I know that to yall especially this episode was a gut punch. The first camp that the US Army liberated was Ohrdruf. At that place, Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight Eisenhower brought General George S Patton and General Omar Bradley with him to see for themselves. What they witnessed there made 'Ol Blood n Guts' Patton become violently sick and he threw up against a wall, later refusing to go into a building where bodies were stacked like cordwood. Eisenhower sent communications to every unit within range not engaged in active combat operations to also come see, he also sent communications to the press and Congress to send representatives to witness this horror in order to document it. Ohrdruf was the first place they ordered the locals to be marched through the camp to bear witness to these atrocities, and ordered them to bury the dead. At the end of their tour, the Mayor of Ohrdruf and his wife went home and hanged themselves in their living room. As it turned out, one of the 'guides' giving them a tour of Ohrdruf was a camp guard in disguise! That is, until one of the inmates recognized him and the inmates promptly beat him to death. To quote the Supreme Allied Commander: "“We are told the American soldier does not know what he is fighting for. Now, at least, we know what he is fighting against.” -General Dwight D Eisenhower.
When some of the forces under Patton reached Buchenwald, He ordered his soldiers to round up 1,000 townspeople for a tour of what was going on at the camp. They brought back twice that number.
Yet, despite all this, people STILL deny it happened. In fact, as that generation has been dying off the drumbeat that it never happened has been increasing.
It was known that the Germany, through many law changes, made it illegal for jews to owner property, forced to relocate, etc Many fled- those who stayed were transported here. At this stage in the war, the average soldier did not know about what was happening. Reports are mixed about if US or British intelligence knew. The cast of extras for this scene were in fact those suffering from late stage cancer - additionally, the main cast had not seen the camp set until the filming. Their reactions are genuine. Related to this, the movie “Conspiracy” from 2001 is incredibly well directed, acted, and has a 100% on rotten tomatoes. That movie does an incredible job capturing the banal nature of evil…
The camp depicted is part of the Kaufering concentration camp complex (Kaufering IV). The discovery of the camp by the US Army is correct, and it was discovered by the 101st Airborne, but not actually Easy company.
The allies knew about the camps. They didn’t tell the troops because they knew that if they did the troops would focus on revenge instead of their mission. This would cause caucus in the ranks and lead to more atrocities. As it did after the troops started finding the camps. There are many documented case of allied forces systematically executing German officials after seeing the camps. My grandfather was there when they liberated one camp. He refused to talk about it. But, he prayed for them for the rest of his life.
I saw a documentary about the POW camps in America where we held captured Germans. They were well treated. After the camps and atrocities were discovered the treatment of the German POW's was one more of punishment than being held as a prisoner of war. General Eisenhower famously said that he wanted video and film footage of everything so that nobody years from now can deny this happened. Eisenhower also ordered every able bodied person from the towns near the camps to do the burials and cleanup so they could see what had been done.
This camp was called Kaufering IV, it was one of 11 subcamps of the Dachau concentration camp. I normally find the showing of concentration camps in television distasteful - they don't do justice to the suffering and cruelty that took place there. There's a scene in Masters Of The Air where you see people (presumably Jews) packed into a train that I truly hated because it feels like a cheap shot to strike an emotional response, but then it's gone immediately. Band Of Brothers obviously didn't do that. It showed the horror in its entirety. It showed the reactions of the civilians - the family members , neighbors, friends - of those responsible for such atrocities. The complicity of the local population. It didn't sugarcoat a single thing.
In ww2 my uncle was with the American 2nd "Indian head" division, part of general patrons 3rd army. In Germany they smelled death for 2 miles, but we're confused because there was no battlefield here. And the, ge saw himself general Patton throwing up in front of the gate of a nazi death camp (naurhouzen [?]), behind the barbed wire gate was a pile of dead bodies (jews), 10 feet high! My uncle had a snipers bullet in his back from france(doctor said too dangerous to remove it. [His squad killed the sniper]). He continued to fight in neatherlands, Luxemburg, and the battle of the bulge. After the German surrender he volunteered to fight the Japanese, his captain told him to reconsider, because our of his original company of 200 men, only 20 were left!! So he went back to the states, married, raised a family and worked construction. He was a strong man(like bull in band of brothers) and we little kids would climb all over him and the bullet was still in his back. "The greatest generation" saved the world!!❤🎉😂
In general, the allied high command knew that the Nazis were forcing people from all over their occupied territories into conscripted labor to serve the war effort, but they didn't have a full understanding of the scale until they began entering Germany and Poland. As for the German people, it is important to understand that they were under martial law for most of the war, not allowed to leave the country and most correspondence with the outside world was cut off. Surely there were rumors and people likely knew 'something' was going on but it was total war, and to cross the nazi authorities or ask too many questions could get you killed or suspected of treason and thrown into the camps with the rest. Under such circumstances people kept their heads down and mouths shut. Who could blame them?
Yes, the actors had more meat on their bones than those they were portraying .. In this case I'm okay with suspended disbelief for the ethical treatment of actors ... the real situation was much worse ...
It should never matter what religion or what color someone is we are all human beings with the same wants and needs in life when will we ever start being Humane
during the war there were rumors of atrocities being committed by Germany, but with all the direct news coming from the pacific about horrendous treatment everyone was getting from the Japanese, the news about camps were just buried under all the overwhelming evil.
hiya guys a tid bit of information for you the inmates in the camp were cancer patients they donated their pay to cancer research. NOW hate to say this but overall the Average German citizen didnt know of the camps they DID know about the round ups because they saw those early before the war.(taking specifically in germany not in occupied areas)
Before December 1945, the average allied soldier knew little about the Shoah. It was well publicized how the NASDAP dealt with its victims up to that point. Resistance, reconnaissance, escapees, and all manner of intelligence sources did inform allied command of the existence of death camps over the years. But given the secret and often only rumored nature of those camps, it was hard for command to know exactly what was going on inside beyond reasonable doubt. Local civilians often knew what was happening inside to an extent ranging from murky to a solid picture. The camps were often liquidated before being captured, so as to hide evidence. It wasn’t until the very end that they found hundreds of populated camps like Belsen.
Yes - and the further you go down from the top brass, the less you know about the big picture. They knew Jews were persecuted by the Germans, but the average soldier didn’t realize the degree it was taken to. The title of the episode, Why We Fight, was also the name of a series of films produced by Frank Capra for the US Government to give soldiers background on the reason for the war. All the Easy Co soldiers would have seen it.
Thank you for adding this so I didn’t have to. I think history has proven your assertion correct. The West “sorta” knew but it was harder to confirm until much later.
So, if I remember correctly there were a couple of people who actually infiltrated a couple of the camps with the specific purpose of getting hard evidence of what was happening. Along with that, photos were smuggled and brought to the attention of the allies I believe through the Polish government in exile. Again if I remember correctly the allied leadership knew what was happening I believe as early as 42 or 43. However I believe the information was suppressed on the grounds that at that point there wasn't much the allied armies could do seeing as how D-Day and a full scale invasion of the continent wouldn't be possible for another one to two years. Again this is all if I remember what I've read correctly.
yes and one has to remember those areas were extremely tightly run. if one ventured too close such as an ordinary civilian poking there nose in that area the SS, gestapo either made you one of the people interred in that camp or you just were executed on the spot. you would just simply disappear.
@@jondorr4011the polish government in exile published a full pamphlet detailing what their sources gathered on camps December 1942. The title was something along the lines of “Germany exterminating Jews in Poland” or something similar. Even though enigma was taken by them, Polish intelligence was swept to the sidelines by 1942
The toughest episode to watch, but, also, the most important to watch. "If anyone ever tells you the Holocaust didn't happen, or that it wasn't as bad as they say, no, it was worse than they say. What we saw, what these Germans did, it was worse than you can possibly imagine." - Edward "Babe" Heffron
It's why Eisenhower himself wanted it all carefully documented. He KNEW, even then, that there would be those who would deny it happened and otherwise try to sweep it all under the rug.
@@Anon54387Eisenhower personally inspected the worst atrocities that were discovered so that he could Honestly Testify that he had Personally Witnessed these Horrors
I am a combat veteran ( Vietnam ) My father was in the U.S. Army in WW II and help liberate two camps and he was never the same after that. God bless you both for this.
If I remember correctly, this part was filmed in Czechoslovakia, and many of the the actors who played the survivors in the camps were patients from a local cancer hospital in order to get several people with the very emaciated look.
The sets were built in England. The overall set was an enormous round platform, divided in segments like a pie. But the segment for this episode was kept under wraps, and the scripts for the cast did not describe what would be seen.
I'm trying to find the interview and I'll share the details for it when I do. I read it a long time ago. But yes, the extras for the camp scene were all from a cancer specialist hospital, many from the palliative ward. The production team didn't go looking for people who were unwell, but an extra who was actually doing chemo answered the casting call he mentioned it to some guys at the hospital, and suddenly they all wanted to volunteer. The patients who volunteered very really eager, quite a few thanking the crew after. While they still weren't as emaciated and skeletal as the prisoners shown in historical photos, there was no way that would be possible. They put together an early cut of the series for a very early private viewing at the palliative ward, so the patients would get to see it.
@@heffatheanimal2200 “The series was shot over eight to ten months on Ellenbrooke Fields, at Hatfield Aerodrome in Hertfordshire, England. This location had been used to shoot the film Saving Private Ryan. Various sets were built, including replicas on the large open field of 12 European towns, among them Bastogne, Belgium; Eindhoven, Netherlands; and Carentan, France. North Weald Airfield in Essex was used for shots depicting the take-offs for the D-Day Normandy landings. The village of Hambleden, in Buckinghamshire, England, was used extensively in the early episodes to depict the company's training in England, as well as in later scenes. The scenes set in Germany and Austria were shot in Switzerland, in and near the village of Brienz in the Bernese Oberland, and at the nearby Hotel Giessbach.”
My Uncle Jimmy, before the war, was one of hte most cheerful people you'd ever meet. One of those "Kind word for everyone, Never meet a stranger" type. After the war, he became dour and often was angry for no reason. And heaven help you if you were German -- after the war he hated anything to do with Germany. What I didn't know until after his death in 1980 was that, as a soldier in the 1st Armored Division, he participated in the liberation of the Ohrdruf concentration camp, a subcamp of Buchenwald. According to my Aunt Doris, Jimmy's wife, he suffered nightmares about his experiences until the day he died. The other thing I never knew was that my Aunt Doris was Jewish. She wasn't practicing... in the American South in the early 20th Century, it was often safer to not be a practicing Jew, especially when married to a gentile, but she's been born Doris Bronfeld, a good Jewish girl who just happened to fall in love with a Christian man, and he with her. And apparently in his nightmares, Uncle Jimmy would see her face on the bodies he found in the camps; it was so horrific that it changed his entire personality.
There's a strain of anti-German feeling in my family to this day. It's like it seeped down through the generations. Those folks just wanted to go to school and start jobs, businesses and families and the last thing they wanted to be doing was engaged in a war overseas, hence Webster's outburst.
my friends grandfather was a member of the 442nd. when he watched this episode he excused himself and poured himself the stiffest drink ever and proceeded to break down. he apologized as he took a swig and said he could hear the gravel of the camp under his boots. he could smell the that damned place. found out later his unit was the first to walk into Dachau.
A similar story for my Grandfather, he served in Papua New Guinea and Borneo with the 2nd AIF (Australian Imperial Force) during WW2, was the most kind and gentle man under most circumstances, right until his death 15 years ago, except when ever there was a loud bang, like a car backfiring or whenever the Japanese were mentioned. He said he could never forgive them, and I don't blame him, but he had a lifelong appreciation and dedication to the native population of PNG, the "Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels" that literally climbed down and carried him out of the jungle when a shell explosion essentially blew him off a cliff and broke nearly every bone down one side of his body. What that generation (and the one before them in Australia with WW1) went through is just unbelievable and should never be forgotten.
