flange beam, and it was enabled

from a really important revolution in rolling steel.

from a really important revolution in rolling steel.

[narrator] The new rolling process produced H-shaped beams

that were light, wide, and cheap.

[Rob] This was a revolution in structural engineering.

And it could be used vertically, as a column,

allowing structures to be built taller than ever before.

[Prof. Jerram] We know what the US is famed for, its skyscrapers.

And it was exactly this engineering phenomenon

And it was exactly this engineering phenomenon

that rocketed Bethlehem, in terms of its supply,

to places like New York.

Some of the buildings that they helped make

included 40 Wall Street, the Manhattan Bank,

and the Chrysler Building, to name a few.

[narrator] In fact, in the 1920s, they provided steel

for around 80% of the city's skyline,

leading the company's chief engineer to claim

that Bethlehem Steel owned New York.

that Bethlehem Steel owned New York.

But they didn't stop there.

Not only skyscrapers, but it's these wonderful suspension bridges,

something like the Golden Gate Bridge,

which has this beautiful orange color.

Eighty-three thousand tons of steel were used

in the construction of this bridge.

[male announcer] Bethlehem, the major contractor,

will build the steel towers and suspended span of the bridge.

The sections are loaded aboard ships

and, finally, through the Golden Gate into San Francisco bay.

and, finally, through the Golden Gate into San Francisco bay.

[narrator] This was boom-time for Bethlehem Steel,

but it was small fry compared with what was to come.

[Rob] In 1939, the president of Bethlehem Steel,

Eugene Grace, was out golfing

when a caddy ran up to him with a message.

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

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

[narrator] For decades, Bethlehem Steel, in Pennsylvania,

helped shape America's city skylines

with its pioneering Bethlehem beam.

When the Second World War broke out,

orders began flooding in from Europe.

[Prof. Jerram] Everything from tanks to even big war ships

were being ordered by the British and the French.

And, at one stage, machine shop number two

And, at one stage, machine shop number two

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

[Charlene] I heard that they could produce

one of these big ship guns a day.

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

And this was a very dangerous, smoky, smelly place.

There were machines up and down these aisles.

You can see there are railroad tracks,

there were overhead cranes.

[narrator] Production was ramped up even further

[narrator] Production was ramped up even further

when the war was brought closer to home.

[Prof. Mitchell] Once Pearl Harbor is attacked,

United States starts to feel like it has stakes in this war,

and so the threat became real.

[Prof. Jerram] I guess you can imagine that

the ethos of the workplace would have dramatically shifted.

You've gone from, essentially, creating arms to sell abroad,

to actually creating something to be part of saving your nation.

[Rob] It was said that an American could be on a Destroyer built

[Rob] It was said that an American could be on a Destroyer built

at the Bethlehem Steel yard,

firing guns built at Bethlehem Steel,

shooting Bethlehem Steel shells,

whilst being protected by Bethlehem Steel armor plates.

Bethlehem Steel built over 1,100 ships during World War Two.

It was the largest ship builder in the world.

And having these structures survive

really gives a sense of scale of what big industry is like.

really gives a sense of scale of what big industry is like.

I don't want to say that it's responsible for the Allied victory,

but it's critical to the Allied victory,

and to the United States' success in the war.

[narrator] While Bethlehem Steel Corporation continues

to operate elsewhere in the world,

like many manufacturing plants in the Rust Belt,

its days in post-war America were numbered.

Though, unlike some, it was a slow, gradual decline

that ended in the early 2000s.

that ended in the early 2000s.

The children of workers that filled these factory floors

have not forgotten the opportunities it has afforded them.

[Charlene] I think 13 members of my family worked

at Bethlehem Steel, and then, my generation,

we are teachers and doctors and lawyers.

But that gave our families the opportunity

from being immigrant families in 1899,

from being immigrant families in 1899,

when my grandfather came here

and got a job at Bethlehem Steel, to my generation.

It's not just true for my family,

but for many families throughout the United States.

[narrator] Off the coast of northeast England is a ruin cloaked in mystery.

[Rob] This road leads you out,

seemingly to this vast expanse of sand and nothing else.

[woman] In the right weather, going down this road feels

like you're driving into the North Sea

because, sometimes, the mists obscure the way forward.

But as the mist clears, it becomes apparent

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

with a castle towering over its surroundings.

with a castle towering over its surroundings.

[man] The castle appears to be organically growing out of the rock.

