1 00:00:01,173 --> 00:00:02,692 Viewers like you make this program possible. 2 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Downloaded from YTS.MX 3 00:00:02,795 --> 00:00:04,659 Support your local PBS station. 4 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX 5 00:00:29,029 --> 00:00:30,582 Man: You know, 40 years, 6 00:00:30,685 --> 00:00:34,344 40 years I've been in the classroom... 7 00:00:34,448 --> 00:00:38,210 and there is never a more poignant question 8 00:00:38,314 --> 00:00:43,595 that a student asked me about the Holocaust than... 9 00:00:46,149 --> 00:00:48,807 "Why didn't the Jews resist the Nazis?" 10 00:00:52,052 --> 00:00:54,088 And there's a moment where you just want 11 00:00:54,192 --> 00:00:57,540 to leave it alone... 12 00:00:57,643 --> 00:01:00,715 and then there's a moment where you can't let it go. 13 00:01:48,936 --> 00:01:51,904 Man: After a journey of 10 days, we arrived at Auschwitz 14 00:01:52,008 --> 00:01:55,011 on April 11 to a crematorium. 15 00:01:57,841 --> 00:01:59,843 Freund: Marcel Nadjari-- 16 00:01:59,947 --> 00:02:05,953 this is a guy who was shipped off from Greece in 1944 17 00:02:06,056 --> 00:02:08,473 all the way to Auschwitz. 18 00:02:36,811 --> 00:02:41,575 Man: The Sonderkommando prisoners were slaves, 19 00:02:41,678 --> 00:02:44,025 compelled to do anything their masters, 20 00:02:44,129 --> 00:02:47,063 the Germans in Auschwitz, tell them to do. 21 00:02:49,583 --> 00:02:53,138 Man as Nadjari: Our unit is called the Special Unit. 22 00:02:53,242 --> 00:02:54,588 I will explain for you the work 23 00:02:54,691 --> 00:02:56,900 that the Almighty wanted me to do. 24 00:02:58,868 --> 00:03:01,940 It starts by the people entering naked. 25 00:03:05,288 --> 00:03:09,672 Greif: The humiliation is a very central factor 26 00:03:09,775 --> 00:03:12,468 in the German crime. 27 00:03:12,571 --> 00:03:16,334 He has to be undressed, and he has to be humiliated. 28 00:03:18,163 --> 00:03:20,855 Man as Nadjari: After the room is filled with people, 29 00:03:20,959 --> 00:03:22,512 it is locked... 30 00:03:23,789 --> 00:03:25,101 and they are gassed. 31 00:03:32,971 --> 00:03:35,525 Greif: And I have to emphasize 1,000 times 32 00:03:35,629 --> 00:03:39,495 the killing always was made by the Germans. 33 00:03:54,337 --> 00:03:56,236 Freund: We're at Crematorium III, 34 00:03:56,339 --> 00:04:01,724 which was destroyed by the Nazis as they were leaving in 1945. 35 00:04:01,827 --> 00:04:06,418 What really is the secret of Crematorium III is this is 36 00:04:06,522 --> 00:04:08,903 where they discovered Nadjari's letter. 37 00:04:18,119 --> 00:04:21,157 He described in meticulous detail 38 00:04:21,261 --> 00:04:23,677 what his daily schedule was, 39 00:04:23,780 --> 00:04:26,300 so his letter gives us a perspective 40 00:04:26,404 --> 00:04:29,027 on what it is that happened here. 41 00:04:37,518 --> 00:04:40,314 Man: In this horrible world, finding even a pen 42 00:04:40,418 --> 00:04:42,972 and a piece of paper without being exposed 43 00:04:43,075 --> 00:04:46,113 what they're doing is an incredible bravery, 44 00:04:46,216 --> 00:04:47,597 and they probably didn't see hope 45 00:04:47,701 --> 00:04:49,427 for their own survival. 46 00:04:49,530 --> 00:04:52,602 They wanted the world to know. 47 00:04:52,706 --> 00:04:56,537 Freund: People have this myth stuck in their heads that 48 00:04:56,641 --> 00:04:59,022 the Jews went to their deaths like sheep 49 00:04:59,126 --> 00:05:01,542 to the slaughter, 50 00:05:01,646 --> 00:05:05,201 but this is where the real story begins. 51 00:05:10,448 --> 00:05:12,346 Man as Nadjari: How could I do this, 52 00:05:12,450 --> 00:05:15,384 burn the bodies of my brothers in faith, 53 00:05:15,487 --> 00:05:19,629 and why didn't I join them and put an end to it? 54 00:05:19,733 --> 00:05:24,910 But every time, the thirst for revenge stopped me. 55 00:05:28,845 --> 00:05:31,261 Man: Each prisoner in every squad knew exactly what 56 00:05:31,365 --> 00:05:33,954 he was supposed to do and prepared for it. 57 00:05:34,057 --> 00:05:36,577 Different man: May those who made an ocean of blood 58 00:05:36,681 --> 00:05:42,203 of my people drown in an ocean of blood. 59 00:05:42,307 --> 00:05:45,448 Woman: Suddenly, the sirens began to wail. 60 00:05:45,552 --> 00:05:48,313 What happened? A revolution? 61 00:05:48,417 --> 00:05:51,489 An uprising at the crematorium? 62 00:05:57,046 --> 00:05:59,945 Freund: This is where the story begins. 63 00:06:01,740 --> 00:06:04,709 Jews did not go to their death 64 00:06:04,812 --> 00:06:06,883 as sheep to the slaughter. 65 00:06:06,987 --> 00:06:08,506 They fought back. 66 00:07:02,767 --> 00:07:05,045 Woman as Peltel: Father was calming us, 67 00:07:05,148 --> 00:07:07,047 saying, "Don't be scared. 68 00:07:07,150 --> 00:07:10,326 "Even when the Germans come, they are not so bad. 69 00:07:10,430 --> 00:07:12,328 "I remember them from the First World War, 70 00:07:12,432 --> 00:07:16,643 and they are quite human, you will see." 71 00:07:16,746 --> 00:07:19,231 For him, it was a shock. 72 00:07:22,407 --> 00:07:24,754 Man: What her father had said was 73 00:07:24,858 --> 00:07:27,757 "I know these people. I know the Germans. 74 00:07:27,861 --> 00:07:30,588 "We fought in the First World War together, 75 00:07:30,691 --> 00:07:33,901 and they're basically decent people," 76 00:07:34,005 --> 00:07:36,283 and then within the first couple of days, 77 00:07:36,386 --> 00:07:38,561 he was pretty badly beaten, 78 00:07:38,665 --> 00:07:43,221 and he was so devastated that he was unable 79 00:07:43,324 --> 00:07:47,087 after that to leave the house to go out on the street. 80 00:07:50,090 --> 00:07:53,300 Man: We were immediately singled out. 81 00:07:53,403 --> 00:07:57,097 We knew something was coming. 82 00:08:20,879 --> 00:08:23,779 Man: So this is one of the original walls that confined 83 00:08:23,882 --> 00:08:25,884 the Jews into the Warsaw Ghetto, 84 00:08:25,988 --> 00:08:28,438 and on Yom Kippur, the holiest day 85 00:08:28,542 --> 00:08:30,268 of the Jewish year, in 1940, 86 00:08:30,371 --> 00:08:32,822 the Jewish population finds out that it's going to be 87 00:08:32,926 --> 00:08:35,342 confined into a ghetto. 88 00:08:35,445 --> 00:08:40,761 Half a million Jews almost forced into this tiny area. 89 00:08:40,865 --> 00:08:43,626 Man: A few hundred people crowd every large, 90 00:08:43,730 --> 00:08:46,249 unheated room of a synagogue, 91 00:08:46,353 --> 00:08:48,286 every hall of a deserted factory. 92 00:08:48,389 --> 00:08:52,739 A whole family often receives sleeping space for one. 93 00:08:52,842 --> 00:08:55,293 The walls and barbed wire surrounding the ghetto 94 00:08:55,396 --> 00:08:58,848 completely cut off the Jews from the outside world. 95 00:09:10,929 --> 00:09:12,517 Patt: These are starvation rations. 96 00:09:12,621 --> 00:09:14,450 There's no way that people can live on this. 97 00:09:21,077 --> 00:09:24,149 Man as Edelman: Children begged everywhere. 98 00:09:24,253 --> 00:09:26,773 6-year-old boys crawled through the walls 99 00:09:26,876 --> 00:09:30,017 and barbed wire to obtain food on the other side. 100 00:09:31,950 --> 00:09:34,228 Patt: This was all part of a plan which was 101 00:09:34,332 --> 00:09:37,231 going to degrade the Jews, dehumanize them, 102 00:09:37,335 --> 00:09:40,476 force them to live in horrible, horrible conditions 103 00:09:40,580 --> 00:09:42,651 where you have disease. 104 00:09:44,273 --> 00:09:45,723 The creation of the ghetto was exactly 105 00:09:45,826 --> 00:09:48,208 to facilitate the spread of epidemics. 106 00:09:48,311 --> 00:09:50,659 They would bring in film crews into the ghetto 107 00:09:50,762 --> 00:09:53,247 as part of their propaganda effort to show 108 00:09:53,351 --> 00:09:54,801 this is how Jews live, 109 00:09:54,904 --> 00:09:57,113 this is how Jews carry disease 110 00:09:57,217 --> 00:10:00,047 and how Jews will ultimately die. 111 00:10:14,544 --> 00:10:16,995 So people often want to know why the Jewish population 112 00:10:17,099 --> 00:10:19,619 didn't fight back immediately. 113 00:10:19,722 --> 00:10:22,725 Half a million Jews crowded into the ghetto. 114 00:10:22,829 --> 00:10:24,658 Why didn't they take up arms and fight back 115 00:10:24,762 --> 00:10:27,178 against the Germans? 116 00:10:27,281 --> 00:10:31,078 - Collective punishment. - Collective punishment. 117 00:10:31,182 --> 00:10:33,011 The Jews knew that 118 00:10:33,115 --> 00:10:35,635 you can start some resistance. 119 00:10:35,738 --> 00:10:38,016 You can aim a pistol and shoot one person, 120 00:10:38,120 --> 00:10:40,087 two people, whatever it is, 121 00:10:40,191 --> 00:10:43,366 but the Germans would then arrest 2,000. 122 00:11:05,941 --> 00:11:09,151 Patt: But the truth is, from the very beginning, right, 123 00:11:09,254 --> 00:11:11,394 once there crowded into the ghetto, 124 00:11:11,498 --> 00:11:14,363 they did resist in the ways that they knew best to do, 125 00:11:14,466 --> 00:11:18,539 resistance that was a type of spiritual resistance, 126 00:11:18,643 --> 00:11:20,887 resistance that was a way of standing up 127 00:11:20,990 --> 00:11:23,544 against the German oppressors. 128 00:11:23,648 --> 00:11:26,340 Feeding the hungry clothing the poor, 129 00:11:26,444 --> 00:11:28,204 taking care of orphans. 