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By 1944, 550,000 people had already been
murdered here at Auschwitz.
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00:00:14,514 --> 00:00:18,644
But now, during just a few weeks in
spring and early summer,
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00:00:19,285 --> 00:00:22,220
that figure was to increase by over 300,000.
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00:00:25,792 --> 00:00:27,623
Four years after it first opened,
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a period of frenzied killing was
to begin at Auschwitz
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00:00:31,464 --> 00:00:33,659
unlike anything the camp had yet seen.
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But the history of Auschwitz in 1944
is notjust one of murder
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There is also intrigue.
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For this was also the year that the Nazis sent
unlikely messengers to neutral territory
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- to try to sow seeds of
confusion among the Allies.
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00:01:08,268 --> 00:01:10,600
And as the Allies learnt more
about Auschwitz,
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00:01:10,804 --> 00:01:12,294
the pressure on them grew
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00:01:13,406 --> 00:01:14,896
- what were they going to do about it?
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We wanted them to put bombs on the camp,
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hundreds and hundreds of planes daily coming
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And we are looking up and no bombs.
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This is the story of Auschwitz,
the Nazis and the Allies in 1944
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- one of death, deceit and mystery.
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The vast majority of those who were
murdered at Auschwitz in 1944
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00:02:12,298 --> 00:02:14,892
came from one place - Hungary.
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ln March 1944,
German troops entered Budapest.
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For the Nazis, this was a rich country,
ripe for plunder.
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And though already allied to the Nazis,
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the Hungarians had been unreliable partners
as far as Hitler was concerned.
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Not least in their refusal to deport
the 760,000 Hungarian Jews.
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00:02:41,261 --> 00:02:43,593
Shortly after they were
established in Budapest,
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the SS called a Hungarian named Joel Brand,
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one of the most politically active members of
the Jewish community, in for a meeting.
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On the 25th April 1944, he went to see
SS Lt Col Adolf Eichmann.
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We know what was said from Brand's subsequent
interrogation by British intelligence,
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as well as his post-war testimony.
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Eichmann, infamous for organising
the mass murder of the Jews,
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was about to make a surprising
proposal to Brand.
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We tried to understand what was going on.
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00:04:27,200 --> 00:04:30,465
lt was possible that
the Germans were just bluffing us.
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00:04:32,505 --> 00:04:34,769
But we couldn't understand why.
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00:04:40,313 --> 00:04:45,649
But events elsewhere cast doubt on the Nazis'
genuine desire to sell the Hungarian Jews,
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00:04:46,119 --> 00:04:51,386
because this man, SS Lt. Col. Rudolf Hoss,
was returning to Auschwitz.
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00:04:54,193 --> 00:04:56,684
Hoss had been removed as
the original Commandant of Auschwitz
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00:04:56,863 --> 00:05:00,060
the previous November,
promoted to a job in Berlin.
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00:05:01,167 --> 00:05:06,503
But now he'd been ordered to return to the camp
to oversee the murder of the Hungarian Jews.
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00:05:09,309 --> 00:05:10,537
At Auschwitz main camp,
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00:05:10,710 --> 00:05:15,238
Hoss - a committed Nazi -held planning
meetings with his senior staff.
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00:05:18,084 --> 00:05:21,247
Auschwitz became the greatest
human extermination centre of all time.
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00:05:22,588 --> 00:05:25,751
The reasons behind the extermination
programme seemed to me to be right.
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00:05:27,226 --> 00:05:29,057
There's nothing new in anti-Semitism
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00:05:29,495 --> 00:05:31,326
- it's always existed all over the world.
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00:05:32,565 --> 00:05:33,623
It's only come into the limelight
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00:05:33,800 --> 00:05:37,292
where the Jews have pushed themselves forward
too much in their quest for power.
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00:05:40,306 --> 00:05:42,399
Fuelled partly by these prejudices,
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00:05:42,775 --> 00:05:47,075
Hoss prepared for the arrival of
the Hungarian Jews at Auschwitz-Birkenau,
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00:05:47,547 --> 00:05:49,708
2 miles away from Auschwitz main camp.
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00:05:51,150 --> 00:05:54,381
He oversaw the completion of a railway line
allowing new arrivals
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00:05:54,554 --> 00:05:56,545
to be brought directly into Birkenau.
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00:06:07,533 --> 00:06:11,435
Birkenau, part concentration camp,
part extermination centre,
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00:06:11,971 --> 00:06:15,338
had been the site of mass murder
at Auschwitz since 1942.
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00:06:16,709 --> 00:06:19,473
Here notjust Jews
but Polish Political prisoners
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00:06:19,645 --> 00:06:23,012
and others the Nazis thought a threat
to their rule were imprisoned.
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00:06:24,817 --> 00:06:29,151
Crucial to the operation of Birkenau were
four crematoria with gas chambers attached,
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00:06:30,022 --> 00:06:33,423
where those selected to die
were murdered and burnt.
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00:06:45,538 --> 00:06:48,803
What can't be shown,
especially in Birkenau,
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00:06:49,342 --> 00:06:52,505
is above all the stench of burning bodies.
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00:06:58,851 --> 00:07:02,582
It spread a long way
- kilometres from the camp.
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00:07:02,922 --> 00:07:07,450
It wasn'tjust that the fire burnt
for one day, went out and that was it.
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00:07:08,361 --> 00:07:10,056
It burnt for months on end.
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00:07:11,030 --> 00:07:16,627
Whether it rained or not, whether it snowed
or not, the fire burned all the time.
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00:07:22,508 --> 00:07:25,102
Hoss and his SS colleagues now anticipated
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00:07:25,278 --> 00:07:27,838
that so many people were
about to be murdered here
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00:07:28,114 --> 00:07:33,711
the crematoria ovens simply would not cope,
so huge cremation pits were prepared.