Joe Liebgott was actually Catholic, but since he was known for his hatred of the Nazis, many of the men assumed he was Jewish and Liebgott said later in interviews that he just never bothered to correct them, and he is portrayed as Jewish in the series.
Liebgott mother was Jewish but yes he was raised catholic, but he did have a particular hatred for the Germans due to his Jewish ancestry. Winters wrote a book, Beyond Band of Brothers, based on his personal memoirs. In his book, which is in the episode Crossroads, he tells of taking Liebgotts rifle and emptying it with all but one bullet when he orders Liebgott to escort the German prisoners. Winters states in his book he did that becuase Liebgott was part Jewish and was known to be very cruel to German prisoners.
The old woman was married to an Army officer, not a SS. You can tell by the uniform he's wearing. The black ribbon on the frame means he was deceased. I always thought her red coat at the end was Spielberg's nod to Schindler's list, the whole camp scene is very muted in color except her bright red coat, just like the little girl in Schindler's list.
Keep up the good work…. thank you for reviewing the entire Band of Brothers series. As a former US Navy Sailor, a military historian, and a Jewish American, I appreciated the insights of young Israelis on the American Military fighting the Nazis in WW2. If we forget history, it can happen again. I especially appreciated your heartfelt comments in this episode, "Why We Fight." I have seen episode this multiple times, and it gets to me every time. The series does show that soldiers of both armies are just young men. But the "why" in "Why We Fight" is the uncomfortable fact that there is evil in the world, and that requires soldiers with guns to end it. I am going to recommend that after Episode 10, you watch Band of Brothers "We Stand Alone Together." Think of it as Episode 11. This 'on-camera oral history' of Company E is told by the veterans themselves. You will see interviews with the actual Maj Winters and Sergeant Malarkey and Guarnere. Keep up the good work…. Am Yisrael Chai
"We are told the American soldier does not know what he is fighting for. Now, at least he knows what he is fighting against". Eisenhower's words upon seeing Buchenwald, and the reason this episode is named "Why We Fight". War is often senseless and arises out of pettiness or profiteering from both sides, but this one wasn't. This was light vs dark, plain and simple. We are nothing if we don't know our history, because he who does not know his history is doomed to repeat it.
"If anyone ever tells you the Holocaust didn't happen, or that it wasn't as bad as they say, no, it was worse than they say. What we saw, what these Germans did, it was worse than you can possibly imagine." - Private Babe Heffron
That sentiment was director David Frankel's inspiration for the very last scene where you see the violin case being closed. The case is closed as to whether it really happened. These men saw it first hand.
@@40hup Almost 100% sure they (the patients) wanted to do this. I know if I was sick with cancer this would be an honor to be a part of, to use my sickly visage as a way to show the viewers what jews in camps like these looked like at the end.
@@calebsmommy812 I dont' really oppose this, if they were really free to decide.But let's say not every ethical problem can be absolved by acclamation - people on their deathbed would for example almost always agree to any form of experimental treament, even if this causes more pain and suffering and only rarely a prolongation of life for the patient. But societies do mostly not allow this, because it would lead to de facto widespread human experiments without the neccessary background development of the drug. This would mostly not benefit the sick people, but the pharma industry. So voluntarily agreement is not always ethical - some things you can not ask and you can not do.
I think the section of the book, concerning this camp, is worth quoting here: The company stayed in Buchloe for two nights. Thus it was present in the morning when the people of Landsberg turned out, carrying rakes, brooms, shovels, and marched off to the camp. General Taylor, it turned out, had been so incensed by the sight that he had declared martial law and ordered everyone from fourteen to eighty years of age to be rounded up and sent to the camp, to bury the bodies and clean up the place. That evening the crew came back down the road from the camp. Some were still vomiting. “The memory of starved, dazed men,” Winters wrote, ‘who dropped their eyes and heads when we looked at them through the chain-link fence, in the same manner that a beaten, mistreated dog would cringe, leaves feelings that cannot be described and will never be forgotten. The impact of seeing those people behind that fence left me saying, only to myself, ‘Now I know why I am here!’”
@@bradroberts2841 nowhere in the quoted text does it say they did. They arrived a day after Kaufering IV was liberated by 12th Armored, and thus the quote follows on from that fact.
@@matthewconner7800 Yes, the liberation scenes shown in Band of Brother are fictional. While some units of the 101st did arrive on April 28, 1945 (the day after liberation), Easy Company actually arrived on April 29. And Colonel Edward Seiller of the 12th Armored Division had already taken control of the camp on April 27, 1945 and he is the one who ordered civilians to bury the dead.
The camp in question was Kaufering IV - Hurlach one of 11 of a set of subcamps of Dachau. There were numerous work camps and subcamps in Germany and Eastern Europe beside the 6 or so death camps. In reality if was the 12th Armored Division who liberated the camp with the 101st Airborne arriving the following day. The programme makers didn't show the actors the set until it was time to film the episode. Some of the inmates were played by cancer payments. The real Joe Liebgott was a practicing Catholic though presumably with Jewish ancestry. The programme makers had to play around with these facts to get the emotional impact of "Why We Fight". One unintentional inaccuracy was that Malarkey is shown at the camp. In reality he was recovering from illness at the time. Some years ago after attending a wedding in Poland I made a point of visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau. I think it should be a standard part of school programmes throughout Europe for older teenagers to visit a camp.
Thank you for taking on this episode. I cry every time I watch. Today was no different. I'm a Boomer, My father was exempt from service, but 5 uncles served in the war. All volunteered, they did not wait to be drafted. One uncle was in his 40s and was not required to serve. He served in the First World War as a teenager. He volunteered and directed construction of airfields in the Pacific. They truly are the Greatest Generation. I'm proud that they helped rid the world of the scourge of fascism. If only we can keep it gone.
I’m a Jew in the US. My history teachers father was a soldier in easy company (Lt. Shames, not heavily featured in the show) who was a Jewish soldier. He came and spoke with us all. The only off limits topic was the liberation of Dachau. I wish I had been able to talk with him about it. But from across the ocean my heart is with you both. It always brings up a lot of emotions when I see this episode.
If you go to the USC Shoah Foundation channel, and search for "liberator" there are a lot of testimonies from ppl who liberated the camps, particularly Dachau if you wanted to hear about it.
I've probably seen this series close to 30 times, and the scene where Joe tells the camp victims that they need to stay in the camp brings tears to my eyes every time.
Nixon's comment about the music being Beethoven not Mozart is a reference to the fact that Hitler was Austrian like Mozart, the men playing Beethoven, who was German, is the true heart of the German people emerging
The soldiers and officers were not aware of the camps before discovery. The major leaders and financial institutions of the US and UK did know about it, reportedly. Best of wishes to both of you! Ep 10 has tears too, but the tears hit different 👍
Can't let this kind of ...stuff happen again. The German citizens were made to participate by the brass so they couldn't deny what had been done. SO HARD TO WATCH makes my cry every time.
It was ironic that Winters asked Michael Fassbender to find Liebgott who speaks German, because Michael Fassbender is half German and speaks fluent German (as in 'Inglourious Basterds') in real life.
Nixon never fired his weapon in combat simply because he was assigned as a staff officer at 2nd Battalion HQ and at Regimental HQ. Had he been assigned to a line company (infantry company) then he surely would have had the opportunity to use his weapon.
אני זוכר שצפיתי בזה בתיכון, קשה לראות את זה עכשיו כמו שהיה אז. אבל אני מוצא שטיול באוויר הצח עוזר אחרי שצפיתי בו. מתנצל על העברית שלי. לעולם לא עוד פירושו לעולם לא עוד.
My dad served in the 10th Armor which in real life found the work camp. Easy showed up the next day but that didn't make good Hollywood so they switched it. The soldier at the gate who offered Nixon the handkerchief wears his patch. This is the only episode he wouldn't watch with me. His only comment was they had no idea about camps. French, Holland and other citizens told him how ruthless the Germans were to them and they just took you away. It is why we must never allow any political party who preaches superiority over anyone else never rise to power again.
For this episode, the actors that portrayed the real men of Easy Co. were not shown or told what the set would look like. They wanted there genuine reactions as people to be shown, just like the real soldiers that came across those camps back in WWII. It's the hardest episode of the series but a necessary one.
i think the british told the american government of the camps before they entered the war, but the american government thought it was just british propaganda to get them into the war. if america didnt have their hands in their pockets, they coulda helped save millions more.
I went to Dachau when I was about 12 or 13 years old. I'm 65 now, and I still remember what a horrible place it was. It was pure evil. I've loved your reactions to this series, but I knew this would be the hardest episode to watch for you; not just because you are Jewish, but because you are human beings. There isn't a word strong enough to describe the evil of the holocaust. Tears will be shed in the next episode, but for different reasons. I'm looking forward to it. God bless both of you.
Something people don't understand about how severely starvation and malnutrition affected the Jewish people is that it was so bad it affected their DNA. The survivors had a LOT of food issues, like overeating, hoarding and eating spoiled food because they couldn't stand to throw food out. And their descendants, as recently as a couple years ago, shows less bone density and consistent digestive and other problems inherited from the Jewish survivors. It's truly horrifying that it's STILL affecting them today.
Artistic Note: The music at the beginning and end kind of has a deeper meaning. The music being played was Beethoven even though Liebgott thought it was Mozart.......the symbolism lies in the fact that Beethoven was truly of German origin, while Mozart was actually of Austrian origin.....the same as Hitler was of Austrian origin. So the somber "German" music was like a call to the people and the world that Germany will atone....and return to true German roots and forsake this "Austrian invasion" that insighted so much evil. Just my interpretation of what the actors/crew have talked about in commentaries and interviews about this episode.
Some punk rockers in the 1970s, and this shows the sheer ignorance of many in the punk rock world, adopted NAZI imagery for their bands. One manager of one of those bands pointed this out and said my grandparents had numbers tattooed on their arms, do you know what that means?
They recruited cancer patients going through Chemo for the camp prisoners and did all prep away from the camp, that was the actors first reaction to the scene. They were offered by Germany to use an actual concentration camp but the director felt it would be rude to reassemble a camp to that. I've seen liberation pictures and watched the stories from the liberators, you can only do so much and the crew of Band of Brothers has really impressed me.
20:02 this right here is one reason why so many of the Easy men spoke up for this show. They were angered by holocaust denial because they saw it first hand. That’s why some of the Easy men started speaking at schools to educate younger generations on the war and the holocaust. And this is another reason why this show is so important to this day now that there are no longer members of Easy still alive. As we lose these WWII vets over time, we also lose that first hand knowledge. Which makes it easier for denial to grow. The story needs to continue so it is not forgotten.
Years ago, I worked for a major newspaper in the U.S. as a pressman. Many men I worked with fought in Europe and the Pacific. I found out that one man in particular had the unfortunate task of documenting the atrocities committed at these camps. The stories he told about his experience while doing that was shocking. Much of the real footage filmed from these camps was filmed by him and his crew.