130 00:11:28,308 --> 00:11:30,897 These were strategies that Jews had used for centuries 131 00:11:31,000 --> 00:11:33,002 and which they fell back upon. 132 00:11:38,318 --> 00:11:45,635 Woman: The unarmed resistance is called in Hebrew Amidah. 133 00:11:45,739 --> 00:11:49,778 Amidah is standing, standing up, 134 00:11:49,881 --> 00:11:51,607 or in Yiddish, I would say... 135 00:11:53,678 --> 00:11:56,198 I'm not yielding to the situation. 136 00:11:56,301 --> 00:11:59,615 Whatever you do that is against the situation 137 00:11:59,719 --> 00:12:03,032 is resistance. 138 00:12:03,136 --> 00:12:07,830 Whether you sit or lie or crawl or swim or stand up 139 00:12:07,934 --> 00:12:09,487 makes absolutely no difference. 140 00:12:09,590 --> 00:12:10,488 It's something done. 141 00:12:12,835 --> 00:12:14,009 Woman as Vladka: Life in the ghetto 142 00:12:14,112 --> 00:12:16,114 was a chain of resistance. 143 00:12:16,218 --> 00:12:17,737 There were illegal schools. 144 00:12:17,840 --> 00:12:19,635 there were illegal libraries, choirs, 145 00:12:19,739 --> 00:12:21,775 even theaters. 146 00:12:21,879 --> 00:12:23,466 It was an illegal life. 147 00:12:26,090 --> 00:12:28,886 Bauer: The Germans wanted to destroy any kind 148 00:12:28,989 --> 00:12:31,785 of Jewish existence, also cultural existence, 149 00:12:31,889 --> 00:12:36,445 and so on, so when you educated children 150 00:12:36,548 --> 00:12:40,069 in ghettos, if they survived, 151 00:12:40,173 --> 00:12:42,762 for them to develop after the War, 152 00:12:42,865 --> 00:12:46,800 this was against the German idea, yeah? 153 00:12:46,904 --> 00:12:48,940 Man as Benjamin: I organized a school in my building, 154 00:12:49,044 --> 00:12:52,012 and I became the teacher of that school. 155 00:12:52,116 --> 00:12:54,704 I had never prepared for being a teacher, 156 00:12:54,808 --> 00:12:56,085 but there were no schools. 157 00:12:56,189 --> 00:13:00,020 All schools were illegal. 158 00:13:00,124 --> 00:13:03,852 Man: And if you always keep in mind that part 159 00:13:03,955 --> 00:13:07,269 of what the Germans wanted to do was to kill the body 160 00:13:07,372 --> 00:13:10,755 but also to kill the soul, to undermine humanity, 161 00:13:10,859 --> 00:13:13,275 the humanity of the individual, 162 00:13:13,378 --> 00:13:15,933 and therefore, if you never lost your humanity, 163 00:13:16,036 --> 00:13:18,418 then in a very real sense you're helping 164 00:13:18,521 --> 00:13:20,006 to defeat the Germans. 165 00:13:26,115 --> 00:13:28,566 Woman as Vladka: Although you see today how the pictures, 166 00:13:28,669 --> 00:13:31,051 mostly from Germans, 167 00:13:31,155 --> 00:13:34,089 pictures of Jews who were beggars and pitiful, 168 00:13:34,192 --> 00:13:36,505 and this is taken because the Germans would like us 169 00:13:36,608 --> 00:13:38,818 only to be seen this way. 170 00:13:38,921 --> 00:13:42,200 This was only one part of the ghetto. 171 00:13:42,304 --> 00:13:45,100 It was true there were beggars, 172 00:13:45,203 --> 00:13:48,931 but there was another kind of life full of activities 173 00:13:49,035 --> 00:13:50,726 and spiritual resistance. 174 00:14:13,956 --> 00:14:15,509 Man as Ringelblum: With a little peace, 175 00:14:15,613 --> 00:14:17,511 we may succeed in making sure 176 00:14:17,615 --> 00:14:20,273 that not a single fact about Jewish life at this time 177 00:14:20,376 --> 00:14:23,759 and place will be kept from the world. 178 00:14:26,589 --> 00:14:28,798 Freund: They were documenting the entire life 179 00:14:28,902 --> 00:14:30,904 of the Warsaw Ghetto, 180 00:14:31,008 --> 00:14:33,320 and then they buried it, and they buried it 181 00:14:33,424 --> 00:14:36,185 because they wanted to make sure it survived. 182 00:14:45,332 --> 00:14:48,784 It's the equivalent of seeing for the first time 183 00:14:48,888 --> 00:14:50,510 the Dead Sea Scrolls. 184 00:14:50,613 --> 00:14:54,307 The difference is this is so close to our own era, 185 00:14:54,410 --> 00:14:59,450 and to know that Jews have been documenting 186 00:14:59,553 --> 00:15:03,212 and preserved it like a message in a bottle 187 00:15:03,316 --> 00:15:05,111 for future generations. 188 00:15:08,908 --> 00:15:12,118 "What we couldn't scream out to the world 189 00:15:12,221 --> 00:15:14,361 "we buried in the ground. 190 00:15:14,465 --> 00:15:17,502 "I would like to live to see the moment 191 00:15:17,606 --> 00:15:21,161 "when it will be possible to unearth this great treasure 192 00:15:21,265 --> 00:15:23,336 "and shout out the truth. 193 00:15:23,439 --> 00:15:26,235 "May this treasure fall into good hands. 194 00:15:26,339 --> 00:15:29,825 "May it survive until better times. 195 00:15:29,929 --> 00:15:32,103 "May it alarm the world to what happened 196 00:15:32,207 --> 00:15:35,589 "in the 20th century. 197 00:15:35,693 --> 00:15:37,937 "Now we can die in peace. 198 00:15:38,040 --> 00:15:40,663 "Our mission has been accomplished. 199 00:15:40,767 --> 00:15:43,390 Let history bear witness to that." 200 00:15:58,302 --> 00:16:00,511 Patt: So Warsaw is occupied, 201 00:16:00,614 --> 00:16:02,823 and the goal for the Jews is to survive, 202 00:16:02,927 --> 00:16:04,377 to live to see another day, 203 00:16:04,480 --> 00:16:07,759 to live until the war is gonna be over. 204 00:16:07,863 --> 00:16:10,900 They have no idea that the endpoint 205 00:16:11,004 --> 00:16:14,318 of the Germans' occupation is extermination. 206 00:17:06,853 --> 00:17:10,029 Man: This is one of the main recreation spots in Kaunas. 207 00:17:10,132 --> 00:17:12,238 It sits up on a hill. It's windy, it's breezy. 208 00:17:12,341 --> 00:17:14,412 People come here for picnics, to walk their dog. 209 00:17:14,516 --> 00:17:17,070 I've seen wedding ceremonies here, 210 00:17:17,174 --> 00:17:19,245 but what people don't know is underneath 211 00:17:19,348 --> 00:17:22,248 where we're standing, this is where 50,000 Jews 212 00:17:22,351 --> 00:17:24,595 were buried in 14 trenches. 213 00:17:33,638 --> 00:17:35,261 Woman: That -24. 214 00:17:35,364 --> 00:17:37,573 Bauman: This is where the GeoSLAM is going to be. 215 00:17:37,677 --> 00:17:40,576 And--and even if they were to try to memorialize this, 216 00:17:40,680 --> 00:17:42,820 they don't know where the trenches are, 217 00:17:42,923 --> 00:17:44,270 and that's what... 218 00:17:56,282 --> 00:17:58,146 Freund: They thought they were going to a labor camp, 219 00:17:58,249 --> 00:17:59,975 they were gonna be doing work, 220 00:18:00,079 --> 00:18:03,634 and that's what the artifacts tell us. 221 00:18:03,737 --> 00:18:08,363 Passports, watches, personal items, 222 00:18:08,466 --> 00:18:12,194 every type of button because everyone thought 223 00:18:12,298 --> 00:18:15,059 they were coming to go to work. 224 00:18:15,163 --> 00:18:17,234 Man: Everyone is very smart today. 225 00:18:17,337 --> 00:18:19,891 How didn't they realize? How didn't they know? 226 00:18:19,995 --> 00:18:21,514 But you never believe. 227 00:18:21,617 --> 00:18:23,240 I mean, you can't believe that you 228 00:18:23,343 --> 00:18:25,449 will be mistreated and beaten and humiliated. 229 00:18:25,552 --> 00:18:27,623 You cannot imagine that you will be simply taken... 230 00:18:29,177 --> 00:18:30,523 led to the forest, and killed there. 231 00:18:37,530 --> 00:18:39,704 When we take a look at sites like this-- 232 00:18:39,808 --> 00:18:42,466 and we're looking at many Holocaust sites-- 233 00:18:42,569 --> 00:18:46,055 and what's important is that survivors have told their story 234 00:18:46,159 --> 00:18:48,575 and we believe their stories. 235 00:18:48,679 --> 00:18:51,371 What we're trying to do is bring scientific methodology 236 00:18:51,475 --> 00:18:55,203 and scientific tools to verify those stories. 237 00:19:12,392 --> 00:19:13,807 Freund, voice-over: We really are hoping-- 238 00:19:13,911 --> 00:19:17,086 and I'm not naive-- we're really hoping 239 00:19:17,190 --> 00:19:21,436 that we can diminish genocide 240 00:19:21,539 --> 00:19:25,785 when perpetrators know they can never get away 241 00:19:25,888 --> 00:19:26,993 with their crime. 242 00:19:59,612 --> 00:20:02,304 Man: The most horrific statistic I think of 243 00:20:02,408 --> 00:20:05,756 is that only 11% of European Jewish children 244 00:20:05,859 --> 00:20:10,623 who were alive in 1939 were still alive in 1945. 245 00:20:17,077 --> 00:20:21,427 My name is Dana Pomerants- Mazurkevich--Mazurkevich. 246 00:20:21,530 --> 00:20:23,463 I'm originally from Lithuania. 247 00:20:23,567 --> 00:20:26,777 I was born in Kovno Ghetto. 248 00:20:26,880 --> 00:20:30,884 My father was a very famous violinist. 249 00:20:30,988 --> 00:20:34,785 My mother and father decided that somehow, 250 00:20:34,888 --> 00:20:39,168 by a miracle, somehow they have to smuggle me 251 00:20:39,272 --> 00:20:41,585 out of ghetto. 252 00:20:41,688 --> 00:20:46,831 My mother got in touch with Elena Zalinkevicaite. 253 00:20:46,935 --> 00:20:50,421 Was a very beautiful drama theater artist, 254 00:20:50,525 --> 00:20:53,907 who had her own 3 children. 255 00:20:54,011 --> 00:20:58,153 My mother, she said, "I have girl who have 256 00:20:58,257 --> 00:21:02,502 "beautiful blond hair and has blue eyes. 257 00:21:02,606 --> 00:21:06,541 She's Jewish child. Could you save her?" 258 00:21:06,644 --> 00:21:10,717 And that Lithuanian woman, having her own children, 259 00:21:10,821 --> 00:21:15,653 she said, "Bring that child. I will take her." 260 00:21:15,757 --> 00:21:19,519 They gave me a big amount of sleeping pills 261 00:21:19,623 --> 00:21:23,972 and put me in a sack of potato, 262 00:21:24,075 --> 00:21:26,837 and it was one Lithuanian guy. 263 00:21:26,940 --> 00:21:30,254 He took me in some kind of carriage, 264 00:21:30,358 --> 00:21:32,394 and then we passed that border, 265 00:21:32,498 --> 00:21:35,811 and German soldier was staying there. 