Original subtitles

A concentration camp in the Czech Republic,

designed as a publicity stunt to disguise a heartless regime...

For the men themselves, this was about survival.

For their oppressors, it was an attempt to fool the world.

In England, the life of world-famous playwright Oscar Wilde is forever changed.

He was here as a result of one of the first EVER celebrity trials.

An Argentine outpost

that became the flashpoint in a war with Britain...

..an armada of warships and aircraft carriers set sail from Europe

to this far-flung corner of the South Atlantic Ocean...

..and in Memphis, a building intended to protect corrupted by its chief.

This guy had absolute, total power.

He was a...a dictator.

In the town of Terezin, in the Czech Republic,

are the remains of a complex

that played its role in one of humanity's most disturbing eras.

We see these well-built structures,

formidable walls rising out of the ground.

The largest building stretches hundreds of feet down the road

but it's really in bad shape.

Further in, it seems that this site was some kind of town.

The streets are lined with neat and orderly blocks.

Evidence suggests the residents were enjoying their lives here.

There were performances, concerts, famous musicians.

The scenes may appear joyous

but the reality could not be further from the truth.

This is a...a really surreal moment of hope

in this otherwise completely hellish space.

Little did they know

most of them only had weeks to live.

HE SPEAKS CZECH

Doctor Tomas Fedorovic first came to Terezin as a student.

What he unearthed inspired him to become custodian of this site's past.

HE SPEAKS CZECH

The fortress, originally constructed in the 1700s,

was an imposing facility

and it caught the eye of the Nazi empire

when parts of Czechoslovakia came under their control in 1938.

HE SPEAKS CZECH

Terezin would become a transit camp

that helped to fulfil the logistical methodology

of the Germans in creating an Aryan nation,

a nation in which the people that they considered to be inferior would be wiped out.

This was once the Theresienstadt ghetto.

It began as a concentration camp

where the Nazis sent the Jewish people they wanted removed from their empire.

At first, the regime touted it as a retirement village,

even describing it as a spa.

So, the first Jewish people to arrive here didn't know what it really was.

DR FEDOROVIC SPEAKS CZECH

They were from Czechoslovakia but soon more came from Austria,

Germany and beyond.

Many of them had, in fact, been German veterans,

people of Jewish heritage who had fought in the First World War:

sports stars, athletes, intellectuals.

These were, in many ways, the cream of the German Jewish population.

Many were well-known internationally, so the Germans

wanted to disguise the true nature of the Theresienstadt facility.

HE SPEAKS CZECH

They had concerts, they had plays, they had music

and they were able to play sports as well.

The central courtyard became a hub for football.

Terezin became the home to Jewish football players.

Some of them were full-time professional footballers,

others were lower league players.

One professional player who ended up here was Paul Mara,

a Jewish man and footballing superstar.

He had played for the Czechoslovakian national team

and several clubs in the United States.

In a cruel twist of fate, he returned to Czechoslovakia in the 1930s.

Here at Terezin, he was among a group of prisoners allowed

to organise and oversee a camp football league.

DR FEDOROVIC SPEAKS CZECH

The League, was made up of 30 teams and 700 players,

with each team representing a group from the ghetto, like gardeners or butchers,

and it wasn't only the inmates who enjoyed the spectacle.

HE SPEAKS CZECH

But by 1943, Theresienstadt had expanded to include Jewish people

from further across Europe,

including Denmark, now under German martial law.

Despite staunch Danish resistance against efforts

to round up the country's Jewish population,

the Nazis caught nearly 500 Jews,

forcing Denmark's king to send them to Terezin.

The King of Denmark,

he insists that the Danish Red Cross are allowed into the city

to make sure they're being cared for properly.

For the controllers at the camp, this would be a test.

It appeared as if the people here were being given a more lenient,

more affable lifestyle than those in other camps

but this had a more sinister purpose.

By now, the Nazis had solidified their plan to annihilate the Jewish people

and they were sending inmates from Terezin

to death camps across their empire.

Initially, this camp was designed for between six and 7,000 people

but in the height of the conflicts,

it was housing eight times that number.

So, in order to satisfy the Danish Red Cross,

the Nazis would have to escalate their programme of extermination

to bring the camp's population down.

7,000 inmates were removed and sent to camps elsewhere.

Many of them, in fact, erm...were killed.

Inmates that looked sickly were also physically removed.

The eyes of the world were about to descend on Terezin,

so the Nazis were prepared to put on a show.

They have this whole beautification campaign.

They make the prisoners paint houses, plant gardens, do anything

that would make it look beautiful, clean, safe, healthy.

