A brief, simplified explanation of the issue with giving food to a starving person (and how it can cause death): Under true starvation conditions, the body does not have enough nutrients (vitamins, minerals, salts, etc) to fully function. Since there’s not enough nutrients, the body will allocate what it has to the necessary organs (brain, heart, lungs, etc). The stomach and intestine are not considered “necessary” by the body (because the body is not receiving food needing to be digested). So this starving person is now given food, and that person’s body must “reactivate” the stomach and intestines. Soon order to function, the stomach ends up getting some of the nutrients from the heart and lungs… but the heart and lungs need those nutrients too. Without enough nutrients for the heart and lungs, the body goes into full cardiac arrest - all because the body finally received the food it needed. It takes special care to ensure this doesn’t happen, slowly increasing the body’s electrolytes and nutrient levels so it can start processing food on its own again.
Tyvm for posting this! I knew you could eat yourself to death in these kind of conditions, but not exactly why, I assumed the stomach just couldn't handle how much they'd be shoveling down. Never thought for a moment the body simply shut down the stomach to keep everything else going.
@@MovieswithMary In these conditions, the people die from a flow of cations (particularly potassium) that their bodies can't handle in their very weaken state. In regrads whom new in the Allies of the Nazi genocide ... the Allies leaders knew but also knew that the only way to stop it was to accelerate their war effort and win quicker. The average soldiers (even up to most Generals) didn't. Except those at the very top, nno one else knew.
Its called refeeding syndrom, the same problem is it with anorexs person. The main problem is the insulin. The kalium follow the insulin. When they eat, body will release insulin, the kalium will go from the blood in to the cells. Trought that kalium shift, the cardiac cell function nome.more correct and you will go in a cardiac arest.
Speaking of "massive trauma" of WW2 soldiers you mentioned, there was lots of American servicemen who later on married women from continental Europe, partially because when they returned home, they could not properly connect with American women of their age anymore. The women who waited at home were in their late teens or early twenties, and wanted to live the carefree youth they had missed when men were absent, but the men just could not understand it and identify with the same girls they might have courted just couple of years earlier. They felt that European women understood them better because they had actually lived through war and traumas as well.
The was a lot of social discrimination of the "war brides" by American women. The term "War Bride" was often use derisively, and they were subject to a lot of snarky comments and treatment, particularly in the 1950's. My mother-in-law was Danish, my neighbor's mother was Australian, both war brides.
As terrible as this episode is, I admit I love seeing people watch it and break down. The empathy exhibited with those that are suffering in it gives me faith in humanity. Been waiting to see Mary watch it since she started this incredible series.
Agreed, this is a crucial episode, this should never be forgotten and it should always, on the first vision, be terrible and impactful. This still fractures me, and it always should.
Not everyone good will react this way, see it as hidden good people, you can't really rely on what's shown and what isn't. I don't really get emotional to stuff like this, at least not to the point of visibly crying or being in ''pain''. Could be because of all the stuff I've seen on the internet, or maybe it's just me, could also be I need to experience stuff like this first hand for it to have a true effect on me. I understand it's horrible of course.
This is the exact reason I watch these reaction videos. Seeing people's empathy through these tough scenes in movies lets me know we haven't completely lost our humanity.
I think a lot of young people in general and even older people who were not into history don't realize that although there were rumors about the camps most people thought it was war propaganda. I mean dam I still wish it was and all those people lived. The truth, and history teach us it was real. What scares me now is listening to people like Russia's Putin calling the Ukrainian people and government Nazis, and Russians repeating it. Just like Hitler and the German people. Do we have to repeat history are we that dumb as a race. I hope and pray not! Mary you give me hope, you are kind and senstive enough to be devastated with how these men first found out how truly evil the Nazis and SS were. Bless you!
Every person I've seen react to this episode has shown extreme emotion if not outright wept. They have all apologized to the viewers for doing so but there is no need to apologize as such atrocities should cause one to weep. The only ones who would need to apologize would be those who had no reaction to the deaths of so many millions.
I'm always eyeing out for the one that won't show that, not that they are a bad person or anything, but that's how I reacted to it. Could be because of how much I've watched about WWII and in general what's going on around the world (uncensored) to the extent it doesn't affect me much.
The camp depicted in Band of Brothers is *Kaufering IV (Hurlach)* which was one of 11 labor subcamps of Dachau located near Landsberg am Lech known as the Kaufering Complex. What is shown in Band of Brothers is largely fictitious and was written for dramatic effect. Kaufering IV was actually liberated on April 27, 1945 by the 12th Armored Division with Easy Company arriving the following day and only a handful of survivors were found alive. Colonel Edward Seiller of the 12th Armored Division took control of the camp on April 27 and he is the one who ordered the local townspeople to bury the dead ( ruclips.net/video/NS02Cq3Lifc/видео.html ). From the United Sates Holocaust Memorial Museum: _As US armed forces approached the Kaufering complex in late April 1945, the SS began evacuating the camps, sending the prisoners on death marches in the direction of Dachau. Those inmates who could not keep up were often shot or beaten to death by the guards. At Kaufering IV, the SS set fire to the barracks killing hundreds of prisoners who were too ill or weak to move._ _When the 12th Armored Division and 101st Airborne Division arrived at Kaufering IV on April 27 and 28, respectively, the soldiers discovered some 500 dead inmates. In the days that followed, the US Army units ordered the local townspeople to bury the dead._
This was one of the hardest episodes to watch in any series, ever, for me. They really don't hold back in any way. It must be especially tough for you because of the region and also you can understand what they're saying.
There were rumors of camps but yes, this was the first time the western allies learned about the camps, they literally stumbled across them. The extreme leadership ( generals) might have know about the camps from intelligence but the run of the mill soldier on the ground didn’t learn about the camps until the very end of the war.
French recistance and other recistance groups did collect and delivered to allies. Reason why they keep it a secret,,,,,(Well i don´t know.) Some say antisemitism that maybe have split army in half. Other say that it would not be war anymore after troops would hear about them, It would have turn complete destruction off anything/anyone from german.
Not exactly correct. The Soviets in their push from the East had discovered several camps and shared what they found with the rest of the Allies. I don't recall off the top of my head, but I believe it was generally met with disbelief until Western Allies began to find similar (and then the same) kind of camps on the western front. Beyond that, when it was truly confirmed, you had news outlets like the New York Times suppressed stories of the atrocities here in the US, so regular Americans at home wouldn't know about it until much later because of that suppression.
This was the first SOLDIERS new of the camps. Allied leaders knew for years and military reconnaissance flights confirmed it a few months after DDAY. Jewish leaders attempted USA refugee status but were denied by the USAA diplomatic leaders.