266 00:21:35,915 --> 00:21:39,090 Somehow, I probably didn't have enough air, 267 00:21:39,194 --> 00:21:41,679 and I started to make that noise. 268 00:21:43,957 --> 00:21:48,272 And that German asked, "What is that? What is this?" 269 00:21:48,376 --> 00:21:50,826 And that Lithuanian guy, he said, 270 00:21:50,930 --> 00:21:55,210 "This is kleine Schweine," little piglet. 271 00:21:55,314 --> 00:21:59,421 Somehow, they let us pass. 272 00:21:59,525 --> 00:22:04,495 It required unbelievable courage, 273 00:22:04,599 --> 00:22:09,328 unbelievable, that they could give me away 274 00:22:09,431 --> 00:22:12,572 and not knowing if they will survive 275 00:22:12,676 --> 00:22:17,266 and not knowing if I will survive. 276 00:22:19,786 --> 00:22:24,239 I think it was a big, big act of resistance 277 00:22:24,343 --> 00:22:27,829 because I will not let to take my child, 278 00:22:27,932 --> 00:22:33,213 and my mother had to--oy-- had to give me away. 279 00:22:33,317 --> 00:22:39,634 This is--it--it took so much courage for her to do that. 280 00:22:42,464 --> 00:22:45,467 I have a beautiful daughter Milana. 281 00:22:45,571 --> 00:22:50,161 Sometimes, I think would I be able to do? 282 00:22:50,265 --> 00:22:51,646 I don't know. 283 00:23:19,570 --> 00:23:24,541 Man: Vilna was called the Jerusalem of Lithuania. 284 00:23:24,644 --> 00:23:29,408 Vilna was probably the most Jewish city in the world. 285 00:23:29,511 --> 00:23:32,100 We consider New York to be very Jewish. 286 00:23:32,203 --> 00:23:36,863 New York's got--15% of the population's Jewish, 287 00:23:36,967 --> 00:23:42,248 but Vilna at its peak had 40% of the population was Jewish. 288 00:23:47,011 --> 00:23:51,084 Man: As a child in Vilna, I lived with a sense 289 00:23:51,188 --> 00:23:55,572 of living in paradise. 290 00:23:55,675 --> 00:23:59,023 Fishman: It was a great center of Jewish learning. 291 00:23:59,127 --> 00:24:01,785 It was a city of the spirit, 292 00:24:01,888 --> 00:24:04,201 and that's why it got the name Jerusalem. 293 00:24:11,829 --> 00:24:16,765 The Germans attacked Vilna on June 22, 1941. 294 00:24:16,869 --> 00:24:20,182 That's almost two years later than when they attacked Warsaw, 295 00:24:20,286 --> 00:24:25,153 so the Germans came late, but they acted fast, 296 00:24:25,256 --> 00:24:26,879 and the Germans started looting 297 00:24:26,982 --> 00:24:29,882 Jewish cultural treasures in Vilna. 298 00:24:29,985 --> 00:24:35,128 In July 1941, they realized that there were just 299 00:24:35,232 --> 00:24:36,716 too many Jewish books and papers 300 00:24:36,820 --> 00:24:38,269 and documents and treasures in this city. 301 00:24:38,373 --> 00:24:40,237 They couldn't handle it, 302 00:24:40,340 --> 00:24:45,173 and that's why they established this slave labor brigade of Jews 303 00:24:45,276 --> 00:24:49,626 that would sort the material called the Paper Brigade. 304 00:24:52,767 --> 00:24:55,804 Right here, right behind me, is where the gate 305 00:24:55,908 --> 00:24:58,462 to the Vilna Ghetto stood. 306 00:24:58,566 --> 00:25:01,707 The members of the Paper Brigade had to pass 307 00:25:01,810 --> 00:25:05,849 through this gate daily. 308 00:25:05,952 --> 00:25:09,508 They had books packed underneath their clothing, 309 00:25:09,611 --> 00:25:11,337 under their shirts, under their pants, 310 00:25:11,440 --> 00:25:13,132 under their--in their shoes, 311 00:25:13,235 --> 00:25:17,170 and they had to pass through body searches 312 00:25:17,274 --> 00:25:19,138 of ghetto guards. 313 00:25:19,241 --> 00:25:23,660 If they were found to be carrying books on them-- 314 00:25:23,763 --> 00:25:25,420 it didn't matter if you were carrying 315 00:25:25,524 --> 00:25:27,802 books or food or anything. 316 00:25:27,905 --> 00:25:30,287 The penalty was the same, death... 317 00:25:35,982 --> 00:25:38,640 and many of those books, once they were smuggled 318 00:25:38,744 --> 00:25:41,263 into the ghetto successfully, 319 00:25:41,367 --> 00:25:42,851 they brought here to the building 320 00:25:42,955 --> 00:25:45,233 that was probably the central address 321 00:25:45,336 --> 00:25:50,445 in the Vilna Ghetto, the Vilna Ghetto Library. 322 00:25:50,549 --> 00:25:53,310 Reading was a kind of moral, cultural, 323 00:25:53,413 --> 00:25:54,725 spiritual resistance. 324 00:25:54,829 --> 00:25:56,589 "You're not gonna break my humanity. 325 00:25:56,693 --> 00:25:58,833 "I'm a human being, and reading books is 326 00:25:58,936 --> 00:26:00,455 "integral to being a human being, 327 00:26:00,559 --> 00:26:03,147 and I'm gonna do that." 328 00:26:03,251 --> 00:26:05,978 Bak: It was--absolutely it was a resistance, 329 00:26:06,081 --> 00:26:09,360 and it was as indispensable as bread, 330 00:26:09,464 --> 00:26:11,190 I would say. 331 00:26:11,293 --> 00:26:12,743 As they say in Hebrew, 332 00:26:12,847 --> 00:26:15,228 "Not only on bread can man live." 333 00:26:15,332 --> 00:26:18,128 He needs also something for the spirit. 334 00:26:36,387 --> 00:26:40,633 In the ghetto, where art and writing and poetry 335 00:26:40,737 --> 00:26:44,533 were created, where people could express themselves, 336 00:26:44,637 --> 00:26:48,952 there was a sense of dignity, 337 00:26:49,055 --> 00:26:52,749 and I think this was a very important factor 338 00:26:52,852 --> 00:26:59,479 that kept the psyche of the people more or less alive. 339 00:27:12,561 --> 00:27:14,356 My name is Michael Kovner. 340 00:27:14,460 --> 00:27:17,774 My parents were Abba Kovner and Vitka Kovner-- 341 00:27:17,877 --> 00:27:20,811 Kempner-Kovner. 342 00:27:20,915 --> 00:27:23,952 My father wanted to be a painter, 343 00:27:24,056 --> 00:27:27,715 and he accepted to the Vilna Academic of Painting. 344 00:27:27,818 --> 00:27:30,821 He was accepted to this, but he couldn't, you know-- 345 00:27:30,925 --> 00:27:32,685 the war would come, so he couldn't 346 00:27:32,789 --> 00:27:36,206 fulfill this dream, 347 00:27:36,309 --> 00:27:40,106 but I think he always was kind of a poet, you know. 348 00:27:40,210 --> 00:27:43,627 My mother, she--she walked on the pavement, 349 00:27:43,731 --> 00:27:47,286 which Jewish in Poland after Nazi occupation 350 00:27:47,389 --> 00:27:49,668 weren't allowed to walk on the pavement... 351 00:27:50,979 --> 00:27:52,532 and she went to the pavement, 352 00:27:52,636 --> 00:27:55,225 and then the officer or soldiers, Nazi, 353 00:27:55,328 --> 00:27:56,640 came to her, and she-- 354 00:27:56,744 --> 00:27:58,642 and he asked her, "You are Jewish?" 355 00:27:58,746 --> 00:28:00,126 And she said yes. 356 00:28:00,230 --> 00:28:02,439 "So why you are going on the pavement?" 357 00:28:02,542 --> 00:28:03,647 She said, "Why not?" 358 00:28:03,751 --> 00:28:05,476 He said, "You are not allowed," 359 00:28:05,580 --> 00:28:09,204 and she gave him splash on his face 360 00:28:09,308 --> 00:28:11,172 and continued to walk. 361 00:28:11,275 --> 00:28:12,829 So that's her type. 362 00:28:26,221 --> 00:28:30,501 Porat: The youth movement played a role in the life 363 00:28:30,605 --> 00:28:33,194 of the youngsters at the time. 364 00:28:33,297 --> 00:28:35,230 They felt belonging. 365 00:28:35,334 --> 00:28:37,992 It wasn't just a place to which you go to be 366 00:28:38,095 --> 00:28:40,235 entertained once or twice a week. 367 00:28:40,339 --> 00:28:43,273 You lived your life with the members, 368 00:28:43,376 --> 00:28:45,240 you lived through them. 369 00:28:45,344 --> 00:28:49,348 It's a collective identity of being Jewish, 370 00:28:49,451 --> 00:28:52,454 and this explains to you the way they handled 371 00:28:52,558 --> 00:28:56,010 themselves during the war. 372 00:28:56,113 --> 00:28:57,563 Man as Abba: We had formed our group, 373 00:28:57,666 --> 00:29:00,186 starting from a precise ideology. 374 00:29:00,290 --> 00:29:03,293 Our fight was not for self-preservation. 375 00:29:03,396 --> 00:29:06,537 It was not to save myself, to save you, 376 00:29:06,641 --> 00:29:08,643 to save a neighbor. 377 00:29:08,747 --> 00:29:10,887 It was to fight the Germans. 378 00:29:15,029 --> 00:29:17,756 Fishman: In half a year, the Jewish population of Vilna 379 00:29:17,859 --> 00:29:23,002 went down from 70,000 to 20,000 Jews. 380 00:29:23,106 --> 00:29:24,590 More than 2/3 of the Jews of Vilna 381 00:29:24,693 --> 00:29:26,385 were killed in half a year, 382 00:29:26,488 --> 00:29:32,115 and that's in 1941, well before there were deportations 383 00:29:32,218 --> 00:29:36,188 to the death camps from Warsaw and other cities in Poland. 384 00:29:39,225 --> 00:29:40,986 Man as Abba: One day I was called and told to go 385 00:29:41,089 --> 00:29:42,919 to the hospital of the ghetto, 386 00:29:43,022 --> 00:29:44,644 that there was a young girl injured 387 00:29:44,748 --> 00:29:49,097 who wanted to talk to me and only to me. 388 00:29:49,201 --> 00:29:51,410 From her, I got the first direct evidence 389 00:29:51,513 --> 00:29:52,963 about what was happening. 390 00:29:56,380 --> 00:29:59,832 There were 119 women. 