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00:07:35,455 --> 00:07:38,549
And one prominent visitor to
Auschwitz during May 1944
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00:07:38,724 --> 00:07:40,783
was none other than Adolf Eichmann.
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Hoss knew him well.
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00:07:48,734 --> 00:07:52,636
Eichmann was completely obsessed
with his mission and also convinced
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00:07:52,805 --> 00:07:56,673
that this extermination action was necessary
in order to preserve the German people
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00:07:56,843 --> 00:07:59,812
in the future from the destructive
intentions of the Jews.
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Eichmann's visit I remember.
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00:08:08,788 --> 00:08:10,119
His whole appearance.
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00:08:12,124 --> 00:08:18,085
All the SS people had the same expression
- they were always furious-looking,
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00:08:19,599 --> 00:08:24,298
to show how important they were,
to show they were important people.
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00:08:29,075 --> 00:08:32,670
Yet at the same time as organizing
the deportation of the Hungarian Jews,
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00:08:33,179 --> 00:08:37,309
Eichmann allowed Brand to leave Hungary
on the 17th of May 1944.
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00:08:38,184 --> 00:08:44,089
His task: to see if the Allies would
exchange 10,000 trucks for 1 million Jews.
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00:08:49,128 --> 00:08:51,358
There was considerable
urgency to Brand's mission,
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00:08:51,664 --> 00:08:54,394
because in Hungary the deportations were
already underway.
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A task now performed with the essential
co-operation of the Hungarian authorities.
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00:09:10,216 --> 00:09:13,743
In the small town of Sarvar,
close to the border with Austria,
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00:09:14,387 --> 00:09:17,015
Alice Lok Cahana, her elder sister Edith,
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and the rest of their family
prepared to leave.
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00:09:21,427 --> 00:09:25,488
The scene of going out of Egypt
came to my mind
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and we saw the cattle trains
I told my sister this is a mistake,
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00:09:30,403 --> 00:09:34,806
they have cattle trains here, they
don't mean we should go in cattle trains.
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So we found ourselves in the cattle train
they're closing the door on us
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and they're leaving a bucket for sanitary use
and a bucket for water
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00:09:59,165 --> 00:10:05,001
and I told Edith I would never use
sanitary use bucket in front of
95
00:10:05,171 --> 00:10:08,038
these people no matter what happens to me.
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00:10:08,407 --> 00:10:12,639
And the two of us went to
the corner of the cattle train.
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00:10:21,287 --> 00:10:25,553
Joel Brand arrived at Istanbul
in neutral Turkey, on the 19th of May.
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00:10:27,927 --> 00:10:29,986
He met representatives
of various groups with links
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to the Jewish leadership in Palestine,
at the Pera Palace Hotel.
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Whilst Brand encountered the first difficulties
with his mission, the Hungarian Jews
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Were arriving at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
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00:11:39,265 --> 00:11:42,701
As a general rule the taking of photographs
was prohibited at Auschwitz,
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00:11:43,669 --> 00:11:48,106
but one member of the SS did record
the arrival of this Hungarian transport.
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No one knows just
why these pictures were taken,
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00:11:54,146 --> 00:11:59,015
but they constitute the most valuable visual
record in existence of what happened here.
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The Nazis wanted to see who could work
as forced labour and who could not.
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00:12:15,701 --> 00:12:18,397
The first part of this selection
process was to separate the women
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and children from the men,
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00:12:20,940 --> 00:12:24,671
and then to choose from within each group
who should die at once.
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00:12:26,245 --> 00:12:31,615
When we arrived I told Edith nothing
can be so bad like this cattle train
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00:12:31,984 --> 00:12:37,149
I'm sure they will want us to work and
for the children they will give better food.
112
00:12:37,456 --> 00:12:45,795
So they're saying right now the children should
separate and go in another hut, group.
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00:12:46,232 --> 00:12:48,097
Go line up with the children
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00:12:49,802 --> 00:12:53,829
Alice, who arrived at Auschwitz with her family
on a similar transport to this,
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had decided to stand
with the mothers and children.
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00:12:57,910 --> 00:13:00,344
She could not have picked
a more dangerous spot.
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00:13:01,680 --> 00:13:06,845
I went to that group with the children
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00:13:08,287 --> 00:13:14,624
and I was very tall for my age and
suddenly the German soldier asked me
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00:13:14,827 --> 00:13:17,625
'Haben Sie Kinder?'
- 'Do you have children?'
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00:13:18,030 --> 00:13:25,266
I said 'No, I am just 15', in German,
and then he put me to another group.
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That moment saved her life.
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00:13:29,275 --> 00:13:31,709
Alice was taken from the group
with mothers and children,
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00:13:32,244 --> 00:13:34,474
all of whom were selected
for immediate murder,
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00:13:35,114 --> 00:13:37,241
and was placed with fit
and healthy young women
125
00:13:37,416 --> 00:13:39,145
Who were chosen as slave labour.
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00:13:55,534 --> 00:13:59,265
The moment of selection captured
in these photographs, took only seconds.
127
00:14:00,406 --> 00:14:03,341
It was a procedure every
new Jewish arrival endured.
128
00:14:05,311 --> 00:14:07,176
A couple of Germans were separating us
129
00:14:07,346 --> 00:14:11,282
- when he was looking
at the old people he put to the right
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00:14:11,917 --> 00:14:13,475
and the young people to the left.
131
00:14:14,119 --> 00:14:15,677
So this is where they separate us.
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00:14:16,488 --> 00:14:22,393
The right lane they took them
right away to the gas chambers.