Well there were a few camps in France, and some in each country that were forced labor camps, so not a lot of killing was going on in those camps, AUSCHWITZ was their "MASTER" camp, were they did everything there, forced labor, mass killings, mass cremations ECT. and there was only 1 camp like Treblinka which was only an extermination camp, the people sent to Treblinka never had the chance to be worked or starved, as they were quickly marched off the train and into the execution chambers, made to look like shower facilities, and poisoned with gas while "SHOWERING", then their bodies were loaded back on the trains and sent to Auschwitz to be cremated, I do believe if my history is correct, Treblinka was in fact the only camp of it's kind, and it was so feared by the Nazi's that before it could be discovered, they had it destroyed as best as they could and buried it before any Allied soldiers got anywhere near it, it was recently found about 4 years ago, and is still being slowly excavated out. I do not know what they hope to find there, but maybe there is something of importance to be found.
It's a difficult question. By the time the so-called final solution was underway, what were you to do as a simple German civilian. Were you to speak up and risk being killed or sent to one of these camps yourself? This should have been stopped way before that point. And this has nothing to do with right wing or left wing ideology, there have been plenty of repressive governments that have killed their own people from both sides of the political aisle. Nazi, communist it really doesn't matter. So I don't want anyone to go in that direction with my comment. Arguably Stalin killed more than Hitler did. It is easy to sit here in 2024 and say yes I would speak up I would try to stop them, but I don't know what a few civilians that were opposed to this really could do at the time this was fully implemented in underway. It's one of the most horrible Dark Times of our history. We should all vote for competent leadership regardless of our political ideologies. People who would never consider or conceive of such a thing. I don't want to get into the whole Trump versus Biden thing or Netanyahu versus Benny Gantz type discussion. This is about human nature and about what any of us are capable of or capable of tolerating. I pray to God that nothing of this nature ever happens to anyone again, regardless of their race, religion, ethnicity Creed what have you. Which is why it irritates me that the term genocide gets thrown around so lightly. THIS was a genocide. I hope nobody is offended by my comment, but my comments still stands. Thank you for doing the reaction to this video I know it had to hurt watching it, it hurt me and every time I watch someone reacting to this I cry myself again.
The veterans often didn't bothering to learn the new guys names. They tended to get killed first. Yes, they found a subcamp. They soldiers knew nothing about the concentration camps. All of the major camps had subcamps. For example, Auschwitz had the subcamps Birkinau (the gas chambers, and Monowitz a labor camp, which were composed of many sub camps. The news was just getting out as these units ran into camps all over Germany. The Russians ran into the death camps first in Poland. The news did get out, but no one here really knew about them. The locals knew about the camps. There were smells and the guards went to their villages. There was just no way they didn't know. Maybe Germans in the cities weren't exposed to it, but the villages near the camps, they knew. My father came up on one of these camps. He never told me what he saw. Just that he saw a camp. Never again.
I know this is hindsight for you but I wish you could have know the A** Kicking this episode does to the emotions before hand to prepare you. We cant forget that the Js only were 18% of the civilian losses in WW2 and 99% of them didnt deserve it. Lets not forget all the others as well that came to a unfortunate end in this war.
I think the Americans only heard rumors of the camps at this point. My understanding is they had no idea if it was real or how bad it was. Just discovered your channel and am enjoying it. Did you guys react to Schindler's list yet?
That one woman's husband was a high officer by the looks of his uniform if he lived in the area you can't tell me he did not know what was going on. I had always heard the SS was primarily the ones that guarded the death camps but upper, upper regular army officers and even the aristocracy of Germany, I believe, knew what was going on. As you said, the regular people of Germany knew the Jews were being taken away in train loads and while they may not have known where they went I think they had a thought it was not good. I grant the regular people might have been scared to look into any of it for fear of arrest. I do not excuse it, I just give it thought about motivation.
24:56 well her husband was Wehrmacht not SS. He was in the Heer (Army) so he wouldn't have been in charge or even set foot in those camps. Soldiers were strictly forbidden to engage in Germanys political affairs or even enforce racial laws, which these camps were the main role. The Wermacht were the armed forces of Germany so their job was just the same as the allied armies. The SS were a paramilitary organization. So if anyone who's responsible are the SS. It's a common misconception.
@@LolGamer5 Yes, people dont understand that the Germans were ordinary men just like the Americans and British and every other army at the time. It is however true that there could be a 50% chance of engaging with a German who believed in Germany for the Germans.
Important Note: Reverence should be made for the "actor/extras" that played the camp prisoners. Many were patients from a local Cancer Hospital that were at serious medical risk being exposed to the film crew.........but they did it anyway saying it was too important not to.
if you spoke up0 you disappeared and where tortured or killed by the gestapo there was a picture taken in a assembly of Germans who worked in a factory hitler gave a speech at and only 1 individual did not salute he did not believe in the nazi ways and chose to not participate according to records the photos taken of the assembly they found him not saluting he was taken from his family and never seen again, so many sympathizer's who did not follow kept quiet lest they too or their relatives ended up taken away
The actors said that prior to this the only rehearsals they had done were table reads and while filming, they were never shown the camp set until they actually drove up to it. Spielberg said it was intentional, because he wanted their reactions to be genuine.
The woman in the red coat, the one who's house Nix went into was married to a Wehrmacht officer, that was the uniform he was wearing in the photo. The black ribbon indicating he had been killed. These camps were run by the SS, not the Wehrmacht and so he probably had nothing to o with the camp. Camp guards were Totenkopf SS (Deaths head). They mostly ran away as the camps were overrun and sometimes Waffen SS units were sent to them at the war's end. Waffen SS units fought as combat troops, not camp guards but often got blamed. Guards were sometimes killed by the prisoners or executed summarily by liberating troops. Most camps were in Poland or other occupied countries.
The Wehrmacht weren't completely innocent. Some gladly participated in the mass murder and deportations of Jews in the East with the invasion of the Soviet Union. They just had better PR after the war because they were needed in case a war started between the Allies and Russians. There are many documented cases of their participation. A lot of it has recently come to light within the last 20-30 years to the chagrin of the Germans of today who held them in such high regard for WW2. Obviously not as involved as the SS but some units did participate in the mass shootings.
The problem is they don't teach history anymore. Like the scene in Crossroads. The Germans conscripted many of the occupied nations to serve. Some did buy the Nazi propaganda and others were forced at gunpoint. The German who is speaking to Malarkey in episode 2 was regular Wehrmacht.
The SS were an armed branch of the Nazi Party. Foreign soldiers (like the Dutch, Italian, French, etc.) were in the SS, not allowed in the regular German army being non-Germans. The Waffen SS committed massive war crimes even before the Death camps were built--my maternal grandmother was born in Lemberg (now Lviv) and they were very much patriotic to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and they were leading members of the Jewish community. Her entire family were shot by the Waffen SS with their bodies thrown into a common pit. That was before any death camp.
I may be off board with this as my great grandparents came from Germany at the turn of the 20th century and they still had family there during WW1 and WW2. However, hearing from my grandparents, the Wehrmacht were seasoned soldiers and some of them did not like the SS as they viewed as them thugs and brutish. For those that speak German: _Vielleicht bin ich damit nicht einverstanden, da meine Urgroßeltern um die Wende des 20. Jahrhunderts aus Deutschland kamen und dort während des Ersten und Zweiten Weltkriegs noch Familie hatten. Allerdings habe ich von meinen Großeltern gehört, dass es sich bei der Wehrmacht um erfahrene Soldaten handelte und einige von ihnen die SS nicht mochten, da sie sie als Schläger und Rohlinge ansahen._
The famous director Frank Capra ("It Happened One Night" "It's A Wonderful Life") served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps and made a 7 episode series of films called "Why We Fight". They were titled Prelude to War, The Nazis Strike, Divide and Conquer, The Battle of Britain, The Battle of Russia, The Battle of China, and War Comes to America. When President Roosevelt saw the first few episodes he was so impressed he ordered all American troops see them before they shipped out overseas. They showed how the fascists destroyed democracy and rose to power in Germany and Japan using oppression and murder, including the persecution of the Jews. The series was meant to help the soldiers, sailors and airmen understand why were being sent to fight, and episode 9 clearly took its title from Capra's documentary series. What they saw in the camp was why they were fighting. Most Americans knew the Nazis hated the Jews and persecuted them, but few if any knew about the death camps, including the soldiers, and certainly didn't know the scope of what was happening, so it was a shock when it was discovered. Only the top echelon in the government and military knew, and I'm not sure even all of them really understood just how bad it was. I can't understand how some people try to claim the holocaust never happened, when it was witnessed first-hand by tens of thousands of Allied soldiers.
This list is for your consideration, HBO movie "Conspiracy", Tom Cruise movie "Valkyire", "Monuments Men" and "Woman in Gold". They are WW II related you might find them interesting. Very emotional reaction don't forget "We Stand Alone Together" episode eleven.
The American Armies,British Russian and French saw this. The German Army and civilians saw this. Evidence was even presented in a courtroom,yet their are some that say this never happened.Also the Jewish prisoner dose call this a work camp. I just can't imagine how emotional this was for you guys.
Apologies, i think we're all a bit sadistic, because when a new channel begins a BoB reaction, we're all secretly awaiting the moment you get to Ep9.. Also, some might claim the french soldier who executes the Germans outside the barn is Tom Hanks, but that's not him. He 'kinda' looks like him, 20 years older back when this was filmed.
Agreed. Seeing people learn about this stuff if they haven’t already seen it. The powerful emotions it provokes seeing humans in such a condition. But. To have likely descendants of those who were actually locked up. Watch and experience this scene. It hits different. On behalf of the human race, I am so sorry your ancestors had to suffer through this.
We have come to it at last. Imagine seeing all of the horrors of War that these people have witnessed...Then being speechless seeing this. "Why We Fight" is a nod to the epic Frank Capra WW2 series that was being shown during the War back home. I really believe Spielberg intentionally has the Nazi woman in the vivid red coat as a direct reference and connection to the little Jewish girl in Schindler's List. I don't think there are coincidences in his films...The actors weren't even allowed to see the set until the day of shooting, they wanted to get a genuine reaction from them. While the prisoners were some actual cancer patients who wanted to be a part of this. What shocks me is how surprised most people are reacting to this, having no idea what they were about to see...I think we get so immersed in the characters and immediacy we lose track of the big picture and tragedy. Implore you to see "The Fallen of WW2" for perspective. Never forget.
At this stage in the war, which seems to be late-March/early-April of 1945, all the American and British soldiers knew about what happened to the Jews of Europe. The Red Army discovered Majdanek in Poland within a month of the Invasion of Normandy. While, Auschwitz was liberated on January 27, 1945. However, nothing could have prepared any of them for the devastation. Tom Hardy’s character was actually reading about the camps, while Easy Company was heading towards Bavaria. This particular sub-camp was liberated by an Armored Division and a segregated Japanese unit, before the paratroopers arrived. The 101st Airborne found and “adopted” an 18 yo Jewish survivor who escaped the camp and took care of him for the rest of the war.
The mausoleum at Majdanek contains a mound of ashes of the victims. It is treated every few years with a waterglass treatment - when the water component evaporates it seals the mound with a firm and transparent layer. 78,000 perished at Majdanek, over 18,0000 in a single day, as they were marched to the fields, ordered to strip and lay down in ditches, on the bodies of dead and dying - and then executed with machine guns. On the mausoleum an inscription is engraved, translated to English it offers these bone chilling words... 'Let Our Fate Be A Warning To You'
The day they executed more than 18,000 Jews at Majdanek, Nov 3rd of 1943. They called Operation Erntefest 'Harvest Festival' the sick bastards played festive music over loudspeakers to drown out the sound of machine guns and people dying. Never Again
My father was in the 104th Infantry Division and was one of the liberators of Dora/Nordhausen in spring of 1945. His unit, and the officers, had no idea, but word was spreading between division and corp leadership as more camps were being found. My father later found out (years later) that governments (first Britain and Soviet Union, then later, USA) knew of the situation as early as mid 1942, but there wasn't much that could be done about it until boots were on the ground. Sources were first the Underground, a few escapees, local spies, and then, aerial recon.