391 00:29:59,936 --> 00:30:01,558 They were told to line up. 392 00:30:03,594 --> 00:30:05,113 Behind them there were ditches. 393 00:30:08,151 --> 00:30:11,671 The Lithuanians started firing on the whole line of women... 394 00:30:13,466 --> 00:30:15,572 and all the women fell into the ditch... 395 00:30:17,298 --> 00:30:18,264 dead. 396 00:30:37,111 --> 00:30:38,319 This is the burial pit. 397 00:30:40,148 --> 00:30:43,738 It was a burial pit in 1941, 398 00:30:43,842 --> 00:30:46,914 and in this forest, 399 00:30:47,017 --> 00:30:50,607 both Nazis and their collaborators from Lithuania 400 00:30:50,710 --> 00:30:53,610 systematically shot 401 00:30:53,713 --> 00:30:58,028 about 100,000 people in these pits. 402 00:31:06,002 --> 00:31:07,796 Man as Abba: One thing is clear to me. 403 00:31:07,900 --> 00:31:10,696 Vilna is not just Vilna. 404 00:31:10,799 --> 00:31:13,941 Ponari is not just an episode. 405 00:31:14,044 --> 00:31:16,875 There is a system, whose inner workings are, 406 00:31:16,978 --> 00:31:20,050 for the meantime, hidden from us. 407 00:31:23,502 --> 00:31:26,194 Kovner: My father said, "Nobody can escape. 408 00:31:26,298 --> 00:31:29,163 "The Jewish people cannot escape from this, 409 00:31:29,266 --> 00:31:31,544 "so what the Jewish people can do, 410 00:31:31,648 --> 00:31:33,167 they can fight for their honor." 411 00:31:33,270 --> 00:31:36,308 That's it. To fight for the honor. 412 00:31:47,906 --> 00:31:49,045 Man as Abba: They shall not take us 413 00:31:49,148 --> 00:31:51,081 like sheep to the slaughter. 414 00:31:51,185 --> 00:31:53,566 All those who were taken away from the ghetto 415 00:31:53,670 --> 00:31:55,258 never came back. 416 00:31:58,261 --> 00:32:01,989 Porat: It is a call to the population that was left 417 00:32:02,092 --> 00:32:05,164 not to foster illusions. 418 00:32:05,268 --> 00:32:08,098 "Those who went out of the gates of the ghetto 419 00:32:08,202 --> 00:32:10,480 will not come back." 420 00:32:10,583 --> 00:32:13,172 Man as Abba: All the roads of the Gestapo lead 421 00:32:13,276 --> 00:32:17,556 to Ponari, and Ponari is death. 422 00:32:20,352 --> 00:32:23,217 Porat: He said, "Hitler has a plot. 423 00:32:23,320 --> 00:32:29,671 "He's planning to murder all the Jews of Europe. 424 00:32:29,775 --> 00:32:33,261 If everyone out of the ghetto was killed"... 425 00:32:35,436 --> 00:32:39,233 "and if there is a plan to kill the rest, as well"... 426 00:32:42,305 --> 00:32:50,347 "then there is no other choice left but to resist." 427 00:32:50,451 --> 00:32:54,041 Man as Abba: It is true we are weak and defenseless, 428 00:32:54,144 --> 00:32:57,734 but resistance is the only reply. 429 00:32:57,837 --> 00:33:02,014 Brothers, it is better to fall as free fighters 430 00:33:02,118 --> 00:33:06,294 than to live by the grace of the murderers. 431 00:33:06,398 --> 00:33:11,299 Resist to the last breath. 432 00:33:42,123 --> 00:33:44,367 Bauer: Nobody wanted to resist because they said, 433 00:33:44,470 --> 00:33:48,095 "If we try to resist, they will kill everyone," 434 00:33:48,198 --> 00:33:49,579 and the youth movement said, 435 00:33:49,682 --> 00:33:51,788 "They're going to kill everyone anyway," 436 00:33:51,891 --> 00:33:52,789 and we must resist. 437 00:33:54,308 --> 00:33:56,241 Woman as Korchak: The soul was enlightened. 438 00:33:56,344 --> 00:33:58,657 The ghetto nightmare dissipated. 439 00:33:58,760 --> 00:34:03,041 Martyrdom, helplessness, and slavery are over, 440 00:34:03,144 --> 00:34:07,631 and now the one goal before us is rebellion. 441 00:34:36,281 --> 00:34:38,145 Woman as Vitka: We were not soldiers. 442 00:34:38,248 --> 00:34:40,216 We'd never shot a gun before. 443 00:34:40,319 --> 00:34:42,149 We took a pipe, and another boy 444 00:34:42,252 --> 00:34:43,736 got the dynamite. 445 00:34:43,840 --> 00:34:46,808 It was very primitive. 446 00:34:46,912 --> 00:34:51,710 Kovner: My mother, she went with 2 other guys for 3 days 447 00:34:51,813 --> 00:34:54,092 outside the ghetto because they have to go very far 448 00:34:54,195 --> 00:34:58,475 from the ghetto that the Germans won't know 449 00:34:58,579 --> 00:35:00,339 that the Jewish people did it. 450 00:35:00,443 --> 00:35:02,445 That was the most important thing, 451 00:35:02,548 --> 00:35:04,654 so she found the best place. 452 00:35:04,757 --> 00:35:06,518 The patrol of the Germans is not there 453 00:35:06,621 --> 00:35:08,416 when the train is there at that hour. 454 00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:10,108 She found the best place. 455 00:35:10,591 --> 00:35:12,144 Woman as Vitka: 1:30 in the morning, 456 00:35:12,248 --> 00:35:14,112 we planted the bomb. 457 00:35:14,215 --> 00:35:16,769 We took it, and we put it under the rail tracks. 458 00:35:16,873 --> 00:35:18,771 We escaped very quickly. 459 00:35:18,875 --> 00:35:22,016 When the train passed over it at 2:00, it exploded... 460 00:35:23,776 --> 00:35:25,847 and from far away, we heard the explosion. 461 00:35:28,954 --> 00:35:31,853 Kovner: Heh. She was the hero of the oldest story. 462 00:35:31,957 --> 00:35:35,063 Like, she was the first one who went outside the ghetto 463 00:35:35,167 --> 00:35:37,411 and bombed a German train. 464 00:36:13,447 --> 00:36:15,932 Man: One should never believe that Warsaw and Vilna were 465 00:36:16,035 --> 00:36:18,762 the only ghettos that rose. 466 00:36:18,866 --> 00:36:21,455 Ghettos large and small rose in resistance. 467 00:37:26,554 --> 00:37:29,454 Lensky: If we discuss how the Nazis reacted to resistance, 468 00:37:29,557 --> 00:37:33,492 they thought of Jews being so inferior to them 469 00:37:33,596 --> 00:37:35,736 that they are unable to resist, 470 00:37:35,839 --> 00:37:37,082 that will actually go 471 00:37:37,185 --> 00:37:38,670 as the cattle to the slaughter, 472 00:37:38,773 --> 00:37:40,292 So we have to understand that when we use 473 00:37:40,396 --> 00:37:43,330 this phrase "cattle to the slaughter," 474 00:37:43,433 --> 00:37:47,437 we use the Nazi lens. 475 00:37:47,541 --> 00:37:50,129 We look at you through Nazi eyes. 476 00:38:15,672 --> 00:38:17,709 Man: When my mother became a courier, 477 00:38:17,812 --> 00:38:22,576 the first task was to move into Grodno. 478 00:38:24,681 --> 00:38:28,409 In Grodno, she was supposed to see what's going on 479 00:38:28,513 --> 00:38:30,238 with the Jewish community 480 00:38:30,342 --> 00:38:31,757 because there were no connections. 481 00:38:31,861 --> 00:38:33,828 You have to understand there was no telephones. 482 00:38:33,932 --> 00:38:35,589 All telephones were cut. 483 00:38:35,692 --> 00:38:38,799 There was no mail service, there was no Internet. 484 00:38:40,766 --> 00:38:43,113 Woman as Hazan: Each one of us preferred to fall 485 00:38:43,217 --> 00:38:44,943 in combat than to be led 486 00:38:45,046 --> 00:38:47,842 as sheep to the slaughter. 487 00:38:47,946 --> 00:38:49,982 The movement's leadership sought out girls 488 00:38:50,086 --> 00:38:52,675 with a Gentile appearance, who would serve 489 00:38:52,778 --> 00:38:57,404 as liaison couriers between the different locations. 490 00:38:57,507 --> 00:39:00,027 This role was unsuitable for boys, who already 491 00:39:00,130 --> 00:39:02,823 from the age of 8 days had their Jewishness marked 492 00:39:02,926 --> 00:39:04,480 on their flesh. 493 00:39:06,689 --> 00:39:08,967 I volunteered for the role because I'd already gained 494 00:39:09,070 --> 00:39:11,728 experience and self-confidence in impersonating 495 00:39:11,832 --> 00:39:14,213 a Gentile and going outside the ghetto. 496 00:39:17,113 --> 00:39:19,080 Yaari: They smuggled weapons, 497 00:39:19,184 --> 00:39:22,498 guns and grenades and so on. 498 00:39:22,601 --> 00:39:25,673 This was a very dangerous mission. 499 00:39:25,777 --> 00:39:28,055 They also smuggled people out of the ghetto 500 00:39:28,158 --> 00:39:31,541 to put them in hiding places. 501 00:39:31,645 --> 00:39:34,855 My mother, she was sent to Grodno. 502 00:39:34,958 --> 00:39:39,584 I must remind you again that she was 19 years old. 503 00:39:39,687 --> 00:39:42,345 Woman as Hazan: I went to the labor bureau in town. 504 00:39:42,449 --> 00:39:44,416 The clerk asked me whether I knew German, 505 00:39:44,520 --> 00:39:46,763 and I answered him in poor Yiddish. 506 00:39:46,867 --> 00:39:50,698 For "vos," I said, "was," and so on. 507 00:39:50,802 --> 00:39:53,321 After a few sentences from me, he declared, 508 00:39:53,425 --> 00:39:55,531 "You speak German very well. 509 00:39:55,634 --> 00:39:58,292 "You can take a position with us as an interpreter 510 00:39:58,396 --> 00:40:00,087 at the Gestapo." 511 00:40:02,158 --> 00:40:04,540 Yaari: So when she worked in that office, 512 00:40:04,643 --> 00:40:07,543 she managed to steal from the desk all kinds 513 00:40:07,646 --> 00:40:10,580 of papers and stamps, and she brought them to Vilna, 514 00:40:10,684 --> 00:40:13,790 and they were used to make false identities 515 00:40:13,894 --> 00:40:15,689 for--for--for other people, 516 00:40:15,792 --> 00:40:19,140 traveling documents and so on. 517 00:40:19,244 --> 00:40:22,420 She was several months, almost half a year, in Grodno. 518 00:40:22,523 --> 00:40:25,595 Her two friends, who were also couriers, 519 00:40:25,699 --> 00:40:27,597 Tema Sznajderman, and Lonka Korzybrodska, 520 00:40:27,701 --> 00:40:29,116 came to her room. 521 00:40:29,219 --> 00:40:31,083 This was Christmas Eve, 522 00:40:31,187 --> 00:40:34,915 and my mother was invited by the Gestapo. 