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00:14:48,220 --> 00:14:52,748
My family was done already was
down to the crematoria there,
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00:14:53,125 --> 00:14:54,990
they perished right away you know,
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00:14:55,160 --> 00:15:01,690
when they take direct to the crematoria
after a couple of hours you don't exist anymore
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00:15:10,442 --> 00:15:13,741
On average, 75% of the people
on each transport
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00:15:13,913 --> 00:15:17,508
from Hungary were selected
to be murdered straight away.
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00:15:26,058 --> 00:15:27,923
As the transports continued to Auschwitz,
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00:15:28,460 --> 00:15:30,928
Joel Brand travelled to Aleppo in Syria
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00:15:31,463 --> 00:15:36,025
and on the 11th of June 1944 met with
a representative of the Jewish Agency.
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00:15:37,836 --> 00:15:40,862
Also present was a Major
from British counter intelligence,
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00:15:41,340 --> 00:15:42,830
who recorded the conversation.
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00:15:43,976 --> 00:15:46,103
Brand was about to hear bad news.
144
00:16:59,451 --> 00:17:02,818
The British believed they knew
why the Nazis now proposed a deal.
145
00:17:07,926 --> 00:17:09,484
The Germans were losing the war.
146
00:17:11,997 --> 00:17:14,056
The Red Army was marching on the Reich.
147
00:17:20,639 --> 00:17:23,540
And the Nazis said the trucks
they wanted in exchange for Jews
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00:17:23,709 --> 00:17:28,271
would be used only on the Eastern Front,
in the war against the Soviet Union.
149
00:17:31,750 --> 00:17:33,581
Heinrich Himmler of the SS,
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00:17:33,786 --> 00:17:37,847
who was behind the Brand mission,
wanted to split the Allies.
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00:17:40,692 --> 00:17:42,557
On May the 31st 1944,
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at the Foreign Office in London,
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00:17:44,496 --> 00:17:47,693
the Brand proposals were considered
by a Committee of the War Cabinet.
154
00:17:51,136 --> 00:17:55,300
Their conclusion was that the idea of
exchanging trucks for Jews was 'blackmail'
155
00:17:56,108 --> 00:17:57,166
and should be rejected.
156
00:17:59,445 --> 00:18:01,037
But during the discussion there was another,
157
00:18:01,213 --> 00:18:04,649
less idealistic reason suggested
to refuse the Nazis' offer.
158
00:18:05,884 --> 00:18:09,285
Which was that to accept it might
'lead to an offer to unload
159
00:18:09,455 --> 00:18:12,424
an even greater number of Jews
on to our hands.'
160
00:18:14,293 --> 00:18:15,920
Shortly after the British decision,
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00:18:16,395 --> 00:18:18,329
the Americans and Soviets also agreed
162
00:18:18,497 --> 00:18:20,931
that there should be
no negotiations with the Nazis.
163
00:18:25,404 --> 00:18:29,568
The Germans kept repeating
that the Jews are almighty,
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00:18:30,209 --> 00:18:32,837
that the Jews rule the world.
165
00:18:35,314 --> 00:18:41,150
They kept saying America
and England do whatever Jews ask,
166
00:18:42,020 --> 00:18:44,079
but we could see that that wasn't true.
167
00:18:49,061 --> 00:18:51,325
Meanwhile, the Allies did not communicate
168
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their rejection of the Brand mission
to the Nazis here in Budapest.
169
00:18:59,872 --> 00:19:02,864
So, Brand's wife, Hansi,
together with Rudolf Kasztner,
170
00:19:03,041 --> 00:19:08,502
another Jewish activist, was able to plead
repeatedly with Adolf Eichmann for a gesture
171
00:19:09,248 --> 00:19:12,479
that would show the Nazis were prepared
to negotiate with the Allies.
172
00:19:13,485 --> 00:19:17,615
Both Rudolf Kasztner and Hansi Brand
later testified as to how the meetings went.
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00:19:57,763 --> 00:20:02,894
Eichmann was not prepared to spare one person's
life as a result of humanitarian pleas.
174
00:20:05,103 --> 00:20:08,561
But he and his SS colleagues were prepared
to listen to another argument.
175
00:20:17,416 --> 00:20:22,285
They announced that one train full of Jews
could leave Budapest for a safe destination,
176
00:20:23,121 --> 00:20:25,521
as a so-called gesture of good faith.
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00:20:31,430 --> 00:20:36,060
The price per seat on the train:
1,000 US dollars.
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00:20:43,408 --> 00:20:45,603
On the 30th of June 1944,
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00:20:45,811 --> 00:20:51,579
a train containing 1,684 Hungarian Jews
pulled out of a Budapest station.
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00:20:55,454 --> 00:20:58,355
A special committee,
on which Rudolf Kasztner sat,
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00:20:58,557 --> 00:21:00,616
had decided the final passenger list.
182
00:21:02,728 --> 00:21:09,566
The Kasztner list was compiled
on purpose like a Noah, Noah's Ark.
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00:21:10,669 --> 00:21:13,433
Everybody and everything should be represented
184
00:21:13,605 --> 00:21:17,405
this will be the only part of
Jews f Europe who remain alive
185
00:21:17,576 --> 00:21:19,874
There should be a representative portion.
186
00:21:20,545 --> 00:21:22,513
But this was a strange Noah's Ark.
187
00:21:23,148 --> 00:21:26,413
Massively over-represented on the train
were Kasztner's own relatives
188
00:21:26,585 --> 00:21:28,780
and people from his home town of Kolozsvar.
189
00:21:29,588 --> 00:21:33,115
And places were also given to several
hundred rich Hungarian Jews
190
00:21:33,358 --> 00:21:35,952
who subsidised anyone on the train
who couldn't pay.