The higher ranks in the military may have been informed about camp discoveries, but at the company level, regular troops would have been lucky to happen across a newspaper given their constant movement. We are spoiled now with instant communication on our phones. Even back in the 80's major events were often not known by us until well after they had already occurred. We would catch them on the news at 6 pm or 11PM or the next day in the paper.
By higher ranks in the military, outside of brass (i.e. Joint Chiefs Level); I don't know if ANY US service personnel knew anything about the Holocaust until 1945. IIRC there were some Refugee Groups and Jewish organizations making attempts to get the Allies to more actively intervene as early as 1943. There were dark rumors some of the general public heard. I think some discussion took place around bombing parts of the rail network feeding the camps, but I believe all of those discussions were very high level, including the question of just how true the information they were given might be. In the end measuring what air assents they had vs. retasking them from what they were assigned to (i.e. the prior plans for 'end the war soonest with least cost in allied lives') the decision was made that the fastest entry into Germany and end to the war would be best. I would have to actively reseach whether Eisenhower and the highest level of his staff were even read in on what studies were done. It would have been easy enough to draw up the studies from reports from ETO to Washington without telling any of them. Although IIRC Churchill might also have been approached. All that said yeah the line GI would have known nothing. Heck Maj. Sink (who probably appears less than 10 times in the series) would have known nothing and the divisional commander Maj Gen Maxwell Taylor would have known zip. Talyor was one of over 1000+ generals in the Army during WW2 and until the proof hit them in the face in 1945 in the view of higher he had no 'need to know'. An incredibly sad and important episode.
@@davidcorriveau8615 I have read reports where governments actually decided that the amount of resources being poured into these camps hindered the German war effort significantly. By not destroying the camps they were helping the Germans lose the war.
"Why we fight." What a perfect title to this very hard hitting episode. When you started Band of Brothers, I knew #9 would be a tough one. Thank you for reacting to this series. I hope you consider "The Pacific" afterwords. That's a great miniseries too.
I'm an old American male - the WW2 generation that served were my uncles and my friends fathers. As an adult I became friends with a British WW2 veteran who served in a tank company all the way from North Africa to Germany. He was known affectionately as English Mike in the community. He called me Irish as my grandparents immigrated from Ireland. His company liberated Bergen Belson. He talked about it with great pain, but shared it with others at times so that they would know the awful truth from someone who saw it first hand. Thank you for watching this and for sharing your reaction with others as we must never forget. My father was a Korean War veteran, once when a tv comedy show was on involving the Korean War he said, "It's not so funny when you're picking up pieces of your buddies." He hated war and knew there was no glory, but he would have served again and had his kids serve too if it prevented such evil as that perpetrated by governments and people that enslave and murder others. War is the worst thing except for slavery and murder. To me this is what the American Declaration of Independence means when it says: "...governments long established should not be changed for light or transient causes...but when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government..." The governments of Nazi Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union, and Mao's China among others are such cases where there is a moral duty to oppose and overthrow such evil, even at the risk of the horror of war. God bless those that sacrificed to end such evil and let us always remember and honor them.
Interesting fact, Winters asks Christiansen if any of his mean speak German, the actor who plays Christensen is Michael Fassbander who was born in Heidelberg, Germany to a German father and Irish mother and speaks German(while not fluent he is conversational in the language)
When you think about WWII, most people tend to think about it in terms of recent history because you have direct memories of people who lived through it. But if you put yourself back into their shoes, the people who fought in WWII were actually nearer in time to the US Civil War than we are to WWII in 2022. Mind blowing when you think about it. But it is also important perspective when you think about events in the past and how relevant they actually are to our lives today. Cheers Mary and thanks for your unique perspective & genuine reactions!
I found myself impatiently waiting for this reaction; and you did not disappoint. You are like this young girl. Yet you are educated and mature. I never imagined the fact that you've spent your life so close to this setting, that your reaction would be so rich with contextual knowledge. It makes me feel good that there are people so educated. I just wish there were more of them here.
Told you to get ready for episode 9. My Grandfather was part of the British division that liberated Bergen-Belsen. It's the only part of his service that he was reticent about talking to me about. In his last few days he began to talk about what he'd seen, what he had been involved In. It felt like he was unburdening himself before he left us.
As a classical music nerd, the piece at the end was Beethoven’s String Quartet No.14 op.131 6th movement. And yes, this piece is so strong and emotional especially in scenes like these.
This is the darkest of the entire series... However, the people who depicted the concentration camp prisoners are real heroes. Most of them were suffering from diseases or something that compromised their health but they volunteered for this scene...
You're my favorite youtuber, Mary. Like me you're a lawyer, but more than that, you're smart, fair, funny, and above all, empathetic and caring. Everybody watching this should subscribe and like.
We had a school trip to Buchenwald when we were around 15/16, as teenagers are we were loud and joking all the time, but when we got there it was an eerie silence on the whole hillside were the camp was, even on the way home no one was really talkative or making any jokes. Nowadays where I live, I can see in the distance the memorial tower for Buchenwald, that was build in the 50s, also in my town the ovens for Auschwitz were developed and manufactured, a dark part of our history that we never can forget. You have to watch 'The Pacific' next it's WWII but as you can see in the Pacific theatre, or watch Chernobyl, both great short series also made by HBO.
The allied governments (and many of the German civilians) might not have known about the full extend of the camps, but they absolutely knew about pogroms, about ghettos, about random killings of jews on the streets of many of Europes major cities. And they knew that thousands of people would go into these camps and never come out again
There are two things in this series that will, every single time, bring tears to my eyes. This whole episode, for the worst reasons, and then the final lines of the series (you all know what I mean), for the best.
The Pacific is a natural progression from Band of Brothers. I've really enjoyed your commentary on this series- the European perspective is appreciated.
I've been to Auschwitz and I've never felt such a heavy atmosphere anywhere. The whole experience was deeply unsettling. One thing I noticed was that it was a beautifully sunny day, plenty of trees around etc but not a single note of birdsong anywhere. It's like they could sense the place too and just steered clear.
You asked: No one has reacted to the excellent HBO series, DEADWOOD. A bonanza mining town in an unaffiliated territory (no law yet) during the gold rush of 1874. The Black Hills of South Dakota. The acting. The characters. The storylines. The incredible script. Everything about this series was beyond outstanding. I would love to see you grab it. Somebody's going to.
My grandfather delivered rations and powdered food that was a type of gruel to Belson camp. He wasn't allowed near the main camp because of a typhoid outbreak but he delivered the food to a hospital camp erected near by. He saw survivors of the holocaust for the first time. He said he never truly hated the German people until that day. One old man was smiling and waving to him as he ate his gruel my grandad acknowledged him. Late that day he saw him again. He looked to be sleeping but he had died..