523 00:40:35,018 --> 00:40:37,607 There was one officer who was--I think was 524 00:40:37,711 --> 00:40:39,540 in love with her, 525 00:40:39,644 --> 00:40:42,094 and he invited her to the Christmas party 526 00:40:42,198 --> 00:40:44,027 of the Gestapo, 527 00:40:44,131 --> 00:40:45,788 and she said, "I'm sorry, I cannot come 528 00:40:45,891 --> 00:40:48,687 because I have two girlfriends," 529 00:40:48,791 --> 00:40:52,380 and he said, "Bring them also with you." 530 00:40:52,484 --> 00:40:54,969 He came to pick her up, and the 3 of them, 531 00:40:55,073 --> 00:40:58,870 they dressed in the best clothes that they had. 532 00:40:58,973 --> 00:41:02,252 They went on Christmas Eve, December 1941, 533 00:41:02,356 --> 00:41:04,323 to this Christmas party, 534 00:41:04,427 --> 00:41:07,879 and this Gestapo officer took a picture 535 00:41:07,982 --> 00:41:09,225 of the 3 of them. 536 00:41:17,785 --> 00:41:23,135 June 1942, Lonka Korzybrodska was sent to Warsaw. 537 00:41:23,239 --> 00:41:24,827 She was sent on a mission. 538 00:41:24,930 --> 00:41:28,347 She had to deliver two guns to the underground 539 00:41:28,451 --> 00:41:32,628 and information, and she was on the train 540 00:41:32,731 --> 00:41:35,596 in the middle between Bialystok and Warsaw, 541 00:41:35,700 --> 00:41:38,772 and her luck didn't hold, 542 00:41:38,875 --> 00:41:41,429 and she was captured by the Gestapo. 543 00:41:43,949 --> 00:41:46,745 So when Lonka did not come back to Bialystok, 544 00:41:46,849 --> 00:41:49,265 my mother volunteered to follow her steps 545 00:41:49,368 --> 00:41:51,578 and to look for her, 546 00:41:51,681 --> 00:41:55,996 so she went on the train from Bialystok to Warsaw, 547 00:41:56,099 --> 00:41:58,964 and when the train got to Malkinia, 548 00:41:59,068 --> 00:42:02,692 the gendarmes who were on the train told her 549 00:42:02,796 --> 00:42:04,694 "We are waiting for you. 550 00:42:04,798 --> 00:42:07,214 Come, come with us." 551 00:42:07,317 --> 00:42:09,561 And why were they waiting for her? 552 00:42:09,665 --> 00:42:12,322 Because Lonka, she was very courageous 553 00:42:12,426 --> 00:42:14,359 and very self-assured. 554 00:42:14,462 --> 00:42:20,123 She carried with her the picture of the 3 couriers, 555 00:42:20,227 --> 00:42:24,265 and this fell into the hands of the Gestapo. 556 00:42:24,369 --> 00:42:26,474 Woman as Hazan: People in the station looked at me 557 00:42:26,578 --> 00:42:28,546 with pitying expressions. 558 00:42:28,649 --> 00:42:31,825 Soldiers asked me, "Little girl, what did you do 559 00:42:31,928 --> 00:42:33,965 that they're taking you like this?" 560 00:42:34,068 --> 00:42:36,450 I tried my best to hold my head up so that no one 561 00:42:36,554 --> 00:42:38,970 could know what was going on in my heart. 562 00:42:39,073 --> 00:42:41,006 I knew that my chances were gone, 563 00:42:41,110 --> 00:42:45,148 that at any moment the Germans were likely to kill me. 564 00:42:47,530 --> 00:42:52,328 Yaari: And after 3 days of severe tortures, broken bones, 565 00:42:52,431 --> 00:42:57,609 and a tooth was broken, and after 3 days, they threw 566 00:42:57,713 --> 00:43:00,094 her into an isolation cell. 567 00:43:00,198 --> 00:43:03,891 For 6 weeks, she was in darkness all alone... 568 00:43:18,423 --> 00:43:20,977 but she kept her Polish identity. 569 00:43:21,081 --> 00:43:24,429 The Gestapo did not suspect that she's a Jew. 570 00:43:54,321 --> 00:43:57,117 Patt: The Germans were masters of deceit. 571 00:43:57,220 --> 00:43:59,982 They told the Jews they were being sent to work camps 572 00:44:00,085 --> 00:44:03,606 in the East, where conditions would be better, 573 00:44:03,710 --> 00:44:06,609 but here at the Umschlagplatz, 574 00:44:06,713 --> 00:44:09,094 the Jews were loaded onto trains, 575 00:44:09,198 --> 00:44:15,031 deported to the death camp of Treblinka. 576 00:44:15,135 --> 00:44:18,932 Man as Edelman: They promised and actually gave 3 kilograms 577 00:44:19,035 --> 00:44:22,694 of bread and 1 kilogram of marmalade to everyone 578 00:44:22,798 --> 00:44:26,215 who voluntarily registered for deportation. 579 00:44:26,318 --> 00:44:28,873 Do you have any idea what bread meant 580 00:44:28,976 --> 00:44:31,013 at that time in the ghetto? 581 00:44:31,116 --> 00:44:33,222 Because if you don't, you will never understand 582 00:44:33,325 --> 00:44:36,225 how thousands of people would voluntarily come 583 00:44:36,328 --> 00:44:42,472 for the bread and go on to camp at Treblinka. 584 00:44:42,576 --> 00:44:46,097 Woman: There is this diary that someone is meeting a father 585 00:44:46,200 --> 00:44:47,823 who is walking toward the Umschlagplatz 586 00:44:47,926 --> 00:44:50,860 with his children, and he's asking, 587 00:44:50,964 --> 00:44:52,586 "Why are you doing that? 588 00:44:52,690 --> 00:44:54,830 Why are you obeying the Germans' orders?" 589 00:44:54,933 --> 00:44:58,247 And the man says, "Well, they took my wife already. 590 00:44:58,350 --> 00:45:01,906 "I have nothing to give the kids to eat. 591 00:45:02,009 --> 00:45:04,080 "They will starve to death here in the ghetto. 592 00:45:04,184 --> 00:45:06,013 "What can I do? 593 00:45:06,117 --> 00:45:09,776 "I prefer going there and hoping I'll be able to work 594 00:45:09,879 --> 00:45:11,501 and provide my children. 595 00:45:13,193 --> 00:45:15,885 So it's really choiceless choices. 596 00:45:31,936 --> 00:45:35,387 Steven: The Nazis were single-minded about killing off 597 00:45:35,491 --> 00:45:39,633 children with as much cruelty as possible 598 00:45:39,737 --> 00:45:43,188 as early as possible. 599 00:45:43,292 --> 00:45:46,640 Berenbaum: Janusz Korczak, the leader of an orphanage 600 00:45:46,744 --> 00:45:49,022 who went with his orphans to Treblinka. 601 00:45:49,125 --> 00:45:52,197 He was offered the opportunity to survive. 602 00:45:52,301 --> 00:45:55,338 Korczak was the equivalent of Mr. Rogers. 603 00:45:55,442 --> 00:45:59,101 Non-Jews flocked to hear his radio broadcast. 604 00:46:00,723 --> 00:46:02,069 Are we gonna say that he went like 605 00:46:02,173 --> 00:46:04,209 sheep to the slaughter? 606 00:46:04,313 --> 00:46:06,798 Gonna say the teachers that stayed with their students, 607 00:46:06,902 --> 00:46:08,938 the doctors that stayed with their patients, 608 00:46:09,042 --> 00:46:11,665 the mothers that stayed with their children 609 00:46:11,769 --> 00:46:14,219 and didn't abandon them-- 610 00:46:14,323 --> 00:46:18,154 did they go like sheep to the slaughter, 611 00:46:18,258 --> 00:46:21,813 or did they take care of those they were responsible to 612 00:46:21,917 --> 00:46:23,711 unto their last breath? 613 00:46:27,577 --> 00:46:30,546 Dreifuss: Those children didn't have anybody else 614 00:46:30,649 --> 00:46:31,961 to take care of them. 615 00:46:32,065 --> 00:46:34,343 The Jewish children during the Holocaust 616 00:46:34,446 --> 00:46:37,311 were maybe the most miserable victims 617 00:46:37,415 --> 00:46:41,557 if one can even class within this horrible victimhood, 618 00:46:41,660 --> 00:46:44,249 and the fact that somebody is walking with them 619 00:46:44,353 --> 00:46:46,942 until the end, even when it's a bitter end, 620 00:46:47,045 --> 00:46:49,634 this is something that has its importance. 621 00:46:56,261 --> 00:46:58,194 Steven: When it started to go bad, 622 00:46:58,298 --> 00:47:01,853 it was moving incredibly fast. 623 00:47:01,957 --> 00:47:05,650 The deportations were so overwhelming 624 00:47:05,753 --> 00:47:08,066 that of those 330,000 people 625 00:47:08,170 --> 00:47:09,896 who had been in the ghetto, 626 00:47:09,999 --> 00:47:12,312 only 60,000 were left. 627 00:47:30,917 --> 00:47:32,608 Patt: The ghetto is sealed. 628 00:47:32,711 --> 00:47:36,336 Anyone caught leaving or entering is shot on sight. 629 00:47:36,439 --> 00:47:38,994 The walls are porous, and the underground finds 630 00:47:39,097 --> 00:47:42,618 ways to sneak fighters in and out to obtain weapons 631 00:47:42,721 --> 00:47:45,069 one or two at a time. 632 00:47:47,588 --> 00:47:50,798 Vladka is one of those sent across to the Aryan side 633 00:47:50,902 --> 00:47:52,939 to try to find weapons. 634 00:47:54,906 --> 00:47:55,700 Rita: I think she would have said 635 00:47:55,803 --> 00:47:57,288 if you asked her directly 636 00:47:57,391 --> 00:47:59,842 that she was afraid all the time, 637 00:47:59,946 --> 00:48:01,119 but it didn't make a difference. 638 00:48:02,396 --> 00:48:05,606 She always did what was needed to be done. 639 00:48:08,368 --> 00:48:11,060 Woman as Vladka: It was a great event for me 640 00:48:11,164 --> 00:48:14,443 when I managed to procure my first revolver, 641 00:48:14,546 --> 00:48:17,895 bought from our landlord's nephew for 2,000 zlotys. 642 00:48:19,413 --> 00:48:21,933 Man as Edelman: At the end of December 1942, 643 00:48:22,037 --> 00:48:24,556 we received our first transport of weapons 644 00:48:24,660 --> 00:48:26,662 from the Polish Home Army. 645 00:48:26,765 --> 00:48:28,457 It was not much. 646 00:48:28,560 --> 00:48:31,356 There were only 10 pistols in the whole transport, 647 00:48:31,460 --> 00:48:35,636 but it enabled us to prepare for our first major action. 648 00:48:58,211 --> 00:49:00,075 Rita: It was the eve of Passover. 649 00:49:00,178 --> 00:49:02,698 That's one of the things I remember her talking about 650 00:49:02,801 --> 00:49:07,461 is standing by the window that saw into the ghetto. 