And in its shadow, are the remains

of what looked like a cathedral-like structure.

[Rob] It's right next to a church, and surrounded by a cemetery

with an intriguing mix of gravestones.

So this place has a real spiritual feel to it.

[narrator] The layout of the stone remains

are telling and hint at Christian roots.

are telling and hint at Christian roots.

[Rob] When you look at it from above, you can see

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

It feels monastic in its design.

[man] There are elaborate stone arches,

one of them almost floating in the air.

Ornate masonry, sculpture.

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

[narrator] Yet it fell victim to an attack that shook this land,

and sent shockwaves rippling out across the Christian world.

and sent shockwaves rippling out across the Christian world.

[narrator] Dr. Frances McIntosh specializes in the archeology

of north-eastern England,

and is an expert on this celebrated ruin.

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

in the... in the apse, which is the top of the cross.

[narrator] The position of this construction, completed around 1150,

[narrator] The position of this construction, completed around 1150,

was all-important and only exists

because of an even older structure that lies at its feet.

[Dr. McIntosh] They picked this spot for the church

because we think this is where the 7th century church was.

This is a real kind of center of Christianity,

and it was the center of the cult.

[narrator] The high altar of that 7th-century church

held the body of the man behind this cult.

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

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

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

with a cenotaph, meaning an empty tomb.

[narrator] So who was this cenotaph dedicated to?

And why is the body no longer here?

This rocky outcrop is the Holy Island of Lindisfarne,

barely connected to the mainland by a causeway.

[Rob] The tide rises so quickly here that, on average,

[Rob] The tide rises so quickly here that, on average,

one car per month still gets stranded.

But you can imagine how, 1,000 years ago,

this natural feature would've given the place a real mystical charm,

created a real sense of wonder.

[narrator] It was this sense of wonder,

coupled with its isolation,

that attracted the attention of King Oswald in the 7th century.

[Rob] The era between the Romans leaving and the Norman Conquest

[Rob] The era between the Romans leaving and the Norman Conquest

has really captured the imagination of people in recent years.

I mean, you've got series such as The Vikings and The Last Kingdom.

And, in fact, King Oswald is said to have been the inspiration

for the character Aragorn in Lord of the Rings.

[Dominic] Oswald's Northumberland covered a vast amount of land,

making it the northern powerhouse of England,

which at the time was made up of a small handful

of warring Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.

of warring Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.

[Dr. Nusbacher] He's going to let all the other rulers

on the isle of Great Britain, and on the continent of Europe, know

that he is a holy king and a wealthy king.

[narrator] Oswald gifted Lindisfarne to monks

in order to establish a monastery

at the heart of his political kingdom.

[Dominic] And he was driven, like all rulers,

by the desire to have monks praying for his soul,

and praying for the health and welfare of his lands.

and praying for the health and welfare of his lands.

Christianity was a political act.

[narrator] In the 670s, a monk named Cuthbert joined the monastery.

[Dr. Nusbacher] Cuthbert is himself a very holy man,

who liked a life of spiritual contemplation.

He prefers to live as a hermit,

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

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

[Dominic] News of Cuthbert's holiness spread and, in 685,

the king appointed him bishop, so he was dragged back

into the world of politics, the court, nobles, religion.

But yet, he still retained a reputation as a holy man,

as a seer, as a healer, as a pastor.

[narrator] But just a few years later, Cuthbert died.

It's believed his body was placed in a stone coffin

at the eastern end of the original building.

at the eastern end of the original building.

When his tomb was opened 11 years later,

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

And it was a message to everyone that Cuthbert was truly divinely favored.

[Dr. McIntosh] And that's when the cult really starts.

People start coming to pray, to ask for miracles.

We hear of a paralyzed boy who wore the shoes of Cuthbert, he was healed.

A monk came here and fell seriously ill.

He prayed by Cuthbert's grave and was miraculously cured.

He prayed by Cuthbert's grave and was miraculously cured.

This is where the pilgrims would come to the high altar

to see Cuthbert's grave.

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

making Lindisfarne one of the most important monastic sites in Britain.

[narrator] And the ruins that extend off to the side

of the original cross-shaped church

reflect its increasing wealth.

[Dr. Nusbacher] All of these buildings were once filled with monks,

[Dr. Nusbacher] All of these buildings were once filled with monks,

hard at work tilling the land,

receiving donations, writing out manuscripts,

preserving knowledge, praying for the souls of their benefactors.