The actors in the concentration camp scene were local cancer patients going through Chemotherapy. The sad thing was that in general people looked worse. A few of the actors did not live to see the show. Allied leadership knew about the camps. The was debate in the upper echelons on whether to bomb the tracks by Auschwitz. The typical soldier did not know. Movie to see on this theme is The Gray Zone with Harvey Keitel.
Two understated scenes involve Frank Perconte and the prisoner outside the hut salutes him. Perconte returns the salute. The salute is a symbol of respect between soldiers. By returning the prisoner's salute Perconte is acknowledging what the prisoner has gone through and endured makes him an equal to the combat soldier who has " seen it all. " The second point is when Perconte looks at the new guy O'Keefe as he is sitting there, looking on in horror and disbelief at what he's seeing. By his look, Perconte is telling O'Keefe that even though he has not seen combat or even been in a battle, he has now really seen war in all its horror and terror, and he's now truly a veteran.
7:44 To answer your question. In regards to American knowledge of the concentrations camps, there were probably fairly decent classified military intelligence on them, but for the common citizen knowledge about them was more or less just rumor. But even though the military had some understanding of what was going on, it wasn't until they were at the gates the full gravity of the situation was realized. Dwight Eisenhower famously made sure meticulous records were made of each concentration/extermination camp so that nobody could deny what had happened.
I think the best thing about your reactions to this show is that you so often take away the most important things from the episodes. It's quite moving. True Detective Season 1 (It's a different story each season) , Deadwood, Unbelievable and Dopesick are the series I'm most looking forward to your reaction to. I'll add the movie True Grit (2010 version) since you are watching Hawkeye and Hailey Steinfeld is tremendous in both roles.
I recently met a veteran of Fox Company 2nd Battalion 506 PIR. It was actually humbling to talk with this man and hear a few stories. Of course I had to tease him about not being as famous as Easy. He was happy for them and glad that he didn't have to share so much with the world. These men were indeed our greatest generation.
"Why We Fight" is a nod to the epic World War 2 series by Frank Capra, made during the War. Skipping the cliché' comments, the fact that this is happening right now is unbelievable. P.S. I don't think it was a mistake on the part of Steven Spielberg to have the Nazi Woman in the striking red coat as a direct connection to the little Jewish girl in Schindler's List...
I never made that (potential) connection with the red coat, but... you're probably right. It stands out so much that, in retrospect, I think you're right and it had to have been an intentional nod.
I always like the juxtaposition of Nixon feeling shame for looting the woman in red's home and then later the woman's shame at her silent complicity of what went on and how without complaint she bent to the work of burying the dead to somehow even in the least of ways atone.
@@ronweber1402 I always had the impression that the woman looked like she was ashamed of having been caught rather than exhibiting remorse that one would atone for (unlike the crying man who seemed genuinely distraught). As the wife of a Nazi officer, surely she would've known what was happening in her backyard, and seemed more than silently complicit.
@@ragtimeraver many SS wifes lived quite comfortable lives with the riches their husbands looted from the inmates before they were shoved into the gas chambers
5:30 - They are singing "Gory, Gory, What a hell of a way to die" - a tragic tale of a paratrooper who messed up connecting his static line to the aircraft (so no main chute) and then had a failure of his reserve because it was improperly packed. "He ain't gonna jump no more". This is found under "There was blood upon the risers" sometimes as well.
I do hope you continue the WW2 review with The Pacific. If you do, please keep in mind, the same war, an entirely different war. The major theme throughout Band of Brothers was how bonds are formed between men in battle. The major theme throughout The Pacific is how savage men can become in battle. Between the two primary theaters (Europe and the Pacific), the terrain is different, the conditions are different, the enemy is different, etc and so on as well.
I visited Dachau during the early ‘90s. There’s not much to see, mostly a few foundations. Looked a bit like an old Scout camp near where I grew up. But it was HORRIBLE. There was a tangible feeling of evil that I’d never experienced before or since. Even the little kids who were there got real quiet and wanted to leave. That memory has stayed with me through the years.
This episode hit me hard, my grandfather was part of the British Army Corps that liberated and aided Bergen-Belsen. I can't imagine the horror he saw, but I know after the war he became a Nurse and I suspect this was the reason.
I’m an old man, compared to the average RUclips viewer, but I watch the series once a year so I don’t forget. Everyone should be made to watch the series at least once.
But we did forget.... No one talked about what was going on in Germany just like no one talks about what is going on in China and North Korea right now...think about it......
The actors' reaction to the camp set were genuine, the actors were kept away from the set until the day of the shoot, so their shocked look on their faces were real
Hi Mary, this one always hits everyone the hardest. Fun Fact (or as fun of a fact as you can get considering this topic): our main actors were kept away from the camp sets, so their looks of shock are real, they knew what they were filming that day they didn't know it would look this real. The actors hired to be the prisoners were cancer patients from a local hospital, thus the pale emaciated looks came quite naturally to them and lent more horror to the scene for the main actors. It has been said from troops that liberated various camps that have seen this episode the cancer patients were in much better shape than the people they found. The allied troops widely did not know about the camps until they were encountered, the allied command had various reports and rumors to go off of so they knew in writing what was going on but not visually until they liberated the first camp. Upon witnessing the camps himself General Eisenhower ordered members of the press corps to document everything they could. He is quoted as saying "The things I saw beggar description… The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick... I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to “propaganda.”"
12:58 - 13:15 Is a lesson we as a species need to constantly be aware of. It's the pre-cursor to genocide. It's the biggest lesson of the entire war in my opinion, and something we should never, ever, forget.
The actor Charles Durning was with the 506th when they liberated this camp outside Dachau, Germany. Once, during a Memorial Day Television Special, he read an excerpt from his personal journal detailing how they found the prisoners. Even after all those years, and him being a trained and experienced actor, he was still moved to tears to the point where he had trouble finishing his segment.
The camp shown in Band of Brothers is *Kaufering IV (Hurlach)* which was located near the town of Landsberg am Lech. Contrary to what is shown in Band of Brothers, Kaufering IV was actually found and liberated by the 12th Armored Division on April 27, 1945 with Easy Company arriving the following day. And there were only a handful survivors, along with about 500 bodies. For dramatic purposes, the producers of Band of Brothers decided to show Easy Company liberating the camp.
You mentioned what it must be like when these men go home. I would recommend the movie Best years of our lives. Made in 1946 about a diverse group of men who come home and the effects it has on them. Made right after the war. Still holds up as a great movie. Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best supporting Actor, Best screenplay.
I enjoyed watching this with you , even though you got a "kick-in-the-gut". You obviously were very hurt by this and how the people suffered. I felt your hurt, you are a near neighbor, and you made me feel better, thanks.