651 00:49:07,565 --> 00:49:12,225 She spoke of watching and of wanting to be in there 652 00:49:12,328 --> 00:49:16,263 and of feeling like she had been ordered not to. 653 00:49:21,820 --> 00:49:25,065 Woman as Vladka: Sporadic gunfire erupted in the ghetto. 654 00:49:25,169 --> 00:49:29,035 Powerful detonations made the earth tremble. 655 00:49:29,138 --> 00:49:31,520 The battle had begun. 656 00:49:34,937 --> 00:49:36,352 Schudrich: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 657 00:49:36,456 --> 00:49:39,873 was the first day of Passover. 658 00:49:39,977 --> 00:49:41,323 Think about it. 659 00:49:41,426 --> 00:49:43,704 They went to fight the Germans 660 00:49:43,808 --> 00:49:46,949 with a taste of matzah still in their mouths, 661 00:49:47,053 --> 00:49:50,746 and there was matzah made in the ghetto. 662 00:49:50,849 --> 00:49:53,266 Man as Edelman: Battle groups barricaded at the 4 corners 663 00:49:53,369 --> 00:49:56,855 of the street opened concentric fire on them. 664 00:49:56,959 --> 00:49:59,548 German dead soon littered the street. 665 00:49:59,651 --> 00:50:04,311 The glorious SS therefore called tanks into action. 666 00:50:04,415 --> 00:50:07,556 The first was burned out by one of our incendiary bottles. 667 00:50:07,659 --> 00:50:10,628 The rest did not approach our positions. 668 00:50:10,731 --> 00:50:16,220 Not a single German left this area alive. 669 00:50:16,323 --> 00:50:20,086 Man: Something has happened beyond our wildest dreams. 670 00:50:20,189 --> 00:50:23,951 The Germans had to flee from the ghetto twice. 671 00:50:24,055 --> 00:50:27,300 The dream of my life has become a reality. 672 00:50:27,403 --> 00:50:31,442 I have lived to see Jewish self-defense in the ghetto 673 00:50:31,545 --> 00:50:35,446 in all of its greatness and splendor. 674 00:50:35,549 --> 00:50:37,344 Woman as Vladka: Couriers crisscrossed the ghetto 675 00:50:37,448 --> 00:50:41,072 to warn the Jews "Do not allow yourselves to be taken. 676 00:50:41,176 --> 00:50:43,212 "Everyone is to hide in their bunkers. 677 00:50:43,316 --> 00:50:44,903 We must all resist!" 678 00:50:49,736 --> 00:50:52,221 Bauer: The vast majority of the population 679 00:50:52,325 --> 00:50:54,154 had no access to arms. 680 00:50:54,258 --> 00:50:56,743 but they identified with the resistance, 681 00:50:56,846 --> 00:51:00,988 and they refused to hand themselves over to the Germans. 682 00:51:01,092 --> 00:51:03,370 It was not a passive resistance. 683 00:51:03,474 --> 00:51:06,442 It was an active, unarmed resistance, 684 00:51:06,546 --> 00:51:12,034 and that is, after all, a matter of some 55,000 or 60,000 people. 685 00:51:12,138 --> 00:51:14,347 The Jews are hiding. The Jews are hiding, 686 00:51:14,450 --> 00:51:17,281 and the Germans don't succeed in finding Jews. 687 00:51:17,384 --> 00:51:19,214 It's actually unbelievable. 688 00:51:19,317 --> 00:51:20,836 They are entering a house after house. 689 00:51:20,939 --> 00:51:23,080 There are those houses in which hundreds of Jews 690 00:51:23,183 --> 00:51:25,772 are living there, and they cannot find even one. 691 00:51:28,154 --> 00:51:30,328 Woman as Vladka: I reflect. 692 00:51:30,432 --> 00:51:34,574 There are so many forms of resistance-- 693 00:51:34,677 --> 00:51:38,612 the courageous ghetto fighters firing their pistols, 694 00:51:38,716 --> 00:51:41,581 the mother trying to save her baby, 695 00:51:41,684 --> 00:51:46,172 the father refusing to allow his son to be separated, 696 00:51:46,275 --> 00:51:49,209 the family remaining in hiding under the ghetto. 697 00:51:49,313 --> 00:51:52,109 These, too, are part of the uprising. 698 00:51:52,212 --> 00:51:55,595 These, too, are forms of resistance. 699 00:51:59,081 --> 00:52:00,600 Very soon, the Germans understand that 700 00:52:00,703 --> 00:52:03,499 the major problem that they have is of those Jews 701 00:52:03,603 --> 00:52:06,882 who are staying in their houses and bunkers 702 00:52:06,985 --> 00:52:08,815 despite everything, 703 00:52:08,918 --> 00:52:11,369 and this is when the Germans decide to fight 704 00:52:11,473 --> 00:52:14,441 the Jews with the weapon of fire, 705 00:52:14,545 --> 00:52:17,755 and they start to set the ghetto on fire. 706 00:53:00,038 --> 00:53:02,593 Berenbaum: The Warsaw Ghetto held out longer than the armies 707 00:53:02,696 --> 00:53:06,804 of France and Belgium and Netherlands. 708 00:53:06,907 --> 00:53:08,737 What an achievement. 709 00:53:08,840 --> 00:53:11,222 On the other hand, as an action, it was the end. 710 00:53:11,326 --> 00:53:13,742 It was the last act, 711 00:53:13,845 --> 00:53:16,676 but as an act of moral resistance to it all, 712 00:53:16,779 --> 00:53:19,126 it's a matter of... 713 00:53:19,230 --> 00:53:22,268 screaming, shouting, fighting, 714 00:53:22,371 --> 00:53:25,926 deciding that I will take the enemy down with me... 715 00:53:27,583 --> 00:53:30,690 and not go quietly into the dark night. 716 00:53:51,400 --> 00:53:54,507 Patt: This stone, taken from the rubble at Mila 18, 717 00:53:54,610 --> 00:53:57,613 marks the final resting place of the brave fighters 718 00:53:57,717 --> 00:54:00,513 who died here, and it reads, 719 00:54:00,616 --> 00:54:03,826 "Here they rest, buried where they fell, 720 00:54:03,930 --> 00:54:08,590 to remind us that the whole Earth is their grave." 721 00:54:45,834 --> 00:54:47,422 Man as Abba: The Germans' Tactics changed 722 00:54:47,525 --> 00:54:50,252 on September 23rd. 723 00:54:50,356 --> 00:54:53,911 At 1 p.m., the ghetto was suddenly surrounded. 724 00:54:54,014 --> 00:54:56,327 They knew we were there. 725 00:54:56,431 --> 00:54:58,640 We had every reason to believe that they'd take out 726 00:54:58,743 --> 00:55:03,265 the remaining Jews and then shell with artillery. 727 00:55:03,369 --> 00:55:06,337 We decided to make our way out. 728 00:55:06,441 --> 00:55:09,167 The only way out was through the sewers. 729 00:55:11,653 --> 00:55:13,482 Porat: So that's the end of it. 730 00:55:15,864 --> 00:55:18,522 They went out to the forest with nothing, 731 00:55:18,625 --> 00:55:20,040 just the shirt on their back. 732 00:55:20,144 --> 00:55:22,698 That's it. What do they do? 733 00:55:22,802 --> 00:55:25,805 The forest is rain and snow 734 00:55:25,908 --> 00:55:29,464 and wild animals and nothing to eat, 735 00:55:29,567 --> 00:55:33,951 and it's a horrible place to live in. 736 00:55:35,573 --> 00:55:37,644 Woman as Vitka: It was a forest, 737 00:55:37,748 --> 00:55:40,889 a forest without Nazis. 738 00:55:40,992 --> 00:55:44,341 We lived there under the sky for two months. 739 00:55:44,444 --> 00:55:47,482 It was raining, and it was cold, 740 00:55:47,585 --> 00:55:51,382 but it is what we had in the beginning. 741 00:55:51,486 --> 00:55:53,488 Kovner: It was tough life. 742 00:55:53,591 --> 00:55:55,938 It's very cold, and there was not a lot of food, 743 00:55:56,042 --> 00:55:58,976 but they were free people. 744 00:55:59,079 --> 00:56:00,771 They have honor. 745 00:57:12,498 --> 00:57:16,640 Man: Around April 1943, 746 00:57:16,743 --> 00:57:20,229 a decision was made to escape. 747 00:57:20,333 --> 00:57:24,199 The decision in the end was a tunnel. 748 00:57:24,302 --> 00:57:25,856 They would take turns. 749 00:57:25,959 --> 00:57:28,652 People who finished their work would come dig. 750 00:57:28,755 --> 00:57:30,619 Some people would pretend to be sick 751 00:57:30,723 --> 00:57:32,207 so they could dig all day, 752 00:57:32,310 --> 00:57:36,487 and there was a group of diggers, tough people. 753 00:57:45,910 --> 00:57:48,741 Man as Jack: When I came out from the tunnel, it was dark. 754 00:57:48,844 --> 00:57:50,397 There was shooting, which I could see 755 00:57:50,501 --> 00:57:52,538 lots of flashes of fire. 756 00:57:52,641 --> 00:57:55,920 I could see people being killed. 757 00:57:56,024 --> 00:57:58,613 Woman: This took place on September 26. 758 00:57:58,716 --> 00:58:01,408 It's already cold. There were drenched. 759 00:58:01,512 --> 00:58:03,790 Pitch black. Didn't know where to go. 760 00:58:23,672 --> 00:58:26,641 Kagan: My father-- I remember him telling me 761 00:58:26,744 --> 00:58:28,574 that when he first arrived in the camp 762 00:58:28,677 --> 00:58:30,299 in the middle of the forest 763 00:58:30,403 --> 00:58:32,509 and there was this man 764 00:58:32,612 --> 00:58:38,549 on a big white horse with a gun on his shoulder. 765 00:58:38,653 --> 00:58:42,829 My father's like, "Who is that?" Ha ha ha! 766 00:58:42,933 --> 00:58:45,418 And that was Tuvia Bielski. 767 00:58:45,522 --> 00:58:47,075 Like, just as in the film, right? 768 00:58:47,178 --> 00:58:50,009 In the film, he has a gun slung over his shoulder, 769 00:58:50,112 --> 00:58:53,046 and he's a warrior. 770 00:58:53,150 --> 00:58:55,497 My father wrote in his book that when he got 771 00:58:55,601 --> 00:59:00,778 to the forests how did he feel, 772 00:59:00,882 --> 00:59:04,161 and he said, and here I quote, 773 00:59:04,264 --> 00:59:06,991 "I'd come from a camp where thousands of Jewish people 774 00:59:07,095 --> 00:59:09,891 "were being killed by the Germans, 775 00:59:09,994 --> 00:59:13,860 "and now there were all these fighters with guns. 776 00:59:13,964 --> 00:59:16,725 "I felt very, very proud. 