It's like that old saying, "Don't s*** in your own backyard." The Nazis committed all their worst crimes in other people's countries. Germany had concentration camps, including Dachau, which opened in 1933 as a camp for political prisoners, and was only gradually made part of the larger camp system. But the Germans established all the death camps in Poland, Ukraine, or Russia.
Remember that the Holocaust, in terms of camps and mass executions, really only happened between 1943 and 1945, and the extermination camps were in Poland. There were smaller worker camps in Germany, but these concentration camps weren't extermination camps. So most Allied troops and even most Axis troops knew nothing of it, nor did German civilians. German troops captured before 1943 had no way of knowing, and express disbelief in their journals and memoirs. My grandpa was an American soldier who saw a camp in Germany as the army moved through, and it was news to him. There is a common misconception that the Holocaust happened in Germany or was common knowledge in Germany, and it simply isn't true. It happened in Poland very late in the war and both sides knew little about it, aside from the SS who were not regular soldiers but a separate political paramilitary branch.
Mass killings actually started in 1939, with the invasion of Poland. From then, groups of Jews and Polish intellectuals would be gathered, taken to the woods and shot. When the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, SS battalions followed the army to mass murder Jews to the East of Poland. All Jews would be rounded up and shot, several thousand at a time. That is what the Holocaust consisted of in the former Soviet Union. Around 1.5 million Jews died that way. From 1942 there was the railroad network and industrial killings at murder factories. This started at a few camps made solely for extermination in Poland (Sobibor, Treblinka, etc). In 1943, it began large-scale in Auschwitz.
Thank you so much as a german, the "EVERYBODY KNEW, ALL GUILTY. DIDNT DO ANYTHING!!!111" statement is just a disgusting lie, it's like saying "Every american hated POC in the 1960s" it's gross lie
My great uncle was a 20 year old soldier in WW2, like O’keefe, his unit or platoon were one of several Army battalions, companies and units who entered Dachau, what him and many young enlisted soldiers saw was traumatic beyond belief, these were boys who were forced to become men while in battle, but they were not emotionally prepared for the cruel inhumane treatment and conditions they saw inside the camps.
When I see this, beyond words....... How the Nazis treated the Jews and others....When I see this, I too am Jewish in spirit. My youngest daughter is now almost 12. I am teaching her about the Holocaust. She asked me why. I said, so the world NEVER forgets this evil. Again, she asked why? I told her those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
My Grandfather was in the 14th armored division of Patton's 3rd Army. I asked him many times about his time in France and Germany. He NEVER spoke about his experiences. I understand now why he didn't talk about what he saw.
Nixon jumped with the 17th Airborne Division in the Rhine crossing as an experienced observer. The 17th had been in combat before that, but the Rhine crossing was their first combat jump. My father's outfit, the 630th Tank Destroyer battalion was temporarily attached to the 17th Airborne for a short period during the fighting in the Colmar Pocket.
My Great Uncle liberated the Westerbork camp in the Netherlands - a transit camp, not a death camp - in April of 1945, and then Bergen-Belsen in Germany a few days later. They had no idea things were as bad as they were. There were so many bodies at Bergen-Belsen they needed heavy equipment to bury them all.
Most of the rank & file soldiers only had heard whispers of the atrocities, but had no idea of the scale of it. Even the Russians where appalled by the shear brutality of what they found. The director of this episode purposely didn't tell the actors they where going to a concentration camp. So their reactions are 100% real. It's why there is allot of stuttering & awkward pauses. Because the actors where in complete shock.
A couple of facts on this episode that may have already been mentioned.... The acting in this episode was top tier, because it wasn't acting. Much of the dialogue in the camp was ad libbed, and the reactions of the troops were real. The director wanted to nail this episode, and decided for the camp scenes to cut the script down to bare minimum for main characters and he kept the cast away from the set. The cast saw the camp set for the first time when they started shooting the scenes there. The reactions were real. They saw what we saw. As with a few other scenes and sets, some the actual soldiers being portrayed did a walk through of the camp set and were completely overwhelmed by what they saw because it was exactly how the real camps were. One man took a few steps in, looked around and had to leave. It was so spot on that he physically could not bring himself to go back in.
Working as an usher at the US Open Tennis Tournament the actor who played Winters walked by my post and I reflexively saluted him. He smiled and saluted me back and kept walking without saying a word. Not for himself I felt but but as respect for the real Winters
My cousins are Jewish and I remember growing up meeting my Uncle's parents and his father still had a tattoo from being a concentration camp from WWII. Also, in 8th grade my school took us on a trip to Washington D.C. from Illinois and we went to the Holocaust Musem and it was something I'll never forget. They gave us a name at the begining and at the end of the tour they told us if we survived or not. He cares he's just tired of seeing his friends die.
I've seen these reactions probably 50 times and it still effects me when they find the camp. When the one prisoner hugs and kisses the soldier.......enough said. 😥😢
you asked 'what did they know ?' The answer is - more than they ever wanted to admit ! Dachau KZ Larger was opened in 1933 and was openly & widely publicized, and although not an 'extermination' camp, inmates were beaten to death, the Luftwaffe conducted freezing water experiments there, etc. In GB questions had been asked the the House Of Commons about the NAZI's works camps in Poland & the Germans were warned, but nothing was actually done either.
@Those Siblings Well reacted, well processed you two, for a dark matter of human evil that hits much closer to home, that runs that much deeper for Israeli Jews like you, and Jews all over, thank you for your reacting and reviewing of this series. יהי רצון שזכרם של ששת מיליון הקורבנות לעולם לא יימוג מהעולם, לעולם לא עוד, לעולם לא ישכח
The man in the photo was not SS. He was a Wehrmacht (Army) officer: a dead one at that. That’s what the black ribbon on the frame indicates. Believe it or not, the machinery of the Germans was not all that imposing. At the beginning of the war, their use of horse drawn means of moving men and materiel out weighed their motorized. When they attacked France, the French had them way outgunned especially in the area of tanks. German strategic and tactical wisdom is what defeated the French so easily.
Thanks for sharing this journey with us, do watch "We stand alone together", it's fantastic. As for what to watch next, here are my suggestions: For WW2: The other HBO series, the Pacific and Masters of the Air, Saving Private Ryan, Hacksaw Ridge, The Longest Day, The Tuskegee Airmen Other war movies: Black Hawk Down (and the following essay read : "Praise For Black Hawk Down From One Who Was There" by Gerry Izzo Captain, U.S. Army, retired) We were Soldiers
This was the first the 101st knew of the Holocaust. The first camp liberated by the US wasn't found until April 4th 1945 when Ohrdurf was liberated by the US 4th Armored and 89th Infantry. Liebgott is portrayed as Jewish since the show is based off a book that's based off the memories of veterans and everyone assumed Liebgott was Jewish even though he was practicing Roman Catholic. Another note about the music that makes it more powerful is the fact that it's Beethoven and not Mozart. Beethoven was German. Mozart was Austrian. Hitler was Austrian. I'll let you fill in the rest.
Never forget. If you want to watch another HBO movie, perhaps one of the most chilling movies ever made, watch "Conspiracy" -- about the 1942 Wannsee Conference that put the "Final Solution" in motion (Kenneth Branagh, Stanley Tucci, Colin Forth). And a historical reality that nobody really wants to talk about, is the willingness of the western Allies to sweep the Holocaust under the rug after the Nuremberg Trials and the complicity of the Catholic Church in establishing the "Ratline" (the escape route for SS war criminals from Germany to Argentina). Band of Brothers is IMHO the finest war movie ever made; Spielberg later said that all the fun went out of making it with Episode 9. It's easy to see why
Hello, the camp was unexpected. A battalion of machine gun crews would have been more expected. Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe, General of the Army Dwight David Eisenhower had been concerned the situation would be covered and commanded that everyone Germans and Soldiers are required to tour the camps. He was right, since then attempts have been made to cover it up. i recommend two movies: " Uprising (2001) " and " Escape From Sobibor (1987) ".
The Allies had reports of the death camps, but there were problems. Intelligence came in. There were 26,000 camps spread all over Europe. Was the intelligence correct? It was incomprehensible and initially they didn't believe it. When they had proof, they came to the decision the best solution was to win the war. People criticize and say the Allies should have done more, they wanted the camps bombed. But the Allies, primarily the US and Britain, didn't think bombing a prison camp was legal under the Geneva Convention nor was it morally right. They were conducting a campaign to take out the rail lines. But, Poland was pretty far off. There is no way in hell you move the entire Jewish population in Europe to those camps without the Germans knowing something was going on. The Wehrmacht (regular German Army) was likely not involved, it was primarily the SS. They probably knew though. Stories likely leaked out. I was stationed in Germany twice. My first trip to a Concentration Camp, Dachau, was when I was 10 years old. When I joined the Army I was stationed back in Germany. I went to Dachau a few more times, as new people shipped in. People say I'm crazy, but you can sense death in that camp. It's palpable. There was a building that housed Concentration Camp inmates during the war. It is now the only building left on the Kaserne I was stationed on. It has been left as a historical building. The Russians, after liberating the camps in Poland, showed no mercy for the Germans. They pillaged, bombed and raped their way to Berlin. My landlady had a son that was born as a result of rape by Russian soldiers. She fled Berlin and moved to Bavaria to raise him. He worked for the German nuclear agency.
My mailman was the last living member of Easy Company, Mr. Brad Freeman. He was the most humble and sweetest guy.
He passed back in 2022.
oooh May he Rest in Pace
God bless him.
I know that to yall especially this episode was a gut punch.
The first camp that the US Army liberated was Ohrdruf. At that place, Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight Eisenhower brought General George S Patton and General Omar Bradley with him to see for themselves. What they witnessed there made 'Ol Blood n Guts' Patton become violently sick and he threw up against a wall, later refusing to go into a building where bodies were stacked like cordwood. Eisenhower sent communications to every unit within range not engaged in active combat operations to also come see, he also sent communications to the press and Congress to send representatives to witness this horror in order to document it. Ohrdruf was the first place they ordered the locals to be marched through the camp to bear witness to these atrocities, and ordered them to bury the dead. At the end of their tour, the Mayor of Ohrdruf and his wife went home and hanged themselves in their living room. As it turned out, one of the 'guides' giving them a tour of Ohrdruf was a camp guard in disguise! That is, until one of the inmates recognized him and the inmates promptly beat him to death.
To quote the Supreme Allied Commander: "“We are told the American soldier does not know what he is fighting for. Now, at least, we know what he is fighting against.” -General Dwight D Eisenhower.
When some of the forces under Patton reached Buchenwald, He ordered his soldiers to round up 1,000 townspeople for a tour of what was going on at the camp. They brought back twice that number.
Yet, despite all this, people STILL deny it happened. In fact, as that generation has been dying off the drumbeat that it never happened has been increasing.
@@Anon54387 Agreed
It was known that the Germany, through many law changes, made it illegal for jews to owner property, forced to relocate, etc Many fled- those who stayed were transported here. At this stage in the war, the average soldier did not know about what was happening. Reports are mixed about if US or British intelligence knew. The cast of extras for this scene were in fact those suffering from late stage cancer - additionally, the main cast had not seen the camp set until the filming. Their reactions are genuine. Related to this, the movie “Conspiracy” from 2001 is incredibly well directed, acted, and has a 100% on rotten tomatoes. That movie does an incredible job capturing the banal nature of evil…
Well Said. "Conspiracy" is one of the most heartbreaking, awful movies I have ever seen, and it's just a bunch of guys in a room talking.