191
00:21:37,596 --> 00:21:40,497
If you have to save your life
you'll try it in every way,
192
00:21:41,233 --> 00:21:44,498
even in a criminal way if it comes to that,
but you have to save it,
193
00:21:44,670 --> 00:21:50,768
your life is the first you are nearest to
yourself whatever people try to say.
194
00:21:56,114 --> 00:22:03,282
When they, we were in the train we were afraid,
we never knew what will be our future.
195
00:22:07,159 --> 00:22:10,560
Eichmann had promised that the train
would travel to neutral Switzerland,
196
00:22:11,596 --> 00:22:12,426
but it didn't.
197
00:22:13,398 --> 00:22:16,299
At Linz in Austria, the train stopped
198
00:22:16,601 --> 00:22:19,661
and Jews on board were told to
get out and take a shower.
199
00:22:20,972 --> 00:22:27,400
I was standing naked before the doctor and
looking very proud into his eyes and ah,
200
00:22:27,913 --> 00:22:30,313
thought he should see
how a Jewish woman is going,
201
00:22:30,482 --> 00:22:32,916
a proud Jewish is going to die,
202
00:22:33,385 --> 00:22:35,910
because most of us knew that in Auschwitz
203
00:22:36,088 --> 00:22:41,048
from the taps there didn't
come any water but gas.
204
00:22:41,426 --> 00:22:46,159
And ah, from the taps came fine warm water,
205
00:22:46,631 --> 00:22:49,566
afterwards we dressed up
and returned to our train.
206
00:22:49,735 --> 00:22:56,038
It was a very relieving experience
after we were ready to die there.
207
00:22:58,143 --> 00:23:00,941
The train travelled on to
Bergen-Belsen camp in Germany
208
00:23:01,713 --> 00:23:03,977
where those on board stayed for up to six months
209
00:23:04,149 --> 00:23:08,176
before the Nazis finally allowed almost
all of them to travel to neutral Switzerland.
210
00:23:13,058 --> 00:23:16,289
The 1600 Jews who had left
on the Kasztner train in June
211
00:23:16,461 --> 00:23:21,489
represented less than half of 1%
of the Hungarian Jews deported to Auschwitz.
212
00:23:24,436 --> 00:23:26,631
The Spring and early Summer of 1944
213
00:23:26,805 --> 00:23:29,672
was to be the most notorious period
in the history of the camp.
214
00:23:31,710 --> 00:23:35,009
The four crematoria with gas
chambers were struggling to cope
215
00:23:35,180 --> 00:23:37,307
with the numbers the Nazis wanted to kill.
216
00:23:39,751 --> 00:23:43,380
Two of them lay here in the western
part of the Birkenau complex,
217
00:23:43,855 --> 00:23:45,686
with the gas chambers above ground.
218
00:23:48,427 --> 00:23:50,395
Two more were positioned
close to the railway line
219
00:23:50,562 --> 00:23:52,996
that took new arrivals
into the heart of Birkenau.
220
00:23:53,999 --> 00:23:55,933
These had the gas chambers in the basement.
221
00:24:03,074 --> 00:24:07,238
The Nazis had hugely increased the number
of Jewish prisoners in the Sonderkommando
222
00:24:07,412 --> 00:24:10,438
they made work in the crematoria
in order to deal
223
00:24:10,615 --> 00:24:12,742
with the massive numbers
they wished to murder.
224
00:24:16,054 --> 00:24:18,852
So much so that a crematorium
and gas chamber like this
225
00:24:19,024 --> 00:24:23,552
was operated by around
100 Jews and just 4 Germans.
226
00:24:28,967 --> 00:24:33,597
The torment endured by the Sonderkommando,
forced on pain of their own immediate death,
227
00:24:33,772 --> 00:24:35,603
to assist in the killing process,
228
00:24:36,208 --> 00:24:38,904
is one of the most shocking
parts of the history of Auschwitz.
229
00:24:42,180 --> 00:24:46,480
When people was in that gas chamber you could
hear some kind of a voice calling "God".
230
00:24:49,020 --> 00:24:53,616
It looked like those voice coming
from kind of a catacombs
231
00:24:55,527 --> 00:24:59,554
which I still got the kind of voice
I've still got them in my ears.
232
00:25:01,800 --> 00:25:04,496
These wire columns contained
the Zyklon B gas pellets
233
00:25:04,669 --> 00:25:06,933
which were lowered in from above by the Nazis.
234
00:25:08,139 --> 00:25:11,404
And while it was always the Nazis themselves
who committed this act of murder,
235
00:25:12,143 --> 00:25:14,008
it was the prisoners of the Sonderkommando
236
00:25:14,179 --> 00:25:17,205
who had to perform the horrendous
task of collecting the bodies,
237
00:25:17,749 --> 00:25:23,119
taking them out and up a small lift to burn
either in the ovens of the crematorium,
238
00:25:23,788 --> 00:25:25,949
or increasingly in the open air.
239
00:25:31,029 --> 00:25:35,125
When the the big you know transport from ah,
240
00:25:35,700 --> 00:25:41,696
Hungary came in then they were daily you know,
they wanted to finish them fast,
241
00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:44,606
that's why they had the pits to go through
242
00:25:53,218 --> 00:25:56,710
This photograph, which a Sonderkommando
risked his life to take,
243
00:25:57,522 --> 00:26:01,117
shows bodies lying by
the open cremation pits in 1944.
244
00:26:06,031 --> 00:26:12,869
Every day they were burning dead bodies
every day, every day, every day.
245
00:26:13,371 --> 00:26:14,429
You get used to it.