THEY SING

They even put on a children's opera in a hall built specially for the occasion.

The delegation concluded the conditions at the camp were adequate

but the show wasn't over.

The Nazis see a real opportunity here,

so they decide they're going to make a new piece of propaganda.

They use the filmmaker Kurt Gerron to make a documentary.

Kurt Gerron was a Jewish film director,

and he was being FORCED

to film the activities at Terezin for the sake of his life

and for the sake of the life of his own wife and family.

HE SPEAKS CZECH

And the Nazis were keen

to show how much the inmates enjoyed their football.

DR FEDOROVIC SPEAKS CZECH

But it painted a picture

that couldn't have been in starker contrast

to the horrors unfolding within these walls.

When filming wrapped, the genocide continued

and a wave of transports departed Terezin,

bound for the death camp at Auschwitz.

HE SPEAKS CZECH

Even the film's director, Kurt Gerron, was killed.

In the end, the film was never made public during the war.

They made this project to try to fool the world,

but by the time they were finished with it,

everyone knew what they had done.

On May 9th, 1945, the Soviets finally liberate the town

and they found terrible horrors within.

More than 150,000 Jewish people were brought to Terezin.

35,000 died here because, in reality,

the living conditions were intentionally harsh to hasten death

and a further 88,000 were sent to death camps in Poland.

HE SPEAKS CZECH

Because of the spotlight placed on Terezin by the Danish authorities,

many of the Danish Jewish people survived the conditions here,

as did the renowned footballer Paul Mara.

After the war, he returned to live out his days in the United States,

dying in 1985.

He described playing football here

as a kind of comfort in hell's waiting room.

But many were not so fortunate,

and the remnants of the Terezin ghetto still stand today

in testimony to those who perished here.

In southern England, is a domineering building that's synonymous

with a monumental fall from grace.

We're in the town of Reading.

It's just a short train ride out of London.

It's a busy town full of commuters, shops, homes

but tucked away right in the middle is a hulking eyesore.

Behind the brick wall is an enormous red brick building.

It has Victorian features, castellated windows.

You almost feel like you could be looking at a royal palace from some angles

but the reality is much less dignified.

Once you're inside, it's clear this can only be a prison.

Long corridors, rows of cell blocks and a gloomy, oppressive air.

Within these walls, a severe form of punishment was tested.

This is not a prison

based on idealistic attitudes of reforming criminals.

Instead, it's almost a scientific application of punishment.

It's the last place you'd expect to find

one of the most celebrated figures of British high society.

One man entered the jail

and changed its place in history forever.

His arrest shocked the country.

At the time, he was already a household name

but he was reduced to prisoner C33.

He was here as a result of one of the first EVER celebrity trials.

Matthew Sturgis has written extensively

about the prison's most famous inmate

and the inhumane conditions he faced.

This is...somewhere where your personality is...is sort of negated.

The whole building is designed to limit your sense of self

and your sense of agency.

The reason for this jail's existence dates back to the 18th century,

when it was designed to solve an unique problem.

For more than a century, Britain had sentenced many of its criminals

to what was known as transportation.

They would be sent halfway around the world to Australia

but by the mid-19th century, that process was coming to an end.

The result of this, though,

was if you stop sending them off to be Australia's problem,

they're going to start piling up at home.

When London's prisons became overcrowded,

the government looked outside the capital to build somewhere new.

This is Reading Gaol.

Every inch of its design epitomised the latest philosophy

on how to punish criminality.

It was decided that prison should be less of a place for reform,

but rather a terrifying and torturous place to deter people from crime.

Reading Gaol, in its early years, was full of the typical kind

of criminal you'd imagine here: thieves, debtors, murderers.

But the laws were about to change

in a way that would bring an entirely new kind of felon into the prison.

Homosexuality had been illegal in Britain for hundreds of years

but in 1885, a new law nicknamed the Blackmailer's Charter was introduced.

What it did was it extended the grounds for which somebody

could be prosecuted to the point where, even if two men exchanged

friendly letters where they expressed affection for each other,

that could be grounds for prosecution.

This would have grave implications for one of Britain's most famous writers.

Oscar Wilde was a household name at this time.

He was a celebrated poet and playwright,

had shows on in the West End, published books,

and mingled with the literary elite of London.

His books and his plays were enormously popular

and he himself was a very public figure who liked attention

but that was also... putting his freedom at risk,

especially in this new climate.

He was, apparently, happily married to this lovely wife, Constance.

He had two small children

but he'd been engaged in a passionate love affair relationship

with this young English aristocrat, Lord Alfred Douglas.