The camp depicted is part of the Kaufering concentration camp complex (Kaufering IV). The discovery of the camp by the US Army is correct, and it was discovered by the 101st Airborne, but not actually Easy company.
The allies knew about the camps. They didn’t tell the troops because they knew that if they did the troops would focus on revenge instead of their mission. This would cause caucus in the ranks and lead to more atrocities. As it did after the troops started finding the camps. There are many documented case of allied forces systematically executing German officials after seeing the camps.
My grandfather was there when they liberated one camp. He refused to talk about it. But, he prayed for them for the rest of his life.
I saw a documentary about the POW camps in America where we held captured Germans. They were well treated. After the camps and atrocities were discovered the treatment of the German POW's was one more of punishment than being held as a prisoner of war. General Eisenhower famously said that he wanted video and film footage of everything so that nobody years from now can deny this happened. Eisenhower also ordered every able bodied person from the towns near the camps to do the burials and cleanup so they could see what had been done.
This camp was called Kaufering IV, it was one of 11 subcamps of the Dachau concentration camp.
I normally find the showing of concentration camps in television distasteful - they don't do justice to the suffering and cruelty that took place there. There's a scene in Masters Of The Air where you see people (presumably Jews) packed into a train that I truly hated because it feels like a cheap shot to strike an emotional response, but then it's gone immediately. Band Of Brothers obviously didn't do that. It showed the horror in its entirety. It showed the reactions of the civilians - the family members , neighbors, friends - of those responsible for such atrocities. The complicity of the local population. It didn't sugarcoat a single thing.
In ww2 my uncle was with the American 2nd "Indian head" division, part of general patrons 3rd army. In Germany they smelled death for 2 miles, but we're confused because there was no battlefield here. And the, ge saw himself general Patton throwing up in front of the gate of a nazi death camp (naurhouzen [?]), behind the barbed wire gate was a pile of dead bodies (jews), 10 feet high! My uncle had a snipers bullet in his back from france(doctor said too dangerous to remove it. [His squad killed the sniper]). He continued to fight in neatherlands, Luxemburg, and the battle of the bulge. After the German surrender he volunteered to fight the Japanese, his captain told him to reconsider, because our of his original company of 200 men, only 20 were left!! So he went back to the states, married, raised a family and worked construction. He was a strong man(like bull in band of brothers) and we little kids would climb all over him and the bullet was still in his back. "The greatest generation" saved the world!!❤🎉😂
Stomach doesn't explode afaik, the digestive system seems to get overwhelmed and electrolytes get drained too quickly. I'm not an expert ofc.
In general, the allied high command knew that the Nazis were forcing people from all over their occupied territories into conscripted labor to serve the war effort, but they didn't have a full understanding of the scale until they began entering Germany and Poland.
As for the German people, it is important to understand that they were under martial law for most of the war, not allowed to leave the country and most correspondence with the outside world was cut off. Surely there were rumors and people likely knew 'something' was going on but it was total war, and to cross the nazi authorities or ask too many questions could get you killed or suspected of treason and thrown into the camps with the rest. Under such circumstances people kept their heads down and mouths shut. Who could blame them?
I don't know where but I heard they forced some local civilians to look thru the camps to see what happened there.
Yes, the actors had more meat on their bones than those they were portraying ..
In this case I'm okay with suspended disbelief for the ethical treatment of actors ... the real situation was much worse ...
The grunts probably didn't know anything. My uncle didn't when his unit discoverd one.
It should never matter what religion or what color someone is we are all human beings with the same wants and needs in life when will we ever start being Humane
during the war there were rumors of atrocities being committed by Germany, but with all the direct news coming from the pacific about horrendous treatment everyone was getting from the Japanese, the news about camps were just buried under all the overwhelming evil.
hiya guys a tid bit of information for you the inmates in the camp were cancer patients they donated their pay to cancer research. NOW hate to say this but overall the Average German citizen didnt know of the camps they DID know about the round ups because they saw those early before the war.(taking specifically in germany not in occupied areas)
Rough episode. Thanks for your perspective on this one. As horrible as this is it's necessary to see so we don't allow it to happen again.
Before December 1945, the average allied soldier knew little about the Shoah. It was well publicized how the NASDAP dealt with its victims up to that point. Resistance, reconnaissance, escapees, and all manner of intelligence sources did inform allied command of the existence of death camps over the years. But given the secret and often only rumored nature of those camps, it was hard for command to know exactly what was going on inside beyond reasonable doubt. Local civilians often knew what was happening inside to an extent ranging from murky to a solid picture. The camps were often liquidated before being captured, so as to hide evidence. It wasn’t until the very end that they found hundreds of populated camps like Belsen.
Yes - and the further you go down from the top brass, the less you know about the big picture. They knew Jews were persecuted by the Germans, but the average soldier didn’t realize the degree it was taken to.
The title of the episode, Why We Fight, was also the name of a series of films produced by Frank Capra for the US Government to give soldiers background on the reason for the war. All the Easy Co soldiers would have seen it.
Thank you for adding this so I didn’t have to. I think history has proven your assertion correct. The West “sorta” knew but it was harder to confirm until much later.
So, if I remember correctly there were a couple of people who actually infiltrated a couple of the camps with the specific purpose of getting hard evidence of what was happening. Along with that, photos were smuggled and brought to the attention of the allies I believe through the Polish government in exile. Again if I remember correctly the allied leadership knew what was happening I believe as early as 42 or 43. However I believe the information was suppressed on the grounds that at that point there wasn't much the allied armies could do seeing as how D-Day and a full scale invasion of the continent wouldn't be possible for another one to two years. Again this is all if I remember what I've read correctly.
yes and one has to remember those areas were extremely tightly run. if one ventured too close such as an ordinary civilian poking there nose in that area the SS, gestapo either made you one of the people interred in that camp or you just were executed on the spot. you would just simply disappear.
@@jondorr4011the polish government in exile published a full pamphlet detailing what their sources gathered on camps December 1942. The title was something along the lines of “Germany exterminating Jews in Poland” or something similar. Even though enigma was taken by them, Polish intelligence was swept to the sidelines by 1942
The toughest episode to watch, but, also, the most important to watch. "If anyone ever tells you the Holocaust didn't happen, or that it wasn't as bad as they say, no, it was worse than they say. What we saw, what these Germans did, it was worse than you can possibly imagine." - Edward "Babe" Heffron
It's why Eisenhower himself wanted it all carefully documented. He KNEW, even then, that there would be those who would deny it happened and otherwise try to sweep it all under the rug.
@@Anon54387 - The Eisenhower testimony featured at the United States Holocaust Memorial in Washington D.C. is extremely profound.
@@Anon54387 And exactly that is whats happening rn, even in Germany, some high ranking members of right-wing parties are holocaust deniers.
@@Anon54387Eisenhower personally inspected the worst atrocities that were discovered so that he could Honestly Testify that he had Personally Witnessed these Horrors
never forget, the winners write the history!! the reason why will never be published...
I am a combat veteran ( Vietnam ) My father was in the U.S. Army in WW II and help liberate two camps and he was never the same after that. God bless you both for this.
Thank you for your service
@@arkadyfolkner Thank you so much it means more than you could ever know. God bless you
If I remember correctly, this part was filmed in Czechoslovakia, and many of the the actors who played the survivors in the camps were patients from a local cancer hospital in order to get several people with the very emaciated look.
It was filmed in England
not sure where it was shot but they did cast people from cancer wards.
The sets were built in England. The overall set was an enormous round platform, divided in segments like a pie. But the segment for this episode was kept under wraps, and the scripts for the cast did not describe what would be seen.
I'm trying to find the interview and I'll share the details for it when I do. I read it a long time ago.
But yes, the extras for the camp scene were all from a cancer specialist hospital, many from the palliative ward. The production team didn't go looking for people who were unwell, but an extra who was actually doing chemo answered the casting call he mentioned it to some guys at the hospital, and suddenly they all wanted to volunteer.
The patients who volunteered very really eager, quite a few thanking the crew after. While they still weren't as emaciated and skeletal as the prisoners shown in historical photos, there was no way that would be possible.
They put together an early cut of the series for a very early private viewing at the palliative ward, so the patients would get to see it.
@@heffatheanimal2200 “The series was shot over eight to ten months on Ellenbrooke Fields, at Hatfield Aerodrome in Hertfordshire, England. This location had been used to shoot the film Saving Private Ryan.
Various sets were built, including replicas on the large open field of 12 European towns, among them Bastogne, Belgium; Eindhoven, Netherlands; and Carentan, France. North Weald Airfield in Essex was used for shots depicting the take-offs for the D-Day Normandy landings.
The village of Hambleden, in Buckinghamshire, England, was used extensively in the early episodes to depict the company's training in England, as well as in later scenes. The scenes set in Germany and Austria were shot in Switzerland, in and near the village of Brienz in the Bernese Oberland, and at the nearby Hotel Giessbach.”
My Uncle Jimmy, before the war, was one of hte most cheerful people you'd ever meet. One of those "Kind word for everyone, Never meet a stranger" type. After the war, he became dour and often was angry for no reason. And heaven help you if you were German -- after the war he hated anything to do with Germany. What I didn't know until after his death in 1980 was that, as a soldier in the 1st Armored Division, he participated in the liberation of the Ohrdruf concentration camp, a subcamp of Buchenwald. According to my Aunt Doris, Jimmy's wife, he suffered nightmares about his experiences until the day he died.
The other thing I never knew was that my Aunt Doris was Jewish. She wasn't practicing... in the American South in the early 20th Century, it was often safer to not be a practicing Jew, especially when married to a gentile, but she's been born Doris Bronfeld, a good Jewish girl who just happened to fall in love with a Christian man, and he with her. And apparently in his nightmares, Uncle Jimmy would see her face on the bodies he found in the camps; it was so horrific that it changed his entire personality.
There's a strain of anti-German feeling in my family to this day. It's like it seeped down through the generations. Those folks just wanted to go to school and start jobs, businesses and families and the last thing they wanted to be doing was engaged in a war overseas, hence Webster's outburst.
my friends grandfather was a member of the 442nd. when he watched this episode he excused himself and poured himself the stiffest drink ever and proceeded to break down. he apologized as he took a swig and said he could hear the gravel of the camp under his boots. he could smell the that damned place. found out later his unit was the first to walk into Dachau.
A similar story for my Grandfather, he served in Papua New Guinea and Borneo with the 2nd AIF (Australian Imperial Force) during WW2, was the most kind and gentle man under most circumstances, right until his death 15 years ago, except when ever there was a loud bang, like a car backfiring or whenever the Japanese were mentioned. He said he could never forgive them, and I don't blame him, but he had a lifelong appreciation and dedication to the native population of PNG, the "Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels" that literally climbed down and carried him out of the jungle when a shell explosion essentially blew him off a cliff and broke nearly every bone down one side of his body. What that generation (and the one before them in Australia with WW1) went through is just unbelievable and should never be forgotten.
Joe Liebgott was actually Catholic, but since he was known for his hatred of the Nazis, many of the men assumed he was Jewish and Liebgott said later in interviews that he just never bothered to correct them, and he is portrayed as Jewish in the series.
I read that he was partially ethnically Jewish on his mother's side, but he was raised Catholic.
Liebgott mother was Jewish but yes he was raised catholic, but he did have a particular hatred for the Germans due to his Jewish ancestry.
Winters wrote a book, Beyond Band of Brothers, based on his personal memoirs. In his book, which is in the episode Crossroads, he tells of taking Liebgotts rifle and emptying it with all but one bullet when he orders Liebgott to escort the German prisoners. Winters states in his book he did that becuase Liebgott was part Jewish and was known to be very cruel to German prisoners.