246
00:26:15,173 --> 00:26:18,939
We know it, if we wondered that,
we had a bullet in our head.
247
00:26:21,446 --> 00:26:22,674
It was like a robot.
248
00:26:26,585 --> 00:26:29,486
On occasion, when killing
small numbers of prisoners,
249
00:26:30,021 --> 00:26:33,980
the gas chambers were not used and
the Sonderkommando were forced to stand
250
00:26:34,159 --> 00:26:36,184
just inches away from the murders.
251
00:26:37,596 --> 00:26:42,693
We, we had to take them they bring
one by one we take them by the ears
252
00:26:43,201 --> 00:26:52,269
and behind him was an SS shoot him
in the back and the guy would come down
253
00:26:52,444 --> 00:26:57,143
with a lot of blood was some of us
there with the water putting down
254
00:27:09,494 --> 00:27:12,156
After a while you don't know nothing,
255
00:27:12,330 --> 00:27:14,423
Nothing, nothing bothers you.
256
00:27:14,833 --> 00:27:17,768
That's why your conscience
you know gets inside of you
257
00:27:18,069 --> 00:27:21,232
and stays there until today you know,
258
00:27:21,406 --> 00:27:26,673
somebody else is in inside of me that
tells me from time to time you get awake
259
00:27:26,878 --> 00:27:29,369
what happened why we did such a thing.
260
00:27:33,551 --> 00:27:38,215
By now the Allies knew about this place
and its role as an extermination camp.
261
00:27:40,592 --> 00:27:42,924
Gradually, from early 1944 onwards,
262
00:27:43,461 --> 00:27:47,420
the level of knowledge about what was happening
here had been increasing amongst the Allies,
263
00:27:47,966 --> 00:27:53,029
thanks to the escape of a handful of Auschwitz
prisoners and the work of the Polish resistance.
264
00:27:54,873 --> 00:27:58,400
This culminated in a document which drew
together the available intelligence
265
00:27:58,777 --> 00:28:01,541
and which came to be known
as the 'Auschwitz Protocols'.
266
00:28:05,216 --> 00:28:08,151
It included sketches showing
the position of the major crematoria
267
00:28:08,353 --> 00:28:09,911
and gas chambers at Birkenau.
268
00:28:12,424 --> 00:28:15,757
As a result, from June 1944
Jewish organisations asked
269
00:28:15,927 --> 00:28:19,863
that the railway lines to Auschwitz and
the gas chambers of the camp be bombed.
270
00:28:20,965 --> 00:28:23,900
Requests which reached the American
government only a few weeks
271
00:28:24,069 --> 00:28:26,196
after the landings on the D Day beaches.
272
00:28:30,408 --> 00:28:32,342
Assistant Secretary of State John Mc Cloy
273
00:28:32,510 --> 00:28:35,343
rejected the requests saying
the bombing was 'impractical'
274
00:28:36,014 --> 00:28:38,676
and would lead to 'diversion of
considerable air support'
275
00:28:38,850 --> 00:28:40,340
that was essential elsewhere.
276
00:28:41,953 --> 00:28:44,114
A clue as to the strength of McCloy's
opposition to the bombing
277
00:28:44,289 --> 00:28:46,484
requests comes from this inter-office memo,
278
00:28:47,058 --> 00:28:52,189
where his own assistant, Colonel Gerhardt,
writes 'I know you told me to 'kill' this...'
279
00:28:53,231 --> 00:28:57,099
In Britain, requests to bomb Auschwitz were
once again referred to the Americans,
280
00:28:57,635 --> 00:28:59,159
and so the idea died.
281
00:29:02,741 --> 00:29:04,936
But the Americans went on in August 1944
282
00:29:05,110 --> 00:29:10,742
to bomb the IG Farben factory being built
at Monowitz just four miles from Birkenau.
283
00:29:12,083 --> 00:29:19,717
Ah, we heard the aeroplanes coming and
we wanted them to put the bombs on the camp,
284
00:29:19,891 --> 00:29:25,591
at least we could run. And hundreds
and hundreds of planes were coming
285
00:29:25,930 --> 00:29:29,366
and we are looking up and no bombs.
286
00:29:29,901 --> 00:29:32,028
So this we couldn't understand.
287
00:29:32,270 --> 00:29:38,869
So absolutely, God forgot us
and people of the war forgot us,
288
00:29:39,077 --> 00:29:44,344
didn't care about what's going on
and they knew what's going on there.
289
00:29:45,250 --> 00:29:47,741
During a reconnaisance flight
on the 25th of August
290
00:29:48,319 --> 00:29:51,413
the Americans accidentally took
this picture of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
291
00:29:54,058 --> 00:29:54,922
Whether or not, of course,
292
00:29:55,093 --> 00:29:56,720
it would have ever been
possible to destroy
293
00:29:56,895 --> 00:29:59,796
ith a precision attack
the crematoria and gas chambers,
294
00:30:00,131 --> 00:30:02,361
clearly visible here, and whether
295
00:30:02,534 --> 00:30:05,560
that would have made the Nazis stop
committing murder at Auschwitz,
296
00:30:06,371 --> 00:30:08,862
is one of the great unanswered
questions of history.
297
00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:18,342
What is certain is that back in
Budapest the protests
298
00:30:18,516 --> 00:30:21,508
about the deportations made
by several foreign governments
299
00:30:22,153 --> 00:30:25,520
- including the British and Americans
- did have an effect.
300
00:30:31,162 --> 00:30:33,255
The pressure reached a peak in early July
301
00:30:33,498 --> 00:30:37,662
when the Hungarians intercepted cables
demanding those involved be punished.