One of my uncles was a tanker in the US Army and he would often speak pretty lightly about his service, trying to suggest he didn't do anything noteworthy I think. I overheard him talking with his brothers, one was my grandfather, and I just heard him saying "You could see the smoke from that camp from miles away. I couldn't go to cookout after all that, that's what I smelled." I realize now that my uncle would have been in a lot of very serious stuff, he was in the 2nd Armor Division. He would have fought throughout Europe. I often think about the quiet unassuming and gentle man having lived through all that at age 20 or so and what that did to him for the rest of his life. He never mentioned much, the only reason I know about what unit he was in and that he would have been a tank commander is that his son, another uncle mentioned it. That he was pulled out of school at Texas A&M to be an officer because he had ROTC training.
This episode makes me think of my grandfather, every single time. He died of cancer when I was 15, but he served in WWII and I learned years later that apparently his unit liberated a concentration camp. He never talked about it but my dad said one night when he was home visiting his parents, he and my grandfather went to the local bar and after one too many he started telling my dad about it. Never spoke of it to him before or after. I ended up focusing on WWII and, specifically, the Holocaust within my history major in college, and always wished I could have talked to him about it.
What always gets me about this episode is the framing with the Beethoven string quartet. Especially when they talk about Mozart vs. Beethoven. Germany has given the world such great music and such unspeakable horrors. It's quite incomprehensible.
I am finding it difficult for myself to come up with the correct term, I don't want to say I have been waiting for this episode, that just doesn't seem right, so forgive me for the incorrect term but this is the episode I'm really invested in about learning your reaction to, I personally found this incredible hard to watch when I first seen it, I had to pause it a few times walk away and come back, I find it so incredibly hard to believe this actually happened, I sure hope one day we as a civilization can learn from our past and never repeat it.
‘Why We Fight’ is also the name of a series of films US Gov’t commissioned to show the soldiers why they were going to war. All the men in Easy Co. would have seen them. Frank Capra (It’s a Wonderful Life) was one of the directors. They are available on RUclips.
My grandpa was American infantry and was there, and he was shocked when these camps were found. My understanding was that he didn't know either until it was happened upon. That said, our family is in large part ethnically German (been in America for centuries though) but ny grandparents had many friends from Germany, including plenty of WWII vets who had immigrated. There was never any anomosity between them, everyones attitude was that fighting for your country is a duty, and that there was nothing personal about it. A few were still quite fond of Hitler, and they would tease each other about Hitler and FDR respectively. That said, I never heard anyone say anything supportive of the Holocaust, everyone seemed to understand that atrocities were inherently part of the total war against each other, but executing civilian prisoners en masse has a different context. After WWII, most Americans and Germans didn't harbor animosity, but the Americans who fought in the Pacific often did harbor animosity toward the Japanese, due to the war crimes and atrocities there against American POWs (Executions, torture, forced labor, the Bataan Death March, etc.) and this was seen to be outside the scope of legitimate warfare.
And unfortunately, Putin is playing into the fact that Russians REALLY hate Nazis for the atrocities done to their POWs and civilians. How the Jewish President is leading a Nazi regime though is quite baffling, and sad that many Russians believe Putin.
I cry every time I see this, it's probably the most poweful TV episode of any show ever made. It's so haunting, and bravo to HBO for making it. This should been shown as a Histoy Lesson to all.
Librarian here. In a library I worked in there was a collection of European illustrated magazines from the 30-40s. One was British, and covered the end of WWII. One issue had a supplement, which was sealed; it was recommended that adults kept it away from children. There was a report of the liberation of several concentration camps. With photos. In previous issues of the magazine, there was not even a hint of that situation. So, yes, one could say most people didn't know what was going on, not even the people around the camps. That's why in several places the locals were brought to the camps and forced to help with the burials.
My great uncle served in the US Signal Corp in WW2. He told me and my sister a story about how he was at one of the camps in Germany when they were liberated. He said that the soldiers were so disgusted with what they found, that they went to the nearby town and told all the Germans there to dress in their finest clothes and assemble in the square. They then took all the civilians to the camp to help the soldiers clean up the bodies and mess. He told us that story years before Band of Brothers ever came out.
The obvious choice for viewing after "Band of Brothers" is "The Pacific". They were intended as a companion series. I'm not sure how true it is, but rumor has it that Hanks and Spielberg are working on a new series in the same vein; this time viewed from the perspective of the 8th Air Force during the strategic bombing campaign.
Yep. Broke me too. When I watched the series, I was warned that everyone cries and I got through the first 8 episodes OK and thought, "Maybe I'll make it through without crying. I mean, the war is basically over at this point." Yeah, nope. Was sobbing on this one.
Major Winters didn't make a fuss over things like looting among his soldiers. Although he directly blamed the Nazis for the war in Europe, he also held the rest of the German people responsible for remaining apathetically silent during Hitler's rise to power.
Its a great series and a great episode. You reaction was excellent. I love this series and I enjoy watching with you again with. No shame in breaking down while watching this episode. I would be concerned for anyone who isn't moved by these events.
Your review and empathy is...beautiful. Just started watching this series with my kids. So they understand what their great-grandparents had to do. This episode so impossible... So hard.
Much of Band of Brothers is fictionalized and was written for dramatic effect, and not for historically accuracy. For instance, the liberation of *Kaufering IV (Hurlach)* shown in this episode of Band of Brothers is almost entirely fictional. The camp was actually found and liberated by the 12th Armored Division on April 27, 1945 with Easy Company arriving the following day. And there were only a handful of survivors and about 500 bodies. But the producers of Band of Brothers decided that it would be much more dramatic to show Easy Company liberating the camp filled with emaciated prisoners.
Thank you for your heartfelt and sincere reaction to this episode, "Why We Fight". Please do watch/react to the classic "Best Years of Our Lives" an award winning movie made in 1946 about three WWII veterans returning home after serving in the war. (Yes, the film is on YT.) Many consider it one of the best films regarding WWII ever made. Thank you again, for your reviews of BAND OF BROTHERS!!
Glad you made it through this one. Episode 10 will be a relief. Absolutely hope you'll watch "The Pacific" next, but I know you need a break; here are 3 excellent comedies you might like, all are in the AFI top 100 comedies of all time: "The Jerk" with Steve Martin, "Good Morning Vietnam" with Robin Williams, "Raising Arizona" with Nicolas Cage. I tried to pick movies you haven't seen, but I could be mistaken. Blessings to you...
It's hard to think of a more impactful, better made piece of television than this particular episode. It should be required viewing for everyone, and especially as time goes on, because you're so right, Mary - as we become more separated from these events in time, it's easier to doubt whether they truly happened. The experiences testimonies of men like the Easy Company vets stand as vital reminders of how easily we as a species can give in to the worst sides of our nature, and we can never afford to forget that.