777 00:59:16,829 --> 00:59:20,971 "There was great camaraderie at the camp. 778 00:59:21,074 --> 00:59:22,973 "We were unhappy because so many members 779 00:59:23,076 --> 00:59:25,700 "of our families had been massacred, 780 00:59:25,803 --> 00:59:28,599 "but we were happy because we were free 781 00:59:28,703 --> 00:59:30,256 and we were fighting back." 782 00:59:33,673 --> 00:59:35,813 Cohen: Tuvia Bielski was responsible 783 00:59:35,917 --> 00:59:39,403 for saving 1,200 people's lives. 784 00:59:39,506 --> 00:59:41,094 He accepted everybody-- 785 00:59:41,198 --> 00:59:44,753 small children, old men and women, 786 00:59:44,857 --> 00:59:48,515 solitary women who couldn't fight like my mother, everybody, 787 00:59:48,619 --> 00:59:51,760 and Tuvia said he would rather save one Jew 788 00:59:51,864 --> 00:59:53,486 than kill 100 Germans. 789 00:59:55,902 --> 00:59:58,974 Kagan: Bielski did something completely different, 790 00:59:59,078 --> 01:00:00,907 a completely different philosophy 791 01:00:01,011 --> 01:00:03,565 of "We're all Jews. We need to survive. 792 01:00:03,669 --> 01:00:05,291 That's our resistance." 793 01:01:06,386 --> 01:01:08,872 Berenbaum: Treblinka had approximately somewhere 794 01:01:08,975 --> 01:01:13,670 in the neighborhood of 925,000 Jews being killed. 795 01:01:13,773 --> 01:01:18,847 Some 300 people revolted in Treblinka and escaped. 796 01:01:32,343 --> 01:01:36,140 In the end, there were less than 100 survivors, 797 01:01:36,244 --> 01:01:39,005 but unless they had tried to escape, 798 01:01:39,109 --> 01:01:41,698 there would not have been 100 survivors, 799 01:01:41,801 --> 01:01:43,561 and then we would have never known anything 800 01:01:43,665 --> 01:01:47,634 about Treblinka or at least not from the perspective 801 01:01:47,738 --> 01:01:50,223 of the victims. 802 01:01:50,327 --> 01:01:52,743 We would only know the statistics 803 01:01:52,847 --> 01:01:55,988 from the perspective of the perpetrators. 804 01:01:58,162 --> 01:02:00,924 Henry: There were 7 rebellions in the death camps. 805 01:02:01,027 --> 01:02:04,617 6 of them were led by Jews, 1 by the Russians, 806 01:02:04,721 --> 01:02:07,068 so actually, even if you only consider 807 01:02:07,171 --> 01:02:10,830 violent resistance, the Jews look pretty good. 808 01:04:30,383 --> 01:04:33,421 Freund: You can imagine that everyone who came 809 01:04:33,524 --> 01:04:36,734 up this way, maybe 180,000 people, 810 01:04:36,838 --> 01:04:39,806 thought they were going to showers. 811 01:04:39,910 --> 01:04:42,602 Where they went is the gas chambers. 812 01:05:02,691 --> 01:05:04,486 Woman as Raab: And all that built up in me 813 01:05:04,590 --> 01:05:10,251 such anger and the feeling of revenge. 814 01:05:10,354 --> 01:05:13,116 I came to the camp with a pair of brown leather boots, 815 01:05:13,219 --> 01:05:17,189 which not everybody had, and I said to the group-- 816 01:05:17,292 --> 01:05:19,985 we slept together-- "With these boots, 817 01:05:20,088 --> 01:05:23,091 "I'm going to escape from Sobibor. 818 01:05:23,195 --> 01:05:26,198 "Don't ask me why. Don't ask me how, 819 01:05:26,301 --> 01:05:30,236 "and maybe it's not-- doesn't even make sense, 820 01:05:30,340 --> 01:05:33,343 but I'm going to escape with these boots." 821 01:05:43,767 --> 01:05:48,151 Berenbaum: Alexander Pechersky came with a military background. 822 01:05:48,254 --> 01:05:52,500 He joined with a Jewish prisoner from Poland, 823 01:05:52,603 --> 01:05:55,986 who in a very real sense was his liaison 824 01:05:56,090 --> 01:06:00,853 with the other prisoners, who didn't quite trust a Soviet POW 825 01:06:00,957 --> 01:06:03,304 even if he was Jewish, 826 01:06:03,407 --> 01:06:06,617 and they formed a formidable team 827 01:06:06,721 --> 01:06:09,724 to plan for how to conquer, how to escape. 828 01:06:12,071 --> 01:06:14,211 Woman as Raab: And that evening, we cried. 829 01:06:14,315 --> 01:06:17,214 We cried very, very much, 830 01:06:17,318 --> 01:06:19,665 and everybody said goodbye because we figured 831 01:06:19,768 --> 01:06:23,600 in our wildest dreams we didn't think one of us 832 01:06:23,703 --> 01:06:26,430 is going to survive, 833 01:06:26,534 --> 01:06:30,193 and as I cried myself to sleep, I dozed off, 834 01:06:30,296 --> 01:06:32,885 and I saw my mother coming in through the camp, 835 01:06:32,989 --> 01:06:36,647 through the main gate, the way I left her. 836 01:06:36,751 --> 01:06:40,134 That's how she looked, 837 01:06:40,237 --> 01:06:43,344 and I said, "Mom, you know that we're 838 01:06:43,447 --> 01:06:46,312 going to escape tomorrow," 839 01:06:46,416 --> 01:06:50,144 and she said, "Yes. That's why I came." 840 01:06:55,839 --> 01:06:59,049 Berenbaum: They lured Nazi commanders and Nazi officials 841 01:06:59,153 --> 01:07:02,087 who were working in the camp into a place 842 01:07:02,190 --> 01:07:05,573 where they could be slaughtered one by one. 843 01:07:05,676 --> 01:07:07,299 Woman as Raab: The plan was at 4:00. 844 01:07:07,402 --> 01:07:09,715 The electric wire was cut, 845 01:07:09,818 --> 01:07:11,993 the telephone wire was cut. 846 01:07:12,097 --> 01:07:15,583 Everybody has to kill his SS man and his guard 847 01:07:15,686 --> 01:07:17,585 at his place of work... 848 01:07:18,793 --> 01:07:22,038 and it started working. 849 01:07:22,141 --> 01:07:24,799 Berenbaum: They then stormed the gates, 850 01:07:24,902 --> 01:07:26,663 and then they went into the woods. 851 01:07:30,046 --> 01:07:31,633 Woman as Raab: This was before decided-- 852 01:07:31,737 --> 01:07:35,879 in case anything goes wrong, everybody on his own. 853 01:07:37,087 --> 01:07:38,882 Maybe one will survive 854 01:07:38,985 --> 01:07:41,954 and will be able to tell the world. 855 01:09:00,584 --> 01:09:02,379 Woman as Hazan: When I would go out to the threshold 856 01:09:02,483 --> 01:09:04,761 of the block, I could see the smoke 857 01:09:04,864 --> 01:09:07,695 rising from the chimneys. 858 01:09:07,798 --> 01:09:10,663 It clouded the skies and choked the air 859 01:09:10,767 --> 01:09:13,632 of the entire camp. 860 01:09:13,735 --> 01:09:17,325 I cast glances toward the smoke-shrouded heavens, 861 01:09:17,429 --> 01:09:21,950 where it seemed I could see the souls of Jewish children, 862 01:09:22,054 --> 01:09:27,232 their mouths gaping to scream. 863 01:09:27,335 --> 01:09:30,718 Yaari: The stories that she told are quite difficult 864 01:09:30,821 --> 01:09:36,482 to tell because she faced such atrocities. 865 01:09:36,586 --> 01:09:42,730 Like...I would start crying if I tell this, so... 866 01:09:51,290 --> 01:09:53,775 I cannot tell that really. 867 01:10:41,823 --> 01:10:43,791 Berenbaum: Why were the Germans so intent on killing 868 01:10:43,894 --> 01:10:46,311 the Jews at that point? 869 01:10:46,414 --> 01:10:48,347 Let's put it very clearly. 870 01:10:48,451 --> 01:10:51,281 The Germans fought two wars, 871 01:10:51,385 --> 01:10:52,938 the World War... 872 01:10:54,698 --> 01:10:57,598 and the war against the Jews. 873 01:10:57,701 --> 01:11:00,532 When push came to shove, they wanted to succeed 874 01:11:00,635 --> 01:11:04,467 in the war against the Jews, even if it took 875 01:11:04,570 --> 01:11:08,988 resources away from the World War. 876 01:11:09,092 --> 01:11:11,301 Sawicki: Despite the Nazi regime knows that it 877 01:11:11,405 --> 01:11:13,130 is coming to an end, 878 01:11:13,234 --> 01:11:15,650 the one group that is supposed to pay 879 01:11:15,754 --> 01:11:18,998 the ultimate price will be the Jews. 880 01:11:19,102 --> 01:11:20,448 They're losing, 881 01:11:20,552 --> 01:11:22,485 but "What can we do before we lose? 882 01:11:22,588 --> 01:11:24,176 We will kill more Jews." 883 01:11:31,079 --> 01:11:33,047 Berenbaum: When you go to Birkenau, you see that there are 884 01:11:33,150 --> 01:11:37,154 3 railroad tracks that go into the innermost nature 885 01:11:37,258 --> 01:11:38,811 of the camp. 886 01:11:38,915 --> 01:11:41,227 Those 3 tracks were built in anticipation 887 01:11:41,331 --> 01:11:43,885 of the murder of Hungarian Jews. 888 01:11:43,989 --> 01:11:49,201 Hungarian Jews constituted about 45% of the number 889 01:11:49,305 --> 01:11:51,652 of people who were killed in Auschwitz. 890 01:11:51,755 --> 01:11:54,896 That occurred not over 4 years but over 3 months. 891 01:12:07,978 --> 01:12:10,671 There was an entire underground that 892 01:12:10,774 --> 01:12:14,191 distributed these passes, that created these passes. 893 01:12:21,613 --> 01:12:23,753 How important was forging? 894 01:12:23,856 --> 01:12:27,204 It was the difference between life and death. 895 01:12:44,946 --> 01:12:48,467 Yaari: During the transports of Hungarian Jews, 896 01:12:48,571 --> 01:12:50,676 which came thousands every day. 897 01:12:50,780 --> 01:12:54,887 Every day, 10,000 people were sent to the gas chambers, 898 01:12:54,991 --> 01:12:59,892 and the camp of the women bordered with the train ramp, 899 01:12:59,996 --> 01:13:02,619 and when the people from the train were sent 900 01:13:02,723 --> 01:13:04,759 to Crematorium Number II, 901 01:13:04,863 --> 01:13:07,417 which was 50 meters away from the women's camp. 902 01:13:07,521 --> 01:13:10,006 So all these years that she was in Auschwitz, 903 01:13:10,109 --> 01:13:14,113 she was just 50 meters away from 1 of the 4 crematoria 904 01:13:14,217 --> 01:13:16,978 in Birkenau. 905 01:13:17,082 --> 01:13:18,808 Woman as Hazan: I suggested digging a trench 906 01:13:18,911 --> 01:13:21,604 under the barbed wire fence during the nights 907 01:13:21,707 --> 01:13:25,435 through which we would bring young Jewish women into the camp 908 01:13:25,539 --> 01:13:29,301 and save them from the crematory ovens. 