302
00:30:39,871 --> 00:30:43,705
The Hungarian Prime Minister,
Dome Sztojay and Edmund Veesenmayer,
303
00:30:43,875 --> 00:30:47,333
Hitler's representative in Hungary,
met to discuss the intercepts.
304
00:30:48,546 --> 00:30:52,243
We know what was said from a detailed report
Veesenmayer sent the next day to Berlin.
305
00:31:39,130 --> 00:31:42,531
But such protests and threats from
the international community did influence
306
00:31:42,700 --> 00:31:45,601
the Hungarian head of State, Admiral Horthy.
307
00:31:47,238 --> 00:31:50,401
With the war clearly going against
the Nazis he decided
308
00:31:50,575 --> 00:31:53,908
that the time had come to distance himself
from his erstwhile ally.
309
00:31:55,313 --> 00:31:57,747
Horthy informed the Germans
on the 7th July
310
00:31:58,016 --> 00:32:00,678
that the deportations of the Jews must cease.
311
00:32:01,386 --> 00:32:04,150
The Hungarian authorities
would no longer co-operate.
312
00:32:10,361 --> 00:32:13,194
After the official halt
of the Hungarian transports,
313
00:32:13,765 --> 00:32:16,928
the Nazis at Auschwitz focussed greater
attention on inmates
314
00:32:17,101 --> 00:32:21,697
who had been imprisoned here at Birkenau
for some time - the Gypsies.
315
00:32:24,909 --> 00:32:29,278
They lived in family groups in some of
the worst conditions in the camp.
316
00:32:34,819 --> 00:32:36,252
The atmosphere was terrible,
317
00:32:36,421 --> 00:32:39,219
because many of the small children
and people in the blocks,
318
00:32:40,591 --> 00:32:42,252
everyone was mixed up together.
319
00:32:43,027 --> 00:32:43,686
The children were screaming:
320
00:32:43,861 --> 00:32:46,762
'Mum I'm hungry, give me something to
eat or something to drink.
321
00:32:47,332 --> 00:32:50,199
But they weren't allowed to drink
the water due to typhus.
322
00:32:51,636 --> 00:32:53,263
Franz Rosenbach survived only
323
00:32:53,438 --> 00:32:56,669
because he was eventually transferred
elsewhere as slave labour.
324
00:32:57,709 --> 00:33:03,978
But his mother died at Auschwitz along
with 21,000 of the 23,000 gypsies sent there.
325
00:33:08,886 --> 00:33:12,754
You see there were moments, moments
which one really prefers not to think about.
326
00:33:13,091 --> 00:33:17,050
Such moments. The things that were done
to us left you wondering why.
327
00:33:17,895 --> 00:33:21,058
We were beaten, kicked, degraded,
but you didn't know why.
328
00:33:21,232 --> 00:33:25,225
You had no idea why.
Simply because we were different.
329
00:33:34,579 --> 00:33:38,208
Under Nazi rule the Gypsies suffered
proportionately more than
330
00:33:38,383 --> 00:33:40,317
any other group apart from the Jews.
331
00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:52,856
The Nazis considered them anti-social,
despised their way of life,
332
00:33:53,765 --> 00:33:55,596
and thought them racially dangerous.
333
00:34:03,641 --> 00:34:06,235
On the evening of the 2nd of August 1944,
334
00:34:06,644 --> 00:34:09,238
the Nazis moved to liquidate the Gypsy camp.
335
00:34:17,055 --> 00:34:20,684
It was to be one of the most appalling
single nights in the history of Auschwitz.
336
00:34:23,494 --> 00:34:27,157
The Gypsy camp was very close to our barrack
337
00:34:27,799 --> 00:34:33,260
and we could hear it
and the night was unbelievable.
338
00:34:33,738 --> 00:34:41,838
Full of screaming and crying
and smoke and horrendous sounds.
339
00:34:42,580 --> 00:34:47,643
They took the Gypsies and
the Gypsies were crying
340
00:34:47,819 --> 00:34:49,684
they knew where they are taking them.
341
00:35:00,198 --> 00:35:04,191
Everybody defended themselves,
defended themselves to the last.
342
00:35:04,969 --> 00:35:06,800
They bit, they scratched.
343
00:35:07,672 --> 00:35:09,833
The Germans had driven in in trucks.
344
00:35:10,741 --> 00:35:13,710
They threw the children in them,
and if one of them jumped out,
345
00:35:13,978 --> 00:35:16,503
they would hit him on the leg
or the arm with a wooden club,
346
00:35:16,681 --> 00:35:19,809
break it and throw him back in,
so that he couldn'tjump out again,
347
00:35:19,984 --> 00:35:22,919
couldn't get out because his limb
was just hanging there.
348
00:35:26,457 --> 00:35:28,891
When I saw this, I started yelling...
349
00:35:29,660 --> 00:35:32,527
And people grabbed me
- Poles - as they were afraid
350
00:35:32,697 --> 00:35:35,632
that the Germans would come
and throw a hand grenade in or something.
351
00:35:36,667 --> 00:35:40,763
They rolled me in a blanket to keep me
quiet and sat with me.
352
00:35:43,641 --> 00:35:48,305
The Gypsies were taken to the crematoria,
many here to crematorium 5
353
00:35:49,347 --> 00:35:51,747
- and killed within
its network of gas chambers.
354
00:35:54,018 --> 00:35:55,645
By the autumn of 1944,
355
00:35:55,887 --> 00:35:57,855
after the Gypsies had been murdered here,
356
00:35:58,256 --> 00:36:00,315
and the massive transports of
Jews from Hungary
357
00:36:00,491 --> 00:36:02,891
and then the Lodz ghetto
in Poland had ceased,
358
00:36:03,528 --> 00:36:06,088
the number of people killed at Auschwitz
dropped to fewer than
359
00:36:06,264 --> 00:36:09,927
1,000 a day from a peak of 10,000 in May.