On the ship over to Europe, he told one colleague, that he was jewish and they got in a fight with each other.
I guess Liebgott as a personality was created for drama in cinema.
@@TheAlkochef not at all. The show was very accurate on the men of Easy Company. They made sure of that to give these men the respect they deserve
The old woman was married to an Army officer, not a SS. You can tell by the uniform he's wearing. The black ribbon on the frame means he was deceased.
I always thought her red coat at the end was Spielberg's nod to Schindler's list, the whole camp scene is very muted in color except her bright red coat, just like the little girl in Schindler's list.
Red is a common color of mourning. I imagine it signified her husband's death was very recent.
I always assumed he was the commandant of the camp thats why she had that bitch face
Husband got zapped most likely in the eastern front I bet. Maybe Kursk or a battle on the retreat?
isn't he the general at the speech at the end?
@@d112cons Common where? Not in European tradition. As far as I know only modern South Africa has embraced red as a color of mourning.
Keep up the good work…. thank you for reviewing the entire Band of Brothers series. As a former US Navy Sailor, a military historian, and a Jewish American, I appreciated the insights of young Israelis on the American Military fighting the Nazis in WW2. If we forget history, it can happen again.
I especially appreciated your heartfelt comments in this episode, "Why We Fight." I have seen episode this multiple times, and it gets to me every time. The series does show that soldiers of both armies are just young men. But the "why" in "Why We Fight" is the uncomfortable fact that there is evil in the world, and that requires soldiers with guns to end it.
I am going to recommend that after Episode 10, you watch Band of Brothers "We Stand Alone Together." Think of it as Episode 11. This 'on-camera oral history' of Company E is told by the veterans themselves. You will see interviews with the actual Maj Winters and Sergeant Malarkey and Guarnere.
Keep up the good work…. Am Yisrael Chai
"We are told the American soldier does not know what he is fighting for. Now, at least he knows what he is fighting against". Eisenhower's words upon seeing Buchenwald, and the reason this episode is named "Why We Fight". War is often senseless and arises out of pettiness or profiteering from both sides, but this one wasn't. This was light vs dark, plain and simple. We are nothing if we don't know our history, because he who does not know his history is doomed to repeat it.
Thank you for your service.
"If anyone ever tells you the Holocaust didn't happen, or that it wasn't as bad as they say, no, it was worse than they say. What we saw, what these Germans did, it was worse than you can possibly imagine." - Private Babe Heffron
That sentiment was director David Frankel's inspiration for the very last scene where you see the violin case being closed. The case is closed as to whether it really happened. These men saw it first hand.
29:20 many of the actors who played camp prisoners were cancer patients in the middle of chemo
Are you sure? That seems not very ethical, to use actually sick extras just for the horror effect.
@@40hup Almost 100% sure they (the patients) wanted to do this. I know if I was sick with cancer this would be an honor to be a part of, to use my sickly visage as a way to show the viewers what jews in camps like these looked like at the end.
Even if they agree to it because they feel it is an important story to tell? @@40hup
@@calebsmommy812 I dont' really oppose this, if they were really free to decide.But let's say not every ethical problem can be absolved by acclamation - people on their deathbed would for example almost always agree to any form of experimental treament, even if this causes more pain and suffering and only rarely a prolongation of life for the patient. But societies do mostly not allow this, because it would lead to de facto widespread human experiments without the neccessary background development of the drug. This would mostly not benefit the sick people, but the pharma industry. So voluntarily agreement is not always ethical - some things you can not ask and you can not do.
Allied leaders and higher level military command were aware of the camps, but most soldiers in the field had no idea such places existed.
I think the section of the book, concerning this camp, is worth quoting here:
The company stayed in Buchloe for two nights. Thus it was present in the morning when the people of Landsberg turned out, carrying rakes, brooms, shovels, and marched off to the camp. General Taylor, it turned out, had been so incensed by the sight that he had declared martial law and ordered everyone from fourteen to eighty years of age to be rounded up and sent to the camp, to bury the bodies and clean up the place. That evening the crew came back down the road from the camp. Some were still vomiting.
“The memory of starved, dazed men,” Winters wrote, ‘who dropped their eyes and heads when we looked at them through the chain-link fence, in the same manner that a beaten, mistreated dog would cringe, leaves feelings that cannot be described and will never be forgotten. The impact of seeing those people behind that fence left me saying, only to myself, ‘Now I know why I am here!’”
Easy Company never ever liberated a concentration camp.
@@bradroberts2841 nowhere in the quoted text does it say they did. They arrived a day after Kaufering IV was liberated by 12th Armored, and thus the quote follows on from that fact.
@@matthewconner7800
Yes, the liberation scenes shown in Band of Brother are fictional. While some units of the 101st did arrive on April 28, 1945 (the day after liberation), Easy Company actually arrived on April 29. And Colonel Edward Seiller of the 12th Armored Division had already taken control of the camp on April 27, 1945 and he is the one who ordered civilians to bury the dead.
The camp in question was Kaufering IV - Hurlach one of 11 of a set of subcamps of Dachau. There were numerous work camps and subcamps in Germany and Eastern Europe beside the 6 or so death camps. In reality if was the 12th Armored Division who liberated the camp with the 101st Airborne arriving the following day. The programme makers didn't show the actors the set until it was time to film the episode. Some of the inmates were played by cancer payments.
The real Joe Liebgott was a practicing Catholic though presumably with Jewish ancestry. The programme makers had to play around with these facts to get the emotional impact of "Why We Fight". One unintentional inaccuracy was that Malarkey is shown at the camp. In reality he was recovering from illness at the time.
Some years ago after attending a wedding in Poland I made a point of visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau. I think it should be a standard part of school programmes throughout Europe for older teenagers to visit a camp.
Thank you for taking on this episode. I cry every time I watch. Today was no different. I'm a Boomer, My father was exempt from service, but 5 uncles served in the war. All volunteered, they did not wait to be drafted. One uncle was in his 40s and was not required to serve. He served in the First World War as a teenager. He volunteered and directed construction of airfields in the Pacific. They truly are the Greatest Generation. I'm proud that they helped rid the world of the scourge of fascism. If only we can keep it gone.
@@TruthHurts2u I wasn't trying to take the discussion in that direction. Still, I cannot dispute what you say.
I’m a Jew in the US. My history teachers father was a soldier in easy company (Lt. Shames, not heavily featured in the show) who was a Jewish soldier. He came and spoke with us all. The only off limits topic was the liberation of Dachau. I wish I had been able to talk with him about it. But from across the ocean my heart is with you both. It always brings up a lot of emotions when I see this episode.
If you go to the USC Shoah Foundation channel, and search for "liberator" there are a lot of testimonies from ppl who liberated the camps, particularly Dachau if you wanted to hear about it.
Yeah, the Jewish-American WWII veterans always had the most difficult time talking about the liberation of the camps.
I've probably seen this series close to 30 times, and the scene where Joe tells the camp victims that they need to stay in the camp brings tears to my eyes every time.
Nixon's comment about the music being Beethoven not Mozart is a reference to the fact that Hitler was Austrian like Mozart, the men playing Beethoven, who was German, is the true heart of the German people emerging
Very poetic, but untrue. Germany at its truest IS WW2. There is something like a virus in their culture.
Actually there is a line of dialogue in SCHINDLER'S LIST very similar to this. It is a subtle hint regarding the nature of the episode.
The soldiers and officers were not aware of the camps before discovery. The major leaders and financial institutions of the US and UK did know about it, reportedly.
Best of wishes to both of you!
Ep 10 has tears too, but the tears hit different 👍
Can't let this kind of ...stuff happen again. The German citizens were made to participate by the brass so they couldn't deny what had been done.
SO HARD TO WATCH makes my cry every time.
Whenever I see that closing shot of the violin case being closed from the end it looks like a coffin being closed.
That is exactly the image the show was going for. The type of violin case used looks like a coffin.
It was ironic that Winters asked Michael Fassbender to find Liebgott who speaks German, because Michael Fassbender is half German and speaks fluent German (as in 'Inglourious Basterds') in real life.
Nixon never fired his weapon in combat simply because he was assigned as a staff officer at 2nd Battalion HQ and at Regimental HQ. Had he been assigned to a line company (infantry company) then he surely would have had the opportunity to use his weapon.
אני זוכר שצפיתי בזה בתיכון, קשה לראות את זה עכשיו כמו שהיה אז. אבל אני מוצא שטיול באוויר הצח עוזר אחרי שצפיתי בו. מתנצל על העברית שלי. לעולם לא עוד פירושו לעולם לא עוד.
@@TruthHurts2u They literally aren't doing the same thing, it's ironic your name is "Truth Hurts"
My dad served in the 10th Armor which in real life found the work camp. Easy showed up the next day but that didn't make good Hollywood so they switched it. The soldier at the gate who offered Nixon the handkerchief wears his patch. This is the only episode he wouldn't watch with me. His only comment was they had no idea about camps. French, Holland and other citizens told him how ruthless the Germans were to them and they just took you away. It is why we must never allow any political party who preaches superiority over anyone else never rise to power again.
For this episode, the actors that portrayed the real men of Easy Co. were not shown or told what the set would look like. They wanted there genuine reactions as people to be shown, just like the real soldiers that came across those camps back in WWII. It's the hardest episode of the series but a necessary one.
I love you my people, I know how tough this was. From a diaspora Jew.
i think the british told the american government of the camps before they entered the war, but the american government thought it was just british propaganda to get them into the war.
if america didnt have their hands in their pockets, they coulda helped save millions more.
I went to Dachau when I was about 12 or 13 years old. I'm 65 now, and I still remember what a horrible place it was. It was pure evil. I've loved your reactions to this series, but I knew this would be the hardest episode to watch for you; not just because you are Jewish, but because you are human beings. There isn't a word strong enough to describe the evil of the holocaust. Tears will be shed in the next episode, but for different reasons. I'm looking forward to it. God bless both of you.
Something people don't understand about how severely starvation and malnutrition affected the Jewish people is that it was so bad it affected their DNA. The survivors had a LOT of food issues, like overeating, hoarding and eating spoiled food because they couldn't stand to throw food out. And their descendants, as recently as a couple years ago, shows less bone density and consistent digestive and other problems inherited from the Jewish survivors. It's truly horrifying that it's STILL affecting them today.
Artistic Note: The music at the beginning and end kind of has a deeper meaning. The music being played was Beethoven even though Liebgott thought it was Mozart.......the symbolism lies in the fact that Beethoven was truly of German origin, while Mozart was actually of Austrian origin.....the same as Hitler was of Austrian origin.
So the somber "German" music was like a call to the people and the world that Germany will atone....and return to true German roots and forsake this "Austrian invasion" that insighted so much evil.
Just my interpretation of what the actors/crew have talked about in commentaries and interviews about this episode.
Ngl the best hidden message ever imo
Some punk rockers in the 1970s, and this shows the sheer ignorance of many in the punk rock world, adopted NAZI imagery for their bands. One manager of one of those bands pointed this out and said my grandparents had numbers tattooed on their arms, do you know what that means?
They recruited cancer patients going through Chemo for the camp prisoners and did all prep away from the camp, that was the actors first reaction to the scene. They were offered by Germany to use an actual concentration camp but the director felt it would be rude to reassemble a camp to that. I've seen liberation pictures and watched the stories from the liberators, you can only do so much and the crew of Band of Brothers has really impressed me.
Some of those cancer patients didn't survive long enough to see the finished product of their work.