I knew it would Mary. Most of us did. This episode tears me apart every time, too. Thank you for watching. American soldiers did not know, not until they saw them. I imagine it was worse for the Russians. They saw the worst of them, and they knew exactly what they were looking at. Some of their families were doing the same thing in Siberia at the time. Yes, I know that we had our own camps for certain groups of people. Those of Japanese descent, to be specific. That was not fair either. Nothing was fair in those days. More came out than went in, at least here.
There's a movie on RUclips called "The Wave" (1981). A california school teacher was teaching his high-school class about this and his students couldn't believe it actually happened. So he teaches them how it happened. I believe there is also a german version, "Die Welle" (2008) re-titled "The Wave" (but I haven't watched that one).
My dad was US Army. When I was in middle school (6-8th grades here) he was stationed in Germany. First in Wildflecken, then Mainz. Germany was a beautiful country withe wonderful people. I love art, architecture, history, and music and Germany has it all in spades. I loved every second...except one. We went to Dachau. I'm glad I went - in a way. It was a very important learning experience for me, but it's not one I can ever repeat. It was too heart shattering.
I second The Best Years of Our Lives - best picture in 1946 about returning American servicemen and trying to adjust to normal life after the war. PTSD, alcoholism, disability, unemployment…
This is an immensely well written and powerful episode. The music at the start, in a German town devastated by war, with German civilians playing a beautiful piece written by a German composer, demonstrates the peak of civilisation which the German culture achieved. Then the episode contrasts this, the German soldiers "marching proud in surrender" but also the horrifying atrocity of the Holocaust that the German people helped (through inaction of the majority and participation of the minority) perpetrate, the depraved depths of the destruction of humanity. Before, finally, ending with the string piece playing, and the news that Hitler, the driving force behind the descent of the German people, is dead, that on one hand the catalyst of the horror is finished, but on the other the impact and consequences of that horror continue. And then the music ends. Story telling at its best.
Another chilling movie to watch is Conspiracy (2001). It is a movie about the meeting to discuss the "Final Solution." It is based off transcripts from the actually meeting. It is incredibly difficult to watch, but powerful.
That is an incredible film. Conspiracy manages to be a horror film done in a Hitchcock style of mostly one location and focused on dialogue. The writing, acting, and directing are sublime.
The structure of this episode is that we see Easy hardened to the war. They were looting. They did not worry about pushing people out of their homes. You were even expecting sexual assault with the farm girl. In our eyes they weren’t that different from the Germans. And then, all of a sudden, the difference becomes crystal clear. Easy was fighting against an evil they weren’t even aware of.
I'm sorry for the pain and crudity in this episode. My father used to watch this TV series on DVD, I watched just the first episode and this one. I was 10 years old, I could feel the sadness and horror of people who were there. I didn't realize the Nazis murdered people who weren't at the Allied army.
Over 20 years since I first saw this episode, and it's still tough to watch every single time. You wonder what it takes for a human being to be able to do that sort of thing to another human. Unfortunately, I frequently see comments from people in Britain (and others around the world, of course) where you can see with a little bit more nudging, they'd be doing the same thing. Not necessarily to the same group of people, but dehumanising people of a certain characteristic is definitely not unique to the Nazis, and is unfortunately not completely confined to history.
@bujin1977 I agree with you, but here's an interesting conundrum, is it dehumanising if the object of hate doesn't act human? For me, I'd have no problem with the animals capable of this been shown the same treatment to understand what it feels like for their victims. Another interesting point is, have you ever noticed victims can sometimes become aggressors? Often atrocities are committed in revenge which are just as bad. A typical situation would be atrocities in the soviet Union. They suffered appallingly, that's true, but the swaft of death brought about when resisting soviet leadership was often just as bad, if not worse We are a complicated species aren't we?
My grandfathers were in the Pacific, but one of their friends I met was in the European theater and he told me (I was a kid at the time) when his division drove past a camp during the night getting within one mile of it, none of them knowing what that horrible smell was until a day or two later.
I have been to Auschwitz and Birkenau and I cannot describe the absolute scale of the camps, Birkenau is huge and it was being expanded. There is STILL a feeling that something absolutely unholy happened there, you can feel it in your soul, you don't even hear a single bird singing. A visit will change you forever.
As always you get to the heart of the episode in your reaction. Some suggestions, "Zero Dark Thirty", "The Verdict", and "The Day of the Jackal' (1973). Episode 10 will satisfy you.
If you're interested, you may want to watch the movie Conspiracy with Kenneth Branaugh, Stanley Tucci and Colin Firth. It's all about the Wannsee Conference, the meeting of high ranking Nazi officials, where they discuss, plan and ultimately implement their Final Solution, to the Jewish question. The movie is based off of the notes taken during the meeting. While there is no violence or gore in the movie, it's still chilling just watching and hearing them discuss such a vile and repugnant topic so casually and with such ease.
"American Graffiti" Breakthrough movie for George Lucas, Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfus, Harrison Ford, Suzanne Somers, and Cindy Williams. One of the most profitable (box office/cost) movies ever made. In the top 100 movies per AFI. Academy award nomination for Best Picture ("The Sting" won that year... another good suggestion).
I found this information on another person's comment None of the actors playing American soldiers had seen the concentration camp set, or the extras playing the victims, before they were to film there, and the reactions of most of the cast are genuine. Ross McCall, playing Joe Liebgott, said there were talks of bringing the actors to a camp to prepare them for the scene - but they ultimately decided not to, for the sake of getting honest reactions. The specific camp that was liberated in this episode was the Ohrdruf Concentration Camp. The liberation occurred on April 4, 1945. The US Army brought in tents and emergency shelters immediately, as well as a volunteer force of medical personnel. The Army began relocating the prisoners as quickly as they could, beginning the day after the camp's liberation. In total it took about a week to get all the prisoners to better accommodations in order to give them medical care and food.
Not sure which episode is a more difficult watch, this one or the Okinawa episode in The Pacific. Okinawa is definitely more personal for me with my grandfather fighting there. Both brutal episodes.
“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
Amazing reaction to this show as always Mary. The last few episodes have been very tough but so important we understand what these heroes went through as well as remembering the victims of this awful conflict and the ideology driving it. If you have not seen them then I'd love you to consider reviews of Scandinavian shows like the Killing or the Bridge, or maybe BBC shows like Sherlock. Stranger Things is coming back on Netflix, The Wire and Sopranos are top of most critic lists but are large series to tackle and not easy subject matters either. If you are going big the personally I think you would love The Expanse, which is great Sci Fi.