360
00:36:11,836 --> 00:36:14,361
The Sonderkommando who worked
in these gas chambers now
361
00:36:14,539 --> 00:36:16,507
began to fear for their own lives.
362
00:36:17,942 --> 00:36:19,239
They were changing us.
363
00:36:20,278 --> 00:36:24,305
You know, we, we knew that our days
were always numbered
364
00:36:24,482 --> 00:36:26,609
and we didn't know when the end would be.
365
00:36:27,318 --> 00:36:30,481
Here in crematorium 4 at around
1.30 pm on Saturday,
366
00:36:30,655 --> 00:36:35,456
the 7th of October 1944,
the Sonderkommando fought back
367
00:36:37,295 --> 00:36:40,196
They set fire to the crematorium
and armed with pickaxes
368
00:36:40,364 --> 00:36:42,924
and rocks they attacked their SS guards.
369
00:36:45,503 --> 00:36:48,836
Meanwhile the Sonderkommando
in crematorium 2 also rose up.
370
00:36:50,141 --> 00:36:52,735
After a few minutes of hand-to-hand
fighting with the SS,
371
00:36:53,277 --> 00:36:56,269
some Sonderkommando managed to escape
into the nearby woods,
372
00:36:56,981 --> 00:36:59,006
but all of them were later captured and shot.
373
00:37:00,251 --> 00:37:03,414
And the SS even sought revenge
against those Sonderkommando
374
00:37:03,588 --> 00:37:05,647
who had not taken part in the revolt.
375
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:10,791
They didn't know what to do with us.
376
00:37:11,596 --> 00:37:16,727
So they had a kind of discussion and then
they told us to lie face down on the ground
377
00:37:16,968 --> 00:37:22,065
holding our hands behind our backs
and every 3rd person was shot.
378
00:37:23,708 --> 00:37:26,973
Some of my friends in the Sonderkommando
lost their lives
379
00:37:27,144 --> 00:37:29,635
and the rest of us had to go back to work.
380
00:37:31,949 --> 00:37:33,678
There was never much hope for us.
381
00:37:34,852 --> 00:37:36,479
I'm telling it like it is.
382
00:37:44,262 --> 00:37:49,199
They didn't kill us because there were
4,000 cadavers you know
383
00:37:49,367 --> 00:37:53,428
that would have to go into the ovens
and we are the only ones
384
00:37:53,604 --> 00:37:57,802
that could do it and
that's why they save us.
385
00:37:58,175 --> 00:38:02,134
But after that day they took most of us.
386
00:38:02,380 --> 00:38:07,044
They left only 92 of us, all the others
they took and they killed them all around
387
00:38:11,122 --> 00:38:14,853
The same month as the Sonderkommando revolt,
there was a coup in Hungary.
388
00:38:18,229 --> 00:38:20,424
On the 15th of October 1944,
389
00:38:20,731 --> 00:38:25,691
Horthy's non-compliant regime was overthrown
by the Nazi backed Arrow Cross militia.
390
00:38:28,773 --> 00:38:31,640
Eichmann immediately called
Rudolf Kasztner in for a meeting.
391
00:38:32,943 --> 00:38:35,468
Kasztner later wrote a report
about what was discussed.
392
00:39:02,173 --> 00:39:03,401
The Jews at Budapest,
393
00:39:03,574 --> 00:39:07,840
who had up to now largely escaped deportation,
were now Eichmann's target.
394
00:39:13,918 --> 00:39:15,351
They were not to be sent to Auschwitz,
395
00:39:15,519 --> 00:39:18,716
but to Austria, where they would be
used as slave labour.
396
00:39:19,857 --> 00:39:23,486
And because of the shortage of trains,
they were to walk there.
397
00:39:27,231 --> 00:39:29,165
So during November tens of thousands of Jews
398
00:39:29,333 --> 00:39:32,564
from Budapest were forced out of
the city and made to trek west.
399
00:39:33,938 --> 00:39:35,838
Many thousands died en route.
400
00:39:41,245 --> 00:39:44,772
But Eichmann incurred the displeasure of
senior figures of the SS,
401
00:39:45,316 --> 00:39:48,251
concerned, in the light of how badly
the war was going for them,
402
00:39:48,619 --> 00:39:51,679
that so much potential forced
labour was being squandered.
403
00:39:55,559 --> 00:39:59,859
And so Himmler summoned Eichmann to
a special meeting in December 1944
404
00:40:00,431 --> 00:40:01,830
On his private train.
405
00:40:12,910 --> 00:40:15,208
Another SS Officer, Lt Col Becher,
406
00:40:15,379 --> 00:40:17,813
who also worked in Hungary was
present as well.
407
00:40:22,019 --> 00:40:24,749
After the war Becher testified
as to what was said.
408
00:40:50,781 --> 00:40:54,012
Himmler knew the German Army were
struggling to hold back the Allies
409
00:40:55,853 --> 00:40:57,548
And by January 1945
410
00:40:57,721 --> 00:41:01,418
the SS here at Auschwitz were
also well aware that the end was near.
411
00:41:15,039 --> 00:41:19,169
All reference to this place as a site of
mass murder was to be eliminated.
412
00:41:23,380 --> 00:41:27,544
We woke up in the middle of the night
with the sound of explosion,
413
00:41:27,985 --> 00:41:31,352
they were blowing up the gas chambers,
the crematorium.