Douglas's father happened to be an important and public figure,

the Marquess of Queensberry.

The stories floating around about his son and Wilde could land him in hot water.

When the Marquess publicly confronted Wilde about his actions,

Wilde sued him for libel...

..but when he lost in court,

the Crown brought charges against the author for sodomy and gross indecency.

Wilde had a decision to make,

flee the country or stay to fight the charges

and, unfortunately, he was too stubborn for his own good.

He made the ill-advised decision to stay and fight the charges,

thinking he would be let off the hook.

He was found guilty and sent to a prison in London,

where one of his punishments was hard labour.

What he faced was practically torture.

They employed the crank,

which was just a stiff rotating handle attached to nothing...

..and the treadmill, where prisoners

were forced to walk around like hamsters for hour on end.

There's no doubt that when he began his prison sentence in London,

he was...absolutely crushed by the...the horror.

Wilde was transferred to Reading Gaol in November 1895...

..but his situation didn't improve.

While there, he faced a brutal form of incarceration

known as the Separate System.

This system was all about isolation as a form of punishment and pacification.

Even when they left their cells,

they were forced to put on something called a Scotch cap,

a kind of leather contraption,

leather hood that obscured their face

and made it difficult for people to talk to each other or even recognise each other.

It was literally dehumanising.

Within these walls, Wilde was reduced to the number of his cell: C33.

It is extraordinary to think that this is...Oscar's cell.

The narrowness of the door, the narrowness of the room.

And he would have spent 20 hours of each day

looking at these...these walls...

..that door...that window.

This must have felt like a massive fall from grace.

He was used to crowds applauding him in the theatre.

In a letter to the Home Secretary,

he begged for the end of his sentence.

Wilde wrote:

"This silence, this solitude,

this isolation from all human and humane influences.

This tomb for those who are not yet dead."

Soon after writing these heartfelt words, Wilde witnessed an event

that inspired one of his last great works as a writer.

In 1896, one of Wilde's fellow inmates

was taken into this courtyard for his execution.

Wilde watched the whole execution and found it deeply upsetting and horrifying,

and that became the impetus for his final great work.

When he finished his two-year sentence,

Wilde was a shell of his former self in every way

and his reputation was entirely ruined.

An immense sense of shame shrouded Wilde

and he couldn't stand to be seen in his old circles in London.

After his release in 1897, Wilde exiled himself in France...

..and his forbearing wife finally cut him off

when he refused to give up his lover, Lord Alfred.

In France, he wrote a poem about the execution:

The Ballad Of Reading Gaol.

It was published under the name of his cell, C33.

And there was something that would draw on the horrors of the prison world,

the horrors to which he'd been subjected by the British legal system

and it would transmute them into art.

It was a remarkable poem and it was remarkably received.

On the 30th November, 1900, just three years after his release,

Oscar Wilde died of meningitis in Paris.

The truth was inescapable.

The two years in jail had undermined his health.

Reading Gaol, I think, is one of THE key...

elements in Oscar's life.

I mean, the only location, the only address which he turned into a work of art.

Reading Gaol continued operating throughout the 20th century

but in 2014 it was closed for good.

Now, there is a movement to make sure the legacy of its most famous inmate is not forgotten.

There's been a push to save Reading Gaol.

Celebrities like Kate Winslet, Natalie Dormer and Kenneth Branagh

have all backed the campaign.

In downtown Memphis,

a bastion of institutional corruption hides in plain sight.

We're right at the heart of the city

and it projects this sense of power and authority.

But the domineering edifice belies the dereliction within.

The main entrance is fenced off, the windows are boarded up.

It makes you wonder... what happened here?

Above the building's grand entrance is etched an indelible clue.

In faded lettering,

above the door reads Memphis Police Station.

This was clearly an impressive station.

This now forsaken structure

was built by a man who reigned over Memphis for decades

and who used the people inside to do his dirty work.

He would stop at nothing

to control this city and even the entire state.

Everyone was expected to do his bidding

and if they didn't... there would be consequences.

In the early 1900s,

the city of Memphis was experiencing rapid growth

but with that came a downside.

A railroad hub driven by cotton industry

and the trade along the Mississippi.

Business was booming but as the population surged,

overcrowding, substandard living conditions and crime

became serious social issues.

An ambitious local businessman saw an opportunity

and used it to launch his ruthless rise to power by running for mayor

on a Democratic ticket to clean up the city.

There was a new political player on the scene

and someone wanted to shake it up and that was Edward Hull Crump.