@@b1blancer1, damn shame, they made the episode and deserve so much credit for what they did
20:02 this right here is one reason why so many of the Easy men spoke up for this show. They were angered by holocaust denial because they saw it first hand. That’s why some of the Easy men started speaking at schools to educate younger generations on the war and the holocaust. And this is another reason why this show is so important to this day now that there are no longer members of Easy still alive. As we lose these WWII vets over time, we also lose that first hand knowledge. Which makes it easier for denial to grow. The story needs to continue so it is not forgotten.
Years ago, I worked for a major newspaper in the U.S. as a pressman. Many men I worked with fought in Europe and the Pacific.
I found out that one man in particular had the unfortunate task of documenting the atrocities committed at these camps. The stories he told about his experience while doing that was shocking.
Much of the real footage filmed from these camps was filmed by him and his crew.
Well there were a few camps in France, and some in each country that were forced labor camps, so not a lot of killing was going on in those camps, AUSCHWITZ was their "MASTER" camp, were they did everything there, forced labor, mass killings, mass cremations ECT. and there was only 1 camp like Treblinka which was only an extermination camp, the people sent to Treblinka never had the chance to be worked or starved, as they were quickly marched off the train and into the execution chambers, made to look like shower facilities, and poisoned with gas while "SHOWERING", then their bodies were loaded back on the trains and sent to Auschwitz to be cremated, I do believe if my history is correct, Treblinka was in fact the only camp of it's kind, and it was so feared by the Nazi's that before it could be discovered, they had it destroyed as best as they could and buried it before any Allied soldiers got anywhere near it, it was recently found about 4 years ago, and is still being slowly excavated out. I do not know what they hope to find there, but maybe there is something of importance to be found.
It's a difficult question. By the time the so-called final solution was underway, what were you to do as a simple German civilian. Were you to speak up and risk being killed or sent to one of these camps yourself? This should have been stopped way before that point. And this has nothing to do with right wing or left wing ideology, there have been plenty of repressive governments that have killed their own people from both sides of the political aisle. Nazi, communist it really doesn't matter. So I don't want anyone to go in that direction with my comment. Arguably Stalin killed more than Hitler did. It is easy to sit here in 2024 and say yes I would speak up I would try to stop them, but I don't know what a few civilians that were opposed to this really could do at the time this was fully implemented in underway. It's one of the most horrible Dark Times of our history. We should all vote for competent leadership regardless of our political ideologies. People who would never consider or conceive of such a thing. I don't want to get into the whole Trump versus Biden thing or Netanyahu versus Benny Gantz type discussion. This is about human nature and about what any of us are capable of or capable of tolerating. I pray to God that nothing of this nature ever happens to anyone again, regardless of their race, religion, ethnicity Creed what have you. Which is why it irritates me that the term genocide gets thrown around so lightly. THIS was a genocide. I hope nobody is offended by my comment, but my comments still stands. Thank you for doing the reaction to this video I know it had to hurt watching it, it hurt me and every time I watch someone reacting to this I cry myself again.
The veterans often didn't bothering to learn the new guys names. They tended to get killed first. Yes, they found a subcamp. They soldiers knew nothing about the concentration camps. All of the major camps had subcamps. For example, Auschwitz had the subcamps Birkinau (the gas chambers, and Monowitz a labor camp, which were composed of many sub camps. The news was just getting out as these units ran into camps all over Germany. The Russians ran into the death camps first in Poland. The news did get out, but no one here really knew about them. The locals knew about the camps. There were smells and the guards went to their villages. There was just no way they didn't know. Maybe Germans in the cities weren't exposed to it, but the villages near the camps, they knew. My father came up on one of these camps. He never told me what he saw. Just that he saw a camp. Never again.
I know this is hindsight for you but I wish you could have know the A** Kicking this episode does to the emotions before hand to prepare you. We cant forget that the Js only were 18% of the civilian losses in WW2 and 99% of them didnt deserve it. Lets not forget all the others as well that came to a unfortunate end in this war.
I think the Americans only heard rumors of the camps at this point. My understanding is they had no idea if it was real or how bad it was.
Just discovered your channel and am enjoying it. Did you guys react to Schindler's list yet?
That one woman's husband was a high officer by the looks of his uniform if he lived in the area you can't tell me he did not know what was going on. I had always heard the SS was primarily the ones that guarded the death camps but upper, upper regular army officers and even the aristocracy of Germany, I believe, knew what was going on. As you said, the regular people of Germany knew the Jews were being taken away in train loads and while they may not have known where they went I think they had a thought it was not good. I grant the regular people might have been scared to look into any of it for fear of arrest. I do not excuse it, I just give it thought about motivation.
24:56 well her husband was Wehrmacht not SS. He was in the Heer (Army) so he wouldn't have been in charge or even set foot in those camps. Soldiers were strictly forbidden to engage in Germanys political affairs or even enforce racial laws, which these camps were the main role. The Wermacht were the armed forces of Germany so their job was just the same as the allied armies. The SS were a paramilitary organization. So if anyone who's responsible are the SS. It's a common misconception.
Which sadly paints every german form back then in a bad light...
@@LolGamer5 Yes, people dont understand that the Germans were ordinary men just like the Americans and British and every other army at the time. It is however true that there could be a 50% chance of engaging with a German who believed in Germany for the Germans.
Important Note: Reverence should be made for the "actor/extras" that played the camp prisoners. Many were patients from a local Cancer Hospital that were at serious medical risk being exposed to the film crew.........but they did it anyway saying it was too important not to.
if you spoke up0 you disappeared and where tortured or killed by the gestapo there was a picture taken in a assembly of Germans who worked in a factory hitler gave a speech at and only 1 individual did not salute he did not believe in the nazi ways and chose to not participate according to records the photos taken of the assembly they found him not saluting he was taken from his family and never seen again, so many sympathizer's who did not follow kept quiet lest they too or their relatives ended up taken away
The actors said that prior to this the only rehearsals they had done were table reads and while filming, they were never shown the camp set until they actually drove up to it. Spielberg said it was intentional, because he wanted their reactions to be genuine.
Free long distance internet hug if you two want one.
I heard at the time there was rumors of concentration camps but no one really knew if it was true or not until they started finding camps
Ep10…tears for different reasons
The woman in the red coat, the one who's house Nix went into was married to a Wehrmacht officer, that was the uniform he was wearing in the photo. The black ribbon indicating he had been killed. These camps were run by the SS, not the Wehrmacht and so he probably had nothing to o with the camp. Camp guards were Totenkopf SS (Deaths head). They mostly ran away as the camps were overrun and sometimes Waffen SS units were sent to them at the war's end. Waffen SS units fought as combat troops, not camp guards but often got blamed. Guards were sometimes killed by the prisoners or executed summarily by liberating troops. Most camps were in Poland or other occupied countries.
The Wehrmacht weren't completely innocent. Some gladly participated in the mass murder and deportations of Jews in the East with the invasion of the Soviet Union. They just had better PR after the war because they were needed in case a war started between the Allies and Russians. There are many documented cases of their participation. A lot of it has recently come to light within the last 20-30 years to the chagrin of the Germans of today who held them in such high regard for WW2. Obviously not as involved as the SS but some units did participate in the mass shootings.
The problem is they don't teach history anymore. Like the scene in Crossroads. The Germans conscripted many of the occupied nations to serve. Some did buy the Nazi propaganda and others were forced at gunpoint. The German who is speaking to Malarkey in episode 2 was regular Wehrmacht.
The SS were an armed branch of the Nazi Party. Foreign soldiers (like the Dutch, Italian, French, etc.) were in the SS, not allowed in the regular German army being non-Germans. The Waffen SS committed massive war crimes even before the Death camps were built--my maternal grandmother was born in Lemberg (now Lviv) and they were very much patriotic to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and they were leading members of the Jewish community. Her entire family were shot by the Waffen SS with their bodies thrown into a common pit. That was before any death camp.
Some countries forces, Canada in particular, made it their unofficial policy not to take SS prisoners if at all possible.
I may be off board with this as my great grandparents came from Germany at the turn of the 20th century and they still had family there during WW1 and WW2. However, hearing from my grandparents, the Wehrmacht were seasoned soldiers and some of them did not like the SS as they viewed as them thugs and brutish. For those that speak German: _Vielleicht bin ich damit nicht einverstanden, da meine Urgroßeltern um die Wende des 20. Jahrhunderts aus Deutschland kamen und dort während des Ersten und Zweiten Weltkriegs noch Familie hatten. Allerdings habe ich von meinen Großeltern gehört, dass es sich bei der Wehrmacht um erfahrene Soldaten handelte und einige von ihnen die SS nicht mochten, da sie sie als Schläger und Rohlinge ansahen._
The famous director Frank Capra ("It Happened One Night" "It's A Wonderful Life") served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps and made a 7 episode series of films called "Why We Fight". They were titled Prelude to War, The Nazis Strike, Divide and Conquer, The Battle of Britain, The Battle of Russia, The Battle of China, and War Comes to America. When President Roosevelt saw the first few episodes he was so impressed he ordered all American troops see them before they shipped out overseas. They showed how the fascists destroyed democracy and rose to power in Germany and Japan using oppression and murder, including the persecution of the Jews. The series was meant to help the soldiers, sailors and airmen understand why were being sent to fight, and episode 9 clearly took its title from Capra's documentary series. What they saw in the camp was why they were fighting.
Most Americans knew the Nazis hated the Jews and persecuted them, but few if any knew about the death camps, including the soldiers, and certainly didn't know the scope of what was happening, so it was a shock when it was discovered. Only the top echelon in the government and military knew, and I'm not sure even all of them really understood just how bad it was.
I can't understand how some people try to claim the holocaust never happened, when it was witnessed first-hand by tens of thousands of Allied soldiers.
This list is for your consideration, HBO movie "Conspiracy", Tom Cruise movie "Valkyire", "Monuments Men" and "Woman in Gold". They are WW II related you might find them interesting. Very emotional reaction don't forget "We Stand Alone Together" episode eleven.
The American Armies,British Russian and French saw this. The German Army and civilians saw this.
Evidence was even presented in a courtroom,yet their are some that say this never happened.Also the Jewish prisoner dose call this a work camp. I just can't imagine how emotional this was for you guys.
Apologies, i think we're all a bit sadistic, because when a new channel begins a BoB reaction, we're all secretly awaiting the moment you get to Ep9..
Also, some might claim the french soldier who executes the Germans outside the barn is Tom Hanks, but that's not him. He 'kinda' looks like him, 20 years older back when this was filmed.
Agreed. Seeing people learn about this stuff if they haven’t already seen it. The powerful emotions it provokes seeing humans in such a condition. But. To have likely descendants of those who were actually locked up. Watch and experience this scene. It hits different. On behalf of the human race, I am so sorry your ancestors had to suffer through this.
You should DEFINATELY watch the limit series "The Queen's Gambit". Very high production value and acted and written beautifully.
We knew nothing about the camps even the regular Germans didn't know
This, my great grandpa probs didn't know eh.
We have come to it at last. Imagine seeing all of the horrors of War that these people have witnessed...Then being speechless seeing this. "Why We Fight" is a nod to the epic Frank Capra WW2 series that was being shown during the War back home. I really believe Spielberg intentionally has the Nazi woman in the vivid red coat as a direct reference and connection to the little Jewish girl in Schindler's List. I don't think there are coincidences in his films...The actors weren't even allowed to see the set until the day of shooting, they wanted to get a genuine reaction from them. While the prisoners were some actual cancer patients who wanted to be a part of this. What shocks me is how surprised most people are reacting to this, having no idea what they were about to see...I think we get so immersed in the characters and immediacy we lose track of the big picture and tragedy. Implore you to see "The Fallen of WW2" for perspective. Never forget.