[narrator] It was in this context of increasing prestige and learning

that the monks of this priory produced something extraordinary.

The Lindisfarne Gospels are one of the undoubted treasures of the world.

It shows influences from the Celtic world, from the Anglo-Saxon world,

It shows influences from the Celtic world, from the Anglo-Saxon world,

and even the Mediterranean world,

showing just how international a place Lindisfarne was.

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

ever produced in England,

but, also, a scribe has written translations of the gospels

in Old English underneath,

making them one of the earliest sources of the Bible in Old English,

long before the Reformation.

[narrator] But the monastery's geographical position,

once seen as a strength, would soon become its weakness.

once seen as a strength, would soon become its weakness.

[Dr. Nusbacher] You put this monastery on a holy island

because it would protect them from armies coming from land.

They didn't think for a moment

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

[narrator] Holy Island, England.

June 8th, 793 A.D.

A sizable force of Norse Vikings come from the sea.

So, the sea is quite far away.

Now, what we know is much closer than the 8th century,

so when the Vikings pulled up on the beach in their longship,

they would have been much closer to the monastery.

they would have been much closer to the monastery.

Really quite the quick, you know,

sprint up the beach to come and attack,

so the monks would not have had much warning.

[Dominic] According to one of the chroniclers,

they came in like fierce wolves.

And they murdered the monks, and they carried others off in chase.

[narrator] When word of this bloody assault got out,

its impact was far-reaching.

[Dr. McIntosh] It's the first attack on a Christian settlement.

It's not the first attack by the Vikings in Britain,

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

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

[Dominic] And it was on such a horrific scale

that the news spread like wildfire across Western Europe.

[narrator] Gravestones found on the ground

show that some felt this was divine vengeance.

[Rob] Why did Saint Cuthbert not intervene and prevent such barbaric slaughter,

and protect the monks?

For many, this was a sign that doomsday was coming.

For many, this was a sign that doomsday was coming.

[narrator] In fact, it was the start of the Viking Age.

The monks soon fled and took Cuthbert's remains with them.

This wondering community of monks

carried Cuthbert's coffin with them

until it was enshrined at Durham Cathedral.

Centuries later, when they felt it safe,

they returned to the Holy Island.

[Dr. Nusbacher] Twelfth-century monks

wanted Lindisfarne to be a place of pilgrimage,

wanted Lindisfarne to be a place of pilgrimage,

and they didn't have Saint Cuthbert's body anymore.

So they built an empty tomb

where Saint Cuthbert had been buried,

and they succeeded in making that a place of pilgrimage.

[narrator] It's believed stone from the original church

was reused in the building of this later incarnation,

and its layout reflects the strength

of Cuthbert's cult in the Middle Ages.

of Cuthbert's cult in the Middle Ages.

The church that's built here seems to be mirrored

or trying to copy Durham,

and it becomes almost a second center of the Cult of Cuthbert.

[narrator] Corner turrets, battlements, and cross-shaped arrow loops

reflect the later fortification of the church.

But they can only protect the monks for so long.

Lindisfarne continued as an active, religious community

until Henry VIII dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s,

until Henry VIII dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s,

when he crushed the Catholic Church,

shut down all the abbeys and monasteries, and murdered the monks.

[narrator] In the 1820s, the central tower collapsed.

But miraculously, not everything was destroyed.

[Dr. Nusbacher] Well, the tower is gone

but almost magically, one arch remains.

It is as though God has made a promise

that this kind of ruination won't come again.

that this kind of ruination won't come again.

[Dominic] Lindisfarne is one of the earliest sites

of Christian pilgrimage in Britain.

And, for many today, remains a mecca of Christian history in Britain.

[narrator] In a rural Polish village

is a conspicuous building with a secretive past,

only recently unearthed.

only recently unearthed.

[Prof. Mitchell] It looks like something,

from afar, almost out of a fairytale.

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

[man] As you walk along these quarters and you peer into the doors,

you realize it's probably not somebody's home.

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

[narrator] What this site was designed for

was a far cry from what it became.

was a far cry from what it became.

[man] This place has a really twisted history.

Its roots are grounded in charity and kindness,

but the ultimate application of this place

was positively diabolical.

[woman] These walls hide an incredibly dark history,

one that is still shrouded in mystery to this day.

[narrator] This is Mokrzeszow Palace.

[narrator] This is Mokrzeszow Palace.

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

[Alicia] It was commissioned by the Order of the Knights of Malta,

and this is a Catholic organization

that is dedicated to providing humanitarian aid to those in need.