When he was elected mayor in 1910,

Crump began work on a complex of these, you know,

grand structures downtown.

In 1911, work began on a new police headquarters building.

This building was crucial to his strategy.

It was called Memphis Central Police Station.

Along with their new headquarters, the department recruited

more officers and invested in cutting edge patrol vehicles.

The Memphis Police were becoming a modern and efficient police force,

and they OWED... that's an important word.

They OWED a lot of that to Edward Crump.

Joe Lowry is a historian who has extensively researched Edward Crump

and his unorthodox operations.

He was a tremendous man of vision

but the way he went about gaining what he gained...

was different than any other mayor that we ever had here.

The idea was that citizens had more autonomy and power

and influence in politics.

They voted for the mayor, but they also voted for the heads

of various commissions like police and fire.

The belief was that this would lead to less corruption,

you know, more efficient government

but Crump had other plans.

He realised that all he really needed to do to control the city

was ensure that HIS people were elected to these commission roles

and he would control the budgets, the hiring, the firing

and even the police.

The mayor grew his network of trusted lieutenants in key positions.

It became known as the Crump Political Machine.

This building became an extension of Crump's political machine

and he used the force like his personal staff.

They were expected to help him campaign, register voters,

and even drive citizens to the polls

to make sure that they voted for the right candidate

and this was all done on their own time and without pay.

Any police who didn't agree with what he was doing

would find themselves passed over for promotion, given worse duties,

OR fired under some pretext.

They intimidated and imprisoned journalists,

fabricated charges against Crump's enemies

and enforced the mayor's dubious views.

Crump used his police department to influence white rule...

and they did it at the end of a nightstick.

Mr Crump was a white supremacist,

he was a segregationist,

he ran Memphis just exactly like a small plantation

and he was the master.

Everybody, judges... department heads...State judges...

..all were taking their orders from the Machine.

This guy had absolute, total power.

And Crump's ambition spread far beyond Memphis.

In 1931, he was elected to the US Congress

and became a close ally of future Democrat President Franklin D Roosevelt.

When he would go to Washington, Roosevelt had a standing order

that if Mr Crump came, he didn't need an appointment

because he knew that Crump was that powerful and could bring the votes.

But Crump always kept a close eye on his home town.

In 1937, Crump made sure that his longtime ally, Joe Boyle,

was appointed to the position of a police commissioner,

mostly because Boyle would do his bidding.

Every decision made by the police department was made by Mr Crump

through his police chief and his police commissioner.

Crump liked the way he did things

because Joe Boyle was an aggressive bully.

There were numerous reporters that had their cameras broken

and they were beat down because they wrote something

that they shouldn't write.

But in the 1940s, Crump's absolute control was challenged

and he would go to great lengths to maintain his grip on power.

That challenge came from an entrepreneur and Republican organiser

who would not kowtow to Crump's regime.

JB Martin was a successful

black businessman in Memphis.

He owned a successful drugstore

and also was the owner of the Memphis Red Sox.

Doctor Martin made an enemy of Crump by supporting his political opponent.

Campaigning for the Republican candidate in the upcoming presidential elections,

he was putting himself at odds with Crump and his political machine.

Consequences would be life changing.

Mr Crump realised that Doctor Martin was one of those guys that you wanted to follow.

He was a guy that you respected

because of his knowledge and because of his character.

He dispatched his loyal deputies to PERSUADE Doctor Martin

to renounce his support

of the Republican presidential candidate and Crump opponent.

They went to him and they told him, "Do not support that candidate."

And he basically told them what they could do with themselves.

Realising that he couldn't be threatened...

Crump used his man,

Police Commissioner Boyle, to do his dirty work.

From his office in this building,

Boyle accused Martin of selling illegal drugs

and ordered two policemen to stand in front of his drugstore all day.

Police searched everyone going in and out of Martin's store,

including kindergarteners who were buying ice cream.

Eventually, people just didn't really want to go

and so they just basically put him out of business

and they ran him out of town.

He went to Chicago.

Doctor Martin's crucial support for Crump's political opponent had been crushed.

It just goes to show you the power and control Crump had.

It was more like a dictatorship, actually.

Crump's grip over the city continued

right up until the day he died on October 16th, 1954.

Only then did his political machine grind to a halt.

After Crump's death, the Memphis police force continued to grow.

This was certainly still an impressive building to work in,

but it wasn't really built for an ever expanding police force.

By the 1980s, the police station was getting overcrowded and tired,

in need of renovation.

So, in 1982, it was finally shuttered.

For more than 40 years, it has sat dormant.