414
00:41:33,023 --> 00:41:37,016
Outside the SS were waiting for us
and ordered us to march,
415
00:41:37,194 --> 00:41:41,460
anybody who could not march fast
enough was shot on the spot.
416
00:41:42,500 --> 00:41:47,904
We arrived in Auschwitz 1,
which is about an hour walk, at 1am.
417
00:41:49,573 --> 00:41:53,771
The Nazis again disappeared as
if the earth swallowed them up
418
00:41:55,179 --> 00:42:00,139
Eva Mozes Kor, and 1200 other prisoners
thought too weak to evacuate from the area,
419
00:42:00,751 --> 00:42:04,778
were now left for a few days to fend
for themselves at Auschwitz main camp.
420
00:42:07,992 --> 00:42:09,482
Most of the guards had gone
421
00:42:10,361 --> 00:42:13,797
- but another SS unit had been ordered
to come to the camp and shoot them.
422
00:42:14,899 --> 00:42:19,302
No prisoners were supposed to be left alive
to testify to just what had happened here.
423
00:42:31,882 --> 00:42:34,715
Meanwhile, more than 50,000
other inmates of Auschwitz,
424
00:42:34,885 --> 00:42:37,353
thought fit enough to become slave labourers,
425
00:42:37,588 --> 00:42:40,853
were marched in sub zero
temperatures to railway junctions,
426
00:42:41,725 --> 00:42:44,091
where they were to be
put on trains and sent West.
427
00:42:54,204 --> 00:42:58,834
If anyone even dared to bend down to get
muddy snow off their shoes they were shot,
428
00:42:59,743 --> 00:43:03,144
that was the end.
We weren't allowed to bend over,
429
00:43:03,314 --> 00:43:06,977
we could only walk quickly,
quickly, quickly.
430
00:43:10,821 --> 00:43:13,346
On both sides of the roads
there were ditches,
431
00:43:13,891 --> 00:43:17,657
big ditches and the ditches
were full of bodies.
432
00:43:26,303 --> 00:43:29,568
Also on the march amidst the chaos of this
retreat were prisoners
433
00:43:29,740 --> 00:43:34,734
who had never thought they could possibly
leave the camp alive, the Sonderkommando.
434
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:42,651
We survived that because the Russians
were coming from Krakow and down
435
00:43:42,820 --> 00:43:49,589
and the Germans had got panicky and
every place we went the Germans
436
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:55,630
one by one where asking us if you work
in the Sonderkommando we were shot.
437
00:44:03,040 --> 00:44:04,371
Once they reached the railhead,
438
00:44:04,541 --> 00:44:08,671
the Auschwitz prisoners were crammed into
open wagons to continue the journey West,
439
00:44:09,380 --> 00:44:12,406
in temperatures that could reach as
low as minus 20 degrees.
440
00:44:14,885 --> 00:44:20,824
Oh, the wagon was very packed,
one guy was up and he was German,
441
00:44:20,991 --> 00:44:24,757
he told us he was German,
who knows maybe a convict who knows.
442
00:44:26,497 --> 00:44:29,364
And he wanted to sit down,
he couldn't stand no more this guy.
443
00:44:30,601 --> 00:44:35,629
So, and he told me, 'I've got some
cigarettes would you let me sit down?'
444
00:44:36,040 --> 00:44:39,203
When I have cigarette you know ah,
when I have some cigarettes,
445
00:44:39,376 --> 00:44:43,005
so he gave me 2-3 cigarettes,
I got up and he sit.
446
00:44:43,814 --> 00:44:50,982
So the cigarettes in 5-10 minutes were gone,
I told him, 'Get up. Get up. Stand up!'
447
00:44:51,789 --> 00:44:52,756
He wouldn't stand up.
448
00:44:53,557 --> 00:45:01,692
So what I did was me and a couple of my friends
would sit on him and about 30 minutes,
449
00:45:01,865 --> 00:45:07,132
1 hour he was suffocated, that guy,
and was thrown, thrown out of the wagon.
450
00:45:13,744 --> 00:45:16,269
I was happy. How did I feel?
451
00:45:17,381 --> 00:45:22,614
They killed all my family, about 30, 40 people
of my family and I killed 1 German?
452
00:45:23,554 --> 00:45:24,452
That was nothing!
453
00:45:35,999 --> 00:45:39,526
It was a murder, wasn't it,
you did murder a fellow prisoner?
454
00:45:42,106 --> 00:45:45,075
I was happy at the time,
I told you because he was a German.
455
00:45:47,311 --> 00:45:48,300
I wouldn't do that to,
456
00:45:48,479 --> 00:45:52,108
I wouldn't do that to one of, of ours
457
00:45:52,382 --> 00:45:55,681
but anyway I wanted to be seated
too over there because I got tired too.
458
00:45:57,387 --> 00:45:59,878
Why should he live,
because he gave me 2, 3 cigarettes?
459
00:46:02,493 --> 00:46:08,830
That's why he didn't want to get up,
so we sit on him and he passed away. Easy.
460
00:46:16,240 --> 00:46:19,209
The Germans who were actually complicit
in the murders at Auschwitz
461
00:46:19,376 --> 00:46:23,745
knew they were even more at risk from
retribution as the war neared its end.
462
00:46:28,952 --> 00:46:32,752
Members of the SS, like Rudolf Hoss,
the former Commandant of Auschwitz,
463
00:46:32,990 --> 00:46:34,582
now tried to escape capture.
464
00:46:38,428 --> 00:46:41,955
And the story of Hoss and his colleagues'
attempt to evade justice
465
00:46:43,100 --> 00:46:45,193
and the Allied attempt to prosecute them
466
00:46:46,069 --> 00:46:48,594
is one of the most troubling
in this entire history.
44570
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