08:10 Man carrying older man is speaking Serbian, he is saying "People help, please help, he is still alive, you can still save him" I was in elementery school when I first watched the series, to hear those words, to understand them, while everything else was subtitled, oh man the filing of dread.
Mary, I completely agree. If you have a chance to visit a nazi camp it is a life changing experience. I visited Mathausen when I was in college. Our group arrived and got off our bus as we were walking in we were just chatting and having fun (not being disrespectful, just being chatty college students). Then we past a family that was coming out and just from seeing them our demeanor changed. There is an aura in a place that has experienced something that evil, you don't know what it is, you just feel it. I would never say the experience of going there was pleasant, it was not , but it was memorable and impactful and it really drove home just how horrific and evil those events were and why it should never be forgotten.
My following comment is not meant to downplay the horrible (many adjectives required here) camps in Europe. My parents, still living, are survivors of Japanese camps in Indonesia during WW2. Both originally from the Netherlands (now US citizens) were living there as children of Dutch military families. They experienced terrible, horrific conditions, abuse, hard labor, and starvation. Many didn't survive to tell their story but, thank God my parents did. Mary, thank you for reacting to this series. Heel erg bedankt.
A movie from a different perspective, "The Flowers of War" ... A Chinese made movie about the historical 1937 Japanese invasion / massacre of Nanking. So based on a true event but story is based on a novel which was inspired from the diary an American Missionary.
A brief, simplified explanation of the issue with giving food to a starving person (and how it can cause death):
Under true starvation conditions, the body does not have enough nutrients (vitamins, minerals, salts, etc) to fully function. Since there’s not enough nutrients, the body will allocate what it has to the necessary organs (brain, heart, lungs, etc). The stomach and intestine are not considered “necessary” by the body (because the body is not receiving food needing to be digested).
So this starving person is now given food, and that person’s body must “reactivate” the stomach and intestines. Soon order to function, the stomach ends up getting some of the nutrients from the heart and lungs… but the heart and lungs need those nutrients too. Without enough nutrients for the heart and lungs, the body goes into full cardiac arrest - all because the body finally received the food it needed.
It takes special care to ensure this doesn’t happen, slowly increasing the body’s electrolytes and nutrient levels so it can start processing food on its own again.
Tyvm for posting this! I knew you could eat yourself to death in these kind of conditions, but not exactly why, I assumed the stomach just couldn't handle how much they'd be shoveling down. Never thought for a moment the body simply shut down the stomach to keep everything else going.
Thank you for explaining!
@@MovieswithMary In these conditions, the people die from a flow of cations (particularly potassium) that their bodies can't handle in their very weaken state. In regrads whom new in the Allies of the Nazi genocide ... the Allies leaders knew but also knew that the only way to stop it was to accelerate their war effort and win quicker. The average soldiers (even up to most Generals) didn't. Except those at the very top, nno one else knew.
Its called refeeding syndrom, the same problem is it with anorexs person. The main problem is the insulin. The kalium follow the insulin. When they eat, body will release insulin, the kalium will go from the blood in to the cells. Trought that kalium shift, the cardiac cell function nome.more correct and you will go in a cardiac arest.
Thank you Charles for explaining this so clearly and simply..
Speaking of "massive trauma" of WW2 soldiers you mentioned, there was lots of American servicemen who later on married women from continental Europe, partially because when they returned home, they could not properly connect with American women of their age anymore. The women who waited at home were in their late teens or early twenties, and wanted to live the carefree youth they had missed when men were absent, but the men just could not understand it and identify with the same girls they might have courted just couple of years earlier. They felt that European women understood them better because they had actually lived through war and traumas as well.
The was a lot of social discrimination of the "war brides" by American women. The term "War Bride" was often use derisively, and they were subject to a lot of snarky comments and treatment, particularly in the 1950's. My mother-in-law was Danish, my neighbor's mother was Australian, both war brides.
Nothing brings ppl together more than suffering together
would it be safe to say those men aged before their time and thus sought for someone of a fate similar to theirs, to make whole what time broke?
As terrible as this episode is, I admit I love seeing people watch it and break down. The empathy exhibited with those that are suffering in it gives me faith in humanity. Been waiting to see Mary watch it since she started this incredible series.
Agreed, this is a crucial episode, this should never be forgotten and it should always, on the first vision, be terrible and impactful. This still fractures me, and it always should.
@kay van both are amazing Bob is #1 for Me
Not everyone good will react this way, see it as hidden good people, you can't really rely on what's shown and what isn't.
I don't really get emotional to stuff like this, at least not to the point of visibly crying or being in ''pain''. Could be because of all the stuff I've seen on the internet, or maybe it's just me, could also be I need to experience stuff like this first hand for it to have a true effect on me. I understand it's horrible of course.
This is the exact reason I watch these reaction videos. Seeing people's empathy through these tough scenes in movies lets me know we haven't completely lost our humanity.
I think a lot of young people in general and even older people who were not into history don't realize that although there were rumors about the camps most people thought it was war propaganda. I mean dam I still wish it was and all those people lived. The truth, and history teach us it was real. What scares me now is listening to people like Russia's Putin calling the Ukrainian people and government Nazis, and Russians repeating it. Just like Hitler and the German people. Do we have to repeat history are we that dumb as a race. I hope and pray not! Mary you give me hope, you are kind and senstive enough to be devastated with how these men first found out how truly evil the Nazis and SS were. Bless you!
Every person I've seen react to this episode has shown extreme emotion if not outright wept. They have all apologized to the viewers for doing so but there is no need to apologize as such atrocities should cause one to weep. The only ones who would need to apologize would be those who had no reaction to the deaths of so many millions.
I'm always eyeing out for the one that won't show that, not that they are a bad person or anything, but that's how I reacted to it. Could be because of how much I've watched about WWII and in general what's going on around the world (uncensored) to the extent it doesn't affect me much.
This one kicks up the dust no matter how many times I watch it.
The camp depicted in Band of Brothers is *Kaufering IV (Hurlach)* which was one of 11 labor subcamps of Dachau located near Landsberg am Lech known as the Kaufering Complex. What is shown in Band of Brothers is largely fictitious and was written for dramatic effect. Kaufering IV was actually liberated on April 27, 1945 by the 12th Armored Division with Easy Company arriving the following day and only a handful of survivors were found alive. Colonel Edward Seiller of the 12th Armored Division took control of the camp on April 27 and he is the one who ordered the local townspeople to bury the dead ( ruclips.net/video/NS02Cq3Lifc/видео.html ).