Today, while the former Memphis police headquarters faces an uncertain future,

the complex legacy of E H Crump continues to be felt across the city.

He had such a command... of administration...

and how to use people.

When you have that, you can do anything.

And he did.

In southern Argentina lies a remote coastal settlement

that served as the backdrop for an unlikely global showdown.

On the edge of town, there is this long airstrip,

and then in the distance you see what looks like mounds of earth

but there's actually something under them.

They're entirely bare inside.

There's no sign of any furnishings, just these huge curved roofs.

These don't look like airport buildings.

These look like something much chunkier.

This quiet facility and the people living nearby,

were plunged into a war that no-one thought they could win.

An armada of warships and aircraft carriers set sail from Europe

to this far-flung corner of the South Atlantic Ocean.

This was a mobilisation,

the likes of which the country hadn't seen since World War II.

This spot is going to become a piece of key terrain in a confrontation

that will pit a regional power against a world power.

Argentinians like Alejandro Granero lived through a time

when his country faced severe economic problems.

HE SPEAKS SPANISH

In the late 1970s, Argentina's military junta looked to war

to distract its discontented public from the government's failings.

HE SPEAKS SPANISH

Successful diplomatic intervention averted war with Chile

but by the 1980s, when a new military leader came to power,

Argentina's woes had still not abated.

In 1982, General Galtieri realises that the Falklands present

a very enticing opportunity for him.

But the Falklands had been a British overseas territory since the 1800s.

They valued its potential resources and strategic position

over sea routes.

Its 2,000-odd islanders considered themselves British,

but Argentina had long disputed control.

On April 2nd, Galtieri launched

a full-scale invasion of the islands.

By many, it was seen as this grand nationalistic move.

The Argentines are convinced

the last thing the British are going to do is fight.

Why would they? Right? I mean, it's over 8,000 miles away.

US President Ronald Reagan tried to convince Britain not to fight.

Even though the Americans were supplying intelligence, fuel

and ammunition to the British behind the scenes.

To the surprise of everyone....

..and as the world watches in disbelief...

a British task force is moving slowly

to take the Falklands back.

The Armada was made up of 127 ships carrying 25,000 British troops.

The Argentinian junta rushed to fortify their positions on the islands...

..but they ran into a problem.

The Falklands only had three airfields

and none of them were big enough to support fast jets

and so the Argentines had to launch their bombers and fighter jets from the mainland.

This is Puerto San Julian Airfield...

..the closest point on mainland Argentina to the Falklands,

more than 400 miles away.

HE SPEAKS SPANISH

Then, on the 1st May, 1982, the British task force arrived

off the coast of the Falkland Islands.

At the same time, pilots from Puerto San Julian took to the skies.

HE SPEAKS SPANISH

One day later, a British nuclear submarine responded with an attack

that remains controversial to this day.

HMS Conqueror is able to put weapons into the General Belgrano

and sink it.

The Belgrano was an Argentine Navy cruiser

which had been bought from the US military.

This was one of Argentina's key military assets.

The Argentinians respond

by bombing a series of targets around the Falklands.

The Argentine Air Force pounds the British task force.

Pounds it when it lands.

Pounds it when it's at sea.

All the people of Puerto San Julian could do was wait and hope

that the pilots would return home safely.

The residents would watch the fighter jets take off

and then when the pilots came back, they would be counting each aircraft

in the sky to make sure no one had been lost.

It's a time that locals like Andres Kyle will never forget.

HE SPEAKS SPANISH

Over 45 days, the two squadrons based at Puerto San Julian flew

more than 150 sorties against British ships.

ALEJANDRO GRANERO SPEAKS SPANISH

The Argentine Air Force is immensely successful

at blunting the British attack.

For a moment, it seemed the Argentinian underdogs

MIGHT have the upper hand

but the pilot's efforts would be in vain.

The Argentine forces were not strong enough,

those poor Argentine conscripts,

freezing in trenches in the Falklands...

they had no chance.

The British Army manages to kill or capture all the Argentines.

They surrender and the Union flag flew once again.

The conflict lasted just 74 days

and it cost the lives of 649 Argentines, 255 British

and three Falkland Islanders.

The British had regained

their strategic foothold in the South Atlantic

and, by the end of the year,

the airfield at Puerto San Julian had been abandoned.

After the conflict ended,

the hangars were, basically, left to their own devices,

and life in this sleepy port town went back to normal.

Currently, the Falkland Islands are still in British hands,

but, for many, the dispute remains.

HE SPEAKS SPANISH

Subtitles by Red Bee Media