909 01:13:29,405 --> 01:13:31,234 Now, today, when you go to Birkenau, 910 01:13:31,337 --> 01:13:32,856 everything is green and nice, 911 01:13:32,960 --> 01:13:36,584 but at that time it was all mud and ditches, 912 01:13:36,688 --> 01:13:40,899 so they made some space under the fence. 913 01:13:41,002 --> 01:13:43,833 Woman as Hazan: Our objective was to smuggle into our camp 914 01:13:43,936 --> 01:13:47,595 some individuals from within this human mass. 915 01:13:47,699 --> 01:13:52,600 When the girls came through, we were overcome with joy. 916 01:13:52,704 --> 01:13:55,741 Yaari: And they bought in from the line 917 01:13:55,845 --> 01:13:59,331 to the gas chambers into the camp 918 01:13:59,435 --> 01:14:03,991 about 14 young girls on several occasions 919 01:14:04,094 --> 01:14:07,615 They brought them into the camp, and they gave them 920 01:14:07,719 --> 01:14:11,377 the dressing of other women who died, 921 01:14:11,481 --> 01:14:15,140 and they hid them for some time. 922 01:14:15,243 --> 01:14:17,073 Woman as Hazan: We didn't succeed in bringing many souls 923 01:14:17,176 --> 01:14:18,764 into our camp. 924 01:14:18,868 --> 01:14:22,319 There were so few opportunities to do so. 925 01:14:22,423 --> 01:14:24,943 However, the little that we did gave us 926 01:14:25,046 --> 01:14:27,324 great satisfaction. 927 01:14:27,428 --> 01:14:30,673 We began to feel a power rising in us, 928 01:14:30,776 --> 01:14:33,296 awakening our will to live. 929 01:15:04,016 --> 01:15:06,674 Man as Nadjari: Now we must disappear 930 01:15:06,778 --> 01:15:08,918 from the face of the Earth 931 01:15:09,021 --> 01:15:12,162 because we know so much about the unimaginable methods 932 01:15:12,266 --> 01:15:17,133 of their abuses and reprisals. 933 01:15:17,236 --> 01:15:21,793 The dramas my eyes have seen are indescribable. 934 01:15:21,896 --> 01:15:25,141 Hundreds of thousands of Jews from Hungary 935 01:15:25,244 --> 01:15:27,868 have passed by my eyes, 936 01:15:27,971 --> 01:15:33,011 and why didn't I join them and put an end to it? 937 01:15:33,114 --> 01:15:38,085 But every time, the thirst for revenge stopped me. 938 01:15:40,639 --> 01:15:43,849 Man: Nadjari--we don't really know what motivates 939 01:15:43,953 --> 01:15:46,093 what he puts into his letter 940 01:15:46,196 --> 01:15:48,336 other than he wants to tell the story, 941 01:15:48,440 --> 01:15:50,580 he wants to see revenge, 942 01:15:50,684 --> 01:15:52,237 and that becomes a more compelling notion 943 01:15:52,340 --> 01:15:55,240 than giving up and getting out of the fight. 944 01:16:04,352 --> 01:16:05,733 Man: Each prisoner 945 01:16:05,837 --> 01:16:07,424 in every squad knew exactly what he 946 01:16:07,528 --> 01:16:10,013 was supposed to do and prepared for it. 947 01:16:10,117 --> 01:16:13,085 My job was to set fire to the crematorium building, 948 01:16:13,189 --> 01:16:16,572 where I worked. 949 01:16:16,675 --> 01:16:18,470 Man as Eisenschmidt: The Jews had brought knives to the camp 950 01:16:18,574 --> 01:16:20,265 to make kiddush. 951 01:16:20,368 --> 01:16:23,440 Their original purpose was to slice the challah. 952 01:16:23,544 --> 01:16:25,615 They had the words Le-shabbat kodesh, 953 01:16:25,719 --> 01:16:28,584 for the Holy Sabbath, engraved on them. 954 01:16:28,687 --> 01:16:31,448 They were long and had white handles. 955 01:16:31,552 --> 01:16:34,244 My job was to make them into bayonets 956 01:16:34,348 --> 01:16:37,247 by honing them on all 4 sides. 957 01:16:37,351 --> 01:16:40,803 We produced homemade mines and hand grenades. 958 01:16:40,906 --> 01:16:43,081 We took metal cans of food, 959 01:16:43,184 --> 01:16:46,463 filled them with explosives, and put in fuses. 960 01:16:51,986 --> 01:16:54,333 Greif: Between Auschwitz and Birkenau, 961 01:16:54,437 --> 01:16:59,131 there was a big munition factory called Union-Metallwerke, 962 01:16:59,235 --> 01:17:02,169 which many Jewish prisoners worked. 963 01:17:02,272 --> 01:17:06,760 and one brave, Jewish, young prisoner Róza Robota 964 01:17:06,863 --> 01:17:10,349 was 19 years old, had many girlfriends 965 01:17:10,453 --> 01:17:13,180 inside that factory, and when she was asked to 966 01:17:13,283 --> 01:17:16,390 recruit some of the girls to smuggle out 967 01:17:16,493 --> 01:17:20,394 on a daily basis a small amount of gunpowder, 968 01:17:20,497 --> 01:17:23,880 she did not hesitate for a second. 969 01:17:23,984 --> 01:17:28,057 My mother was born in Poland. 970 01:17:28,160 --> 01:17:31,957 Her name was Ada, maiden name Neufeld. 971 01:17:32,061 --> 01:17:37,860 She was one of the slave laborers at the factory. 972 01:17:37,963 --> 01:17:40,932 Smuggling itself wasn't easy because they had 973 01:17:41,035 --> 01:17:44,660 the body searched on exit from the factory 974 01:17:44,763 --> 01:17:48,871 and then on entry to the camp. 975 01:17:48,974 --> 01:17:52,529 My mother told me that she hid it inside her shoe, 976 01:17:52,633 --> 01:17:57,327 and once in camp, she would hand it over to someone else, 977 01:17:57,431 --> 01:17:59,605 and they bring it to Robota. 978 01:17:59,709 --> 01:18:02,229 Róza Robota would then take it and deliver it 979 01:18:02,332 --> 01:18:05,542 to her friend from the Sonderkommando. 980 01:18:12,998 --> 01:18:15,483 Man as Leon: On October 7, 1944, 981 01:18:15,587 --> 01:18:18,072 they informed us that the Germans intended to remove 982 01:18:18,176 --> 01:18:21,627 the Sonderkommando men from Crematorium IV. 983 01:18:21,731 --> 01:18:23,077 We knew what that meant. 984 01:18:23,181 --> 01:18:25,148 They were going to murder them. 985 01:18:25,252 --> 01:18:27,703 We figured that it was time for action. 986 01:18:30,119 --> 01:18:34,054 Woman: In the distance, we now see billows of smoke burning. 987 01:18:34,157 --> 01:18:38,265 The second crematorium is burning. 988 01:18:38,368 --> 01:18:41,268 Greif: The destruction of Crematoria Number IV, 989 01:18:41,371 --> 01:18:43,684 this is a big achievement. 990 01:18:43,788 --> 01:18:47,446 It never functioned anymore again. 991 01:18:47,550 --> 01:18:51,657 Woman: The sirens began to wail, aggravating the commotion. 992 01:18:51,761 --> 01:18:53,349 What happened? 993 01:18:53,452 --> 01:18:57,318 A revolution? An uprising at the crematorium? 994 01:19:03,704 --> 01:19:08,053 Freund: This is perhaps the single most important site 995 01:19:08,157 --> 01:19:10,676 for the understanding of Jewish resistance 996 01:19:10,780 --> 01:19:12,333 during the Holocaust. 997 01:19:12,437 --> 01:19:15,992 In the most improbable place at Auschwitz, 998 01:19:16,096 --> 01:19:19,409 the Sonderkommandos destroyed a combination 999 01:19:19,513 --> 01:19:22,965 crematorium and gas chambers. 1000 01:19:23,068 --> 01:19:27,107 Henry: It was a defiant and wonderful act that 1001 01:19:27,210 --> 01:19:30,075 probably saved many thousand lives 1002 01:19:30,179 --> 01:19:33,492 because they did, in fact, destroy one of the crematoria. 1003 01:19:38,774 --> 01:19:41,328 Greif: The uprising came to its tragic end 1004 01:19:41,431 --> 01:19:46,954 with the killing, murdering of 452 young, Jewish, 1005 01:19:47,058 --> 01:19:49,474 courageous, brave men. 1006 01:20:25,924 --> 01:20:28,030 Yaari: On the night of the 18th of January, 1007 01:20:28,133 --> 01:20:32,620 the camp was given the order to be evacuated. 1008 01:20:37,349 --> 01:20:38,868 Woman as Hazan: We marched at a cadence, 1009 01:20:38,972 --> 01:20:41,560 practically running on winding paths. 1010 01:20:41,664 --> 01:20:44,011 We didn't know exactly where they were leading us. 1011 01:20:44,115 --> 01:20:46,151 We did understand that we were fleeing 1012 01:20:46,255 --> 01:20:50,190 from the Russians, heading for Germany. 1013 01:20:50,293 --> 01:20:53,849 After the first kilometer, women began to fall. 1014 01:20:53,952 --> 01:20:56,437 Whoever found it hard to walk at that quick pace 1015 01:20:56,541 --> 01:20:59,647 or who stood to rest was shot right away. 1016 01:21:01,408 --> 01:21:03,375 There were moments of despair when I thought 1017 01:21:03,479 --> 01:21:07,483 of asking those escorting us to kill me, 1018 01:21:07,586 --> 01:21:11,176 but at those same moments, I would see flashes 1019 01:21:11,280 --> 01:21:16,492 of rocket barrages in the sky and hear the roar of aircraft, 1020 01:21:16,595 --> 01:21:20,876 and these inspired me with the will to live. 1021 01:21:25,156 --> 01:21:28,538 So I'm talking now about the 18th of April. 1022 01:21:28,642 --> 01:21:32,646 The Americans was in the process of capturing Leipzig. 1023 01:21:32,749 --> 01:21:37,168 My mother stayed behind with the sick prisoners. 1024 01:21:37,271 --> 01:21:40,447 The SS are on the way to kill them... 1025 01:21:53,011 --> 01:21:57,084 and they decided to escape with the sick people, 1026 01:21:57,188 --> 01:21:59,121 who could not walk, 1027 01:21:59,224 --> 01:22:02,262 and then when it became dark, they actually carried 1028 01:22:02,365 --> 01:22:04,333 them by hand. 1029 01:22:04,436 --> 01:22:10,511 This was the night between 18th and 19th of April. 1030 01:22:10,615 --> 01:22:15,033 They saved the lives of about 140 prisoners, 1031 01:22:15,137 --> 01:22:16,483 sick prisoners, 1032 01:22:16,586 --> 01:22:19,106 and this was my mother's liberation day.