From the United Sates Holocaust Memorial Museum:
_As US armed forces approached the Kaufering complex in late April 1945, the SS began evacuating the camps, sending the prisoners on death marches in the direction of Dachau. Those inmates who could not keep up were often shot or beaten to death by the guards. At Kaufering IV, the SS set fire to the barracks killing hundreds of prisoners who were too ill or weak to move._
_When the 12th Armored Division and 101st Airborne Division arrived at Kaufering IV on April 27 and 28, respectively, the soldiers discovered some 500 dead inmates. In the days that followed, the US Army units ordered the local townspeople to bury the dead._
This was one of the hardest episodes to watch in any series, ever, for me. They really don't hold back in any way. It must be especially tough for you because of the region and also you can understand what they're saying.
There were rumors of camps but yes, this was the first time the western allies learned about the camps, they literally stumbled across them. The extreme leadership ( generals) might have know about the camps from intelligence but the run of the mill soldier on the ground didn’t learn about the camps until the very end of the war.
French recistance and other recistance groups did collect and delivered to allies. Reason why they keep it a secret,,,,,(Well i don´t know.) Some say antisemitism that maybe have split army in half. Other say that it would not be war anymore after troops would hear about them, It would have turn complete destruction off anything/anyone from german.
Not exactly correct. The Soviets in their push from the East had discovered several camps and shared what they found with the rest of the Allies. I don't recall off the top of my head, but I believe it was generally met with disbelief until Western Allies began to find similar (and then the same) kind of camps on the western front.
Beyond that, when it was truly confirmed, you had news outlets like the New York Times suppressed stories of the atrocities here in the US, so regular Americans at home wouldn't know about it until much later because of that suppression.
This was the first SOLDIERS new of the camps. Allied leaders knew for years and military reconnaissance flights confirmed it a few months after DDAY. Jewish leaders attempted USA refugee status but were denied by the USAA diplomatic leaders.
Never apologize for being human, for having empathy and human emotions and for caring. Never apologize for feeling anger over what happened.
The higher ranks in the military may have been informed about camp discoveries, but at the company level, regular troops would have been lucky to happen across a newspaper given their constant movement. We are spoiled now with instant communication on our phones. Even back in the 80's major events were often not known by us until well after they had already occurred. We would catch them on the news at 6 pm or 11PM or the next day in the paper.
The farther down the chain of command you are, the less of the big picture you know.
By higher ranks in the military, outside of brass (i.e. Joint Chiefs Level); I don't know if ANY US service personnel knew anything about the Holocaust until 1945. IIRC there were some Refugee Groups and Jewish organizations making attempts to get the Allies to more actively intervene as early as 1943. There were dark rumors some of the general public heard. I think some discussion took place around bombing parts of the rail network feeding the camps, but I believe all of those discussions were very high level, including the question of just how true the information they were given might be. In the end measuring what air assents they had vs. retasking them from what they were assigned to (i.e. the prior plans for 'end the war soonest with least cost in allied lives') the decision was made that the fastest entry into Germany and end to the war would be best. I would have to actively reseach whether Eisenhower and the highest level of his staff were even read in on what studies were done. It would have been easy enough to draw up the studies from reports from ETO to Washington without telling any of them. Although IIRC Churchill might also have been approached. All that said yeah the line GI would have known nothing. Heck Maj. Sink (who probably appears less than 10 times in the series) would have known nothing and the divisional commander Maj Gen Maxwell Taylor would have known zip. Talyor was one of over 1000+ generals in the Army during WW2 and until the proof hit them in the face in 1945 in the view of higher he had no 'need to know'. An incredibly sad and important episode.
@@davidcorriveau8615 I have read reports where governments actually decided that the amount of resources being poured into these camps hindered the German war effort significantly. By not destroying the camps they were helping the Germans lose the war.
"Why we fight." What a perfect title to this very hard hitting episode. When you started Band of Brothers, I knew #9 would be a tough one. Thank you for reacting to this series. I hope you consider "The Pacific" afterwords. That's a great miniseries too.
I'm an old American male - the WW2 generation that served were my uncles and my friends fathers. As an adult I became friends with a British WW2 veteran who served in a tank company all the way from North Africa to Germany. He was known affectionately as English Mike in the community. He called me Irish as my grandparents immigrated from Ireland. His company liberated Bergen Belson. He talked about it with great pain, but shared it with others at times so that they would know the awful truth from someone who saw it first hand. Thank you for watching this and for sharing your reaction with others as we must never forget. My father was a Korean War veteran, once when a tv comedy show was on involving the Korean War he said, "It's not so funny when you're picking up pieces of your buddies." He hated war and knew there was no glory, but he would have served again and had his kids serve too if it prevented such evil as that perpetrated by governments and people that enslave and murder others. War is the worst thing except for slavery and murder. To me this is what the American Declaration of Independence means when it says: "...governments long established should not be changed for light or transient causes...but when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government..." The governments of Nazi Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union, and Mao's China among others are such cases where there is a moral duty to oppose and overthrow such evil, even at the risk of the horror of war. God bless those that sacrificed to end such evil and let us always remember and honor them.
Interesting fact, Winters asks Christiansen if any of his mean speak German, the actor who plays Christensen is Michael Fassbander who was born in Heidelberg, Germany to a German father and Irish mother and speaks German(while not fluent he is conversational in the language)
When you think about WWII, most people tend to think about it in terms of recent history because you have direct memories of people who lived through it. But if you put yourself back into their shoes, the people who fought in WWII were actually nearer in time to the US Civil War than we are to WWII in 2022. Mind blowing when you think about it. But it is also important perspective when you think about events in the past and how relevant they actually are to our lives today.
Cheers Mary and thanks for your unique perspective & genuine reactions!
I found myself impatiently waiting for this reaction; and you did not disappoint. You are like this young girl. Yet you are educated and mature. I never imagined the fact that you've spent your life so close to this setting, that your reaction would be so rich with contextual knowledge. It makes me feel good that there are people so educated. I just wish there were more of them here.
I appreciate that when the train door opens Winters doesn't look away for a second.
Told you to get ready for episode 9. My Grandfather was part of the British division that liberated Bergen-Belsen. It's the only part of his service that he was reticent about talking to me about. In his last few days he began to talk about what he'd seen, what he had been involved In. It felt like he was unburdening himself before he left us.
As a classical music nerd, the piece at the end was Beethoven’s String Quartet No.14 op.131 6th movement. And yes, this piece is so strong and emotional especially in scenes like these.
That scene is my favorite of the whole series. I think it’s meant to be a play on Schindlers list with the Mozart line.
This is the darkest of the entire series... However, the people who depicted the concentration camp prisoners are real heroes. Most of them were suffering from diseases or something that compromised their health but they volunteered for this scene...
Cancer patients, and people going through chemotherapy. And still they agreed to do these scenes.
They were going through chemotherapy, and most looked far healthier than the concentration camp victims.
You're my favorite youtuber, Mary. Like me you're a lawyer, but more than that, you're smart, fair, funny, and above all, empathetic and caring. Everybody watching this should subscribe and like.