[narrator] Little remains from those early days,

but not everything has gone.

[Prof. Mitchell] Deep in the basement, stowed far away from sight,

there's an object that is sort of innocuous.

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

[baby cries]

This baby carriage holds the truth

of what this place really was.

[man] The Order of the Knights of Malta

kept working in this place, doing charitable work,

until about 1926, when funding ran dry,

they couldn't afford to maintain the facility.

So they sold it to a wealthy Jewish merchant from the area.

So they sold it to a wealthy Jewish merchant from the area.

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

[narrator] In an atmosphere of increasingly violent antisemitism,

this Jewish merchant chose to pack up and flee.

As local historian Jan Niewczas recalls,

the merchant got out in the nick of time.

[in Polish]

[narrator] What they used it for was a mystery

until a discovery in 2010,

when the cemetery across the street was being examined.

It confirmed what had previously been only rumor.

[in Polish]

[Alicia] Interviews with the locals also added to this evidence.

Residents recalled seeing German men and women in Nazi uniforms

walking around as couples on the property.

And others remembered children being born here,

but not staying for long.

but not staying for long.

[narrator] The evidence was mounting.

Everything pointed towards the theory that this site

was used by one of Hitler's top-secret societies.

[narrator] This is the abandoned palace of Mokrzeszow,

once the setting of a secretive Nazi experiment.

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

He didn't just want to consolidate power,

he also wanted to purify the German community.

[speaking German]

[speaking German]

[Prof. Wawro] This was all about having a pure, Germanic, Aryan race,

and producing more and more pure Aryans

to occupy this expanding German Third Reich.

[narrator] To achieve this, Hitler set about ridding society

of those he deemed undesirable,

while also increasing the birthrate.

[Prof. Mitchell] In terms of filling that void,

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

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

For starters, Hitler basically had incentives

for German couples to have more kids.

Cash incentives, medals for having lots of children.

Mothers who had a bunch of kids would get a medal from the Fuhrer.

[male announcer] They brought together large groups of young men

and young girls for human breeding.

[narrator] The next step was the Lebensborn Project,

created in December, 1935,

created in December, 1935,

by Hitler's right-hand man, Heinrich Himmler.

[in Polish]

[narrator] It's believed that this building was one of those secret locations,

and the women brought here were selected by a special medical committee.

[in Polish]

[narrator] And it wasn't just the women that had to pass tests.

[in Polish]

[narrator] For the women here, life was of a high standard,

but their every move was controlled.

[in Polish]

[narrator] Once born, the children were kept here

for as little as two weeks.

And, after that, they would be sent out to German families,

so they would be taken away from their birth mothers.

[babies crying]

The SS was responsible for the adoption

and education of the children that were bred through this program,

and they were brought up with strict Nazi ideology.

[Prof. Mitchell] Hitler believed that, if you got children early on,

[Prof. Mitchell] Hitler believed that, if you got children early on,

we're talking before Hitler Youth, we're talking in the crib, as infants.

If you could get control of their hearts and minds,

then that was important to Nazification, to the Nazi future.

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

They went a step further.

[Alicia] The Lebensborn Program was also involved

in the kidnapping of foreign children.

[Prof. Mitchell] The children who were kidnapped really fit

[Prof. Mitchell] The children who were kidnapped really fit

a certain phenotypical mold in terms of hair color, eye color, skin color.

It's about how people look, and whether or not they can pass as Aryan.

It is estimated that some 400,000 children

were kidnapped from across Europe,

and were placed in the custody of German families.

[narrator] Dozens of similar structures across Europe

were exploited for this Germanization program,

yet most of the evidence of what happened

yet most of the evidence of what happened

within these palace walls has long vanished.

And until more discoveries are made, the details remain a mystery.

While this palace is now abandoned,

the Lebensborn Project isn't just a distant memory.

Many of the children it produced are still alive today.

Probably one of the most famous Lebensborn children

Probably one of the most famous Lebensborn children

was one of the female singers in ABBA, Frida Lyngstad.

Her mother was mated with a SS officer.

[narrator] Frida is just one of thousands.

And, though some may know their past,

many grew up unaware that they were the product

of a horrifying eugenics experiment.

In Israel, on the edge of the historic city of Jerusalem,

lies a haunting ruin.

[Dr. Nusbacher] There's an odd collection

of beautiful, old stone houses clinging to the hillside.