Tom Hanks Alert! 🚨11:50
At this stage in the war, which seems to be late-March/early-April of 1945, all the American and British soldiers knew about what happened to the Jews of Europe. The Red Army discovered Majdanek in Poland within a month of the Invasion of Normandy. While, Auschwitz was liberated on January 27, 1945. However, nothing could have prepared any of them for the devastation. Tom Hardy’s character was actually reading about the camps, while Easy Company was heading towards Bavaria. This particular sub-camp was liberated by an Armored Division and a segregated Japanese unit, before the paratroopers arrived. The 101st Airborne found and “adopted” an 18 yo Jewish survivor who escaped the camp and took care of him for the rest of the war.
The mausoleum at Majdanek contains a mound of ashes of the victims. It is treated every few years with a waterglass treatment - when the water component evaporates it seals the mound with a firm and transparent layer.
78,000 perished at Majdanek, over 18,0000 in a single day, as they were marched to the fields, ordered to strip and lay down in ditches, on the bodies of dead and dying - and then executed with machine guns.
On the mausoleum an inscription is engraved, translated to English it offers these bone chilling words...
'Let Our Fate Be A Warning To You'
The day they executed more than 18,000 Jews at Majdanek, Nov 3rd of 1943. They called Operation Erntefest 'Harvest Festival' the sick bastards played festive music over loudspeakers to drown out the sound of machine guns and people dying. Never Again
My father was in the 104th Infantry Division and was one of the liberators of Dora/Nordhausen in spring of 1945. His unit, and the officers, had no idea, but word was spreading between division and corp leadership as more camps were being found. My father later found out (years later) that governments (first Britain and Soviet Union, then later, USA) knew of the situation as early as mid 1942, but there wasn't much that could be done about it until boots were on the ground. Sources were first the Underground, a few escapees, local spies, and then, aerial recon.
It's like that old saying, "Don't s*** in your own backyard." The Nazis committed all their worst crimes in other people's countries. Germany had concentration camps, including Dachau, which opened in 1933 as a camp for political prisoners, and was only gradually made part of the larger camp system. But the Germans established all the death camps in Poland, Ukraine, or Russia.
Remember that the Holocaust, in terms of camps and mass executions, really only happened between 1943 and 1945, and the extermination camps were in Poland. There were smaller worker camps in Germany, but these concentration camps weren't extermination camps.
So most Allied troops and even most Axis troops knew nothing of it, nor did German civilians. German troops captured before 1943 had no way of knowing, and express disbelief in their journals and memoirs. My grandpa was an American soldier who saw a camp in Germany as the army moved through, and it was news to him.
There is a common misconception that the Holocaust happened in Germany or was common knowledge in Germany, and it simply isn't true. It happened in Poland very late in the war and both sides knew little about it, aside from the SS who were not regular soldiers but a separate political paramilitary branch.
Mass killings actually started in 1939, with the invasion of Poland. From then, groups of Jews and Polish intellectuals would be gathered, taken to the woods and shot. When the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, SS battalions followed the army to mass murder Jews to the East of Poland. All Jews would be rounded up and shot, several thousand at a time. That is what the Holocaust consisted of in the former Soviet Union. Around 1.5 million Jews died that way. From 1942 there was the railroad network and industrial killings at murder factories. This started at a few camps made solely for extermination in Poland (Sobibor, Treblinka, etc). In 1943, it began large-scale in Auschwitz.
Thank you so much as a german, the "EVERYBODY KNEW, ALL GUILTY. DIDNT DO ANYTHING!!!111" statement is just a disgusting lie, it's like saying "Every american hated POC in the 1960s" it's gross lie
My great uncle was a 20 year old soldier in WW2, like O’keefe, his unit or platoon were one of several Army battalions, companies and units who entered Dachau, what him and many young enlisted soldiers saw was traumatic beyond belief, these were boys who were forced to become men while in battle, but they were not emotionally prepared for the cruel inhumane treatment and conditions they saw inside the camps.
When I see this, beyond words....... How the Nazis treated the Jews and others....When I see this, I too am Jewish in spirit. My youngest daughter is now almost 12. I am teaching her about the Holocaust. She asked me why. I said, so the world NEVER forgets this evil. Again, she asked why? I told her those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
My Grandfather was in the 14th armored division of Patton's 3rd Army. I asked him many times about his time in France and Germany. He NEVER spoke about his experiences. I understand now why he didn't talk about what he saw.
Never forget
Escape From Sobibor is another must see and can be found on RUclips
Nixon jumped with the 17th Airborne Division in the Rhine crossing as an experienced observer. The 17th had been in combat before that, but the Rhine crossing was their first combat jump. My father's outfit, the 630th Tank Destroyer battalion was temporarily attached to the 17th Airborne for a short period during the fighting in the Colmar Pocket.
🇺🇸 🇮🇱 ❤always
My Great Uncle liberated the Westerbork camp in the Netherlands - a transit camp, not a death camp - in April of 1945, and then Bergen-Belsen in Germany a few days later. They had no idea things were as bad as they were. There were so many bodies at Bergen-Belsen they needed heavy equipment to bury them all.
"Spiers is gonna take it(the violin)"
Shit, that made me laugh. 😂👏🏻
Most of the rank & file soldiers only had heard whispers of the atrocities, but had no idea of the scale of it. Even the Russians where appalled by the shear brutality of what they found.
The director of this episode purposely didn't tell the actors they where going to a concentration camp. So their reactions are 100% real. It's why there is allot of stuttering & awkward pauses. Because the actors where in complete shock.
I wanted to comfort Ayala so much during this. Seeing her cry was painful.
The pacific🙏
A couple of facts on this episode that may have already been mentioned....
The acting in this episode was top tier, because it wasn't acting. Much of the dialogue in the camp was ad libbed, and the reactions of the troops were real. The director wanted to nail this episode, and decided for the camp scenes to cut the script down to bare minimum for main characters and he kept the cast away from the set. The cast saw the camp set for the first time when they started shooting the scenes there. The reactions were real. They saw what we saw.
As with a few other scenes and sets, some the actual soldiers being portrayed did a walk through of the camp set and were completely overwhelmed by what they saw because it was exactly how the real camps were. One man took a few steps in, looked around and had to leave. It was so spot on that he physically could not bring himself to go back in.
Working as an usher at the US Open Tennis Tournament the actor who played Winters walked by my post and I reflexively saluted him. He smiled and saluted me back and kept walking without saying a word. Not for himself I felt but but as respect for the real Winters
My cousins are Jewish and I remember growing up meeting my Uncle's parents and his father still had a tattoo from being a concentration camp from WWII. Also, in 8th grade my school took us on a trip to Washington D.C. from Illinois and we went to the Holocaust Musem and it was something I'll never forget. They gave us a name at the begining and at the end of the tour they told us if we survived or not. He cares he's just tired of seeing his friends die.
I've seen these reactions probably 50 times and it still effects me when they find the camp. When the one prisoner hugs and kisses the soldier.......enough said. 😥😢
you asked 'what did they know ?' The answer is - more than they ever wanted to admit ! Dachau KZ Larger was opened in 1933 and was openly & widely publicized, and although not an 'extermination' camp, inmates were beaten to death, the Luftwaffe conducted freezing water experiments there, etc. In GB questions had been asked the the House Of Commons about the NAZI's works camps in Poland & the Germans were warned, but nothing was actually done either.
@Those Siblings
Well reacted, well processed you two, for a dark matter of human evil that hits much closer to home,
that runs that much deeper for Israeli Jews like you, and Jews all over,
thank you for your reacting and reviewing of this series.
יהי רצון שזכרם של ששת מיליון הקורבנות לעולם לא יימוג מהעולם, לעולם לא עוד, לעולם לא ישכח
The man in the photo was not SS. He was a Wehrmacht (Army) officer: a dead one at that. That’s what the black ribbon on the frame indicates.
Believe it or not, the machinery of the Germans was not all that imposing. At the beginning of the war, their use of horse drawn means of moving men and materiel out weighed their motorized. When they attacked France, the French had them way outgunned especially in the area of tanks. German strategic and tactical wisdom is what defeated the French so easily.
Thanks for sharing this journey with us, do watch "We stand alone together", it's fantastic.
As for what to watch next, here are my suggestions:
For WW2:
The other HBO series, the Pacific and Masters of the Air,
Saving Private Ryan,
Hacksaw Ridge,
The Longest Day,
The Tuskegee Airmen
Other war movies:
Black Hawk Down (and the following essay read : "Praise For Black Hawk Down From One Who Was There" by Gerry Izzo Captain, U.S. Army, retired)
We were Soldiers
This was the first the 101st knew of the Holocaust. The first camp liberated by the US wasn't found until April 4th 1945 when Ohrdurf was liberated by the US 4th Armored and 89th Infantry.
Liebgott is portrayed as Jewish since the show is based off a book that's based off the memories of veterans and everyone assumed Liebgott was Jewish even though he was practicing Roman Catholic.
Another note about the music that makes it more powerful is the fact that it's Beethoven and not Mozart. Beethoven was German. Mozart was Austrian. Hitler was Austrian. I'll let you fill in the rest.
Never forget. If you want to watch another HBO movie, perhaps one of the most chilling movies ever made, watch "Conspiracy" -- about the 1942 Wannsee Conference that put the "Final Solution" in motion (Kenneth Branagh, Stanley Tucci, Colin Forth). And a historical reality that nobody really wants to talk about, is the willingness of the western Allies to sweep the Holocaust under the rug after the Nuremberg Trials and the complicity of the Catholic Church in establishing the "Ratline" (the escape route for SS war criminals from Germany to Argentina). Band of Brothers is IMHO the finest war movie ever made; Spielberg later said that all the fun went out of making it with Episode 9. It's easy to see why
Ezekiel 37 prophecy of the "valley of dry bones". The dead coming out of their graves...which israel will be reborn in a day! May 14, 1948!!❤😂🎉
Hello, the camp was unexpected. A battalion of machine gun crews would have been more expected. Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe, General of the Army Dwight David Eisenhower had been concerned the situation would be covered and commanded that everyone Germans and Soldiers are required to tour the camps. He was right, since then attempts have been made to cover it up. i recommend two movies: " Uprising (2001) " and " Escape From Sobibor (1987) ".
The Allies had reports of the death camps, but there were problems. Intelligence came in. There were 26,000 camps spread all over Europe. Was the intelligence correct? It was incomprehensible and initially they didn't believe it. When they had proof, they came to the decision the best solution was to win the war. People criticize and say the Allies should have done more, they wanted the camps bombed. But the Allies, primarily the US and Britain, didn't think bombing a prison camp was legal under the Geneva Convention nor was it morally right. They were conducting a campaign to take out the rail lines. But, Poland was pretty far off. There is no way in hell you move the entire Jewish population in Europe to those camps without the Germans knowing something was going on. The Wehrmacht (regular German Army) was likely not involved, it was primarily the SS. They probably knew though. Stories likely leaked out. I was stationed in Germany twice. My first trip to a Concentration Camp, Dachau, was when I was 10 years old. When I joined the Army I was stationed back in Germany. I went to Dachau a few more times, as new people shipped in. People say I'm crazy, but you can sense death in that camp. It's palpable. There was a building that housed Concentration Camp inmates during the war. It is now the only building left on the Kaserne I was stationed on. It has been left as a historical building. The Russians, after liberating the camps in Poland, showed no mercy for the Germans. They pillaged, bombed and raped their way to Berlin. My landlady had a son that was born as a result of rape by Russian soldiers. She fled Berlin and moved to Bavaria to raise him. He worked for the German nuclear agency.