[man 1] Some of the pathways are almost obscured by vegetation,

roofs have collapsed.

roofs have collapsed.

It's not clear why this village is completely empty

when the land around it is quite densely settled.

[narrator] This village should be a desirable place to live.

[man 1] You see a water source right in the middle of the village,

something rare in this part of the world.

It's a very arid environment.

[Dr. Nusbacher] Jerusalem is such a highly-developed city,

because property there is so expensive.

This place would be worth loads.

This place would be worth loads.

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

[man 2] In the roofs that are still intact,

there are these strange holes.

Almost looks like someone did them intentionally.

[narrator] Yacoub Odeh used to live in this village,

and fondly remembers the time he spent here.

and fondly remembers the time he spent here.

[speaking English]

[narrator] This is Lifta, a once-idyllic village

[narrator] This is Lifta, a once-idyllic village

built around a very precious resource.

There's actually only two year-round springs

near Jerusalem, here in these two valleys.

These are the places that you can grow fruits and vegetables,

and this was actually known as the Garden of Jerusalem.

and this was actually known as the Garden of Jerusalem.

[narrator] And it was this spring that brought the first settlers here

over 2,000 years ago.

Avi Mashiach, of the Israel Antiquities Authority,

has carried out a detailed investigation of the village's past.

[narrator] As the years passed, Lifta grew to become

an important agricultural center for nearby Jerusalem.

[narrator] Life in Lifta continued relatively unchanged

[narrator] Life in Lifta continued relatively unchanged

as great empires rose and fell around it.

But, as the 20th century came into view,

everything would change.

[speaking English]

[narrator] After thousands of years of occupation,

Lifta would be struck by a great tragedy.

[narrator] Lifta, once a thriving agricultural town near Jerusalem.

Populated for millennia, it was caught

in the crossfire of a 20th-century conflict.

At the end of the First World War,

Britain took control of this area,

then known as Mandatory Palestine.

When the British assumed stewardship of the region

after the First World War,

they in effect promised to create an Arab

and Jewish state that would be self-governing.

But they were confronting a serious issue,

which is that you did have a split population.

[Jim] At the same time, there was a growing movement

among Jews in Europe to leave Europe,

where they often faced various kinds of persecution,

and move to Israel and build a new homeland there.

This was a source of some tension.

[narrator] In the aftermath of World War Two,

these tensions would come to a head.

[Dr. Nusbacher] After the Holocaust,

a lot of Jews want to move to the Palestine Mandate.

They want to establish the Jewish state

that they'd been promised by the British government way back in 1917.

that they'd been promised by the British government way back in 1917.

And the Arab population were energized by new ideas

about Arab liberation, and Jewish nationalism

and Arab nationalism clashed.

[narrator] In 1947, as a war-weary Britain prepared to leave the region,

large-scale violence erupted.

And Lifta was caught in the middle.

[Dr. Nusbacher] This little village of Lifta is right on the road

between the mixed Arab and Jewish city of Jerusalem,

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

And once fighting started in earnest

between the Jewish militias and the Arab militias,

this was a war zone.

[narrator] Yacoub Odeh, a Palestinian former-resident,

[narrator] Yacoub Odeh, a Palestinian former-resident,

recalls the violent conflict that escalated here.

[speaking English]

[narrator] As the fighting continued, getting ever more violent,

Yacoub and his family fled the village.

Yacoub and his family fled the village.

[Sascha] Like much of Israel's recent past,

the story here is very complicated,

and what actually happened depends upon which side you're talking to.

So, the Israeli history books say that the occupants of Lifta fled,

So, the Israeli history books say that the occupants of Lifta fled,

whereas when you talk to Arabs,

they say that they were intimidated into leaving

because of the threat of violence.

[narrator] By February, 1948, Lifta was empty.

Shortly after, Israel declared its independence

and took control of this land.

The occupants were never permitted to return.

You can see these holes in the roof.

You can see these holes in the roof.

They were put there intentionally

to make the buildings uninhabitable.

[narrator] Today, Lifta faces an uncertain future.

[Sascha] After centuries of existence,

this historic village faces a new threat.

There are plans in the works to build luxurious accommodations,

but it's not a done deal yet.

The Israeli Antiquities Bureau has also explored this area

The Israeli Antiquities Bureau has also explored this area

and documented how old some of these structures really are,

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

[narrator] And Yacoub hasn't given up hope of one day returning.

[Yacoub speaking English]