We had a school trip to Buchenwald when we were around 15/16, as teenagers are we were loud and joking all the time, but when we got there it was an eerie silence on the whole hillside were the camp was, even on the way home no one was really talkative or making any jokes. Nowadays where I live, I can see in the distance the memorial tower for Buchenwald, that was build in the 50s, also in my town the ovens for Auschwitz were developed and manufactured, a dark part of our history that we never can forget.
You have to watch 'The Pacific' next it's WWII but as you can see in the Pacific theatre, or watch Chernobyl, both great short series also made by HBO.
Broke me too. And I usually never cry over shows or movies.
Wanna give you big hug. This episode was heartbreaking.
There were whispers about the camps but they were mostly dismissed as unbelievable by the rest of the world, until they actually started finding them.
The allied governments (and many of the German civilians) might not have known about the full extend of the camps, but they absolutely knew about pogroms, about ghettos, about random killings of jews on the streets of many of Europes major cities. And they knew that thousands of people would go into these camps and never come out again
I can't watch this episode, or even reviews of this episode, without being in tears.
There are two things in this series that will, every single time, bring tears to my eyes. This whole episode, for the worst reasons, and then the final lines of the series (you all know what I mean), for the best.
@@JeffKelly03 Absolutely.
The Pacific is a natural progression from Band of Brothers. I've really enjoyed your commentary on this series- the European perspective is appreciated.
I've been to Auschwitz and I've never felt such a heavy atmosphere anywhere. The whole experience was deeply unsettling. One thing I noticed was that it was a beautifully sunny day, plenty of trees around etc but not a single note of birdsong anywhere. It's like they could sense the place too and just steered clear.
You asked:
No one has reacted to the excellent HBO series, DEADWOOD.
A bonanza mining town in an unaffiliated territory (no law yet)
during the gold rush of 1874. The Black Hills of South Dakota.
The acting. The characters.
The storylines. The incredible script. Everything about this series was beyond outstanding.
I would love to see you grab it. Somebody's going to.
Agreed! That would be a great idea
Full support from me!
My grandfather delivered rations and powdered food that was a type of gruel to Belson camp. He wasn't allowed near the main camp because of a typhoid outbreak but he delivered the food to a hospital camp erected near by. He saw survivors of the holocaust for the first time. He said he never truly hated the German people until that day. One old man was smiling and waving to him as he ate his gruel my grandad acknowledged him. Late that day he saw him again. He looked to be sleeping but he had died..
The actors in the concentration camp scene were local cancer patients going through Chemotherapy. The sad thing was that in general people looked worse. A few of the actors did not live to see the show.
Allied leadership knew about the camps. The was debate in the upper echelons on whether to bomb the tracks by Auschwitz. The typical soldier did not know.
Movie to see on this theme is The Gray Zone with Harvey Keitel.
Thank you for sharing your raw emotions to this episode. I have seen it dozens of times and cannot keep from weeping on each view.
I haven’t even really started watching this yet and I already want to give Mary a hug.
Two understated scenes involve Frank Perconte and the prisoner outside the hut salutes him. Perconte returns the salute. The salute is a symbol of respect between soldiers. By returning the prisoner's salute Perconte is acknowledging what the prisoner has gone through and endured makes him an equal to the combat soldier who has " seen it all. " The second point is when Perconte looks at the new guy O'Keefe as he is sitting there, looking on in horror and disbelief at what he's seeing. By his look, Perconte is telling O'Keefe that even though he has not seen combat or even been in a battle, he has now really seen war in all its horror and terror, and he's now truly a veteran.
7:44 To answer your question. In regards to American knowledge of the concentrations camps, there were probably fairly decent classified military intelligence on them, but for the common citizen knowledge about them was more or less just rumor. But even though the military had some understanding of what was going on, it wasn't until they were at the gates the full gravity of the situation was realized. Dwight Eisenhower famously made sure meticulous records were made of each concentration/extermination camp so that nobody could deny what had happened.
I think the best thing about your reactions to this show is that you so often take away the most important things from the episodes. It's quite moving.
True Detective Season 1 (It's a different story each season) , Deadwood, Unbelievable and Dopesick are the series I'm most looking forward to your reaction to.
I'll add the movie True Grit (2010 version) since you are watching Hawkeye and Hailey Steinfeld is tremendous in both roles.
I recently met a veteran of Fox Company 2nd Battalion 506 PIR. It was actually humbling to talk with this man and hear a few stories. Of course I had to tease him about not being as famous as Easy. He was happy for them and glad that he didn't have to share so much with the world. These men were indeed our greatest generation.
"Why We Fight" is a nod to the epic World War 2 series by Frank Capra, made during the War. Skipping the cliché' comments, the fact that this is happening right now is unbelievable.
P.S.
I don't think it was a mistake on the part of Steven Spielberg to have the Nazi Woman in the striking red coat as a direct connection to the little Jewish girl in Schindler's List...
I never made that (potential) connection with the red coat, but... you're probably right. It stands out so much that, in retrospect, I think you're right and it had to have been an intentional nod.
I always like the juxtaposition of Nixon feeling shame for looting the woman in red's home and then later the woman's shame at her silent complicity of what went on and how without complaint she bent to the work of burying the dead to somehow even in the least of ways atone.
@@ronweber1402 I always had the impression that the woman looked like she was ashamed of having been caught rather than exhibiting remorse that one would atone for (unlike the crying man who seemed genuinely distraught). As the wife of a Nazi officer, surely she would've known what was happening in her backyard, and seemed more than silently complicit.
@@JeffKelly03 Just a thought my friend
@@ragtimeraver many SS wifes lived quite comfortable lives with the riches their husbands looted from the inmates before they were shoved into the gas chambers
5:30 - They are singing "Gory, Gory, What a hell of a way to die" - a tragic tale of a paratrooper who messed up connecting his static line to the aircraft (so no main chute) and then had a failure of his reserve because it was improperly packed. "He ain't gonna jump no more". This is found under "There was blood upon the risers" sometimes as well.
I do hope you continue the WW2 review with The Pacific.
If you do, please keep in mind, the same war, an entirely different war.
The major theme throughout Band of Brothers was how bonds are formed between men in battle.
The major theme throughout The Pacific is how savage men can become in battle.
Between the two primary theaters (Europe and the Pacific), the terrain is different, the conditions are different, the enemy is different, etc and so on as well.
I visited Dachau during the early ‘90s. There’s not much to see, mostly a few foundations. Looked a bit like an old Scout camp near where I grew up. But it was HORRIBLE. There was a tangible feeling of evil that I’d never experienced before or since. Even the little kids who were there got real quiet and wanted to leave. That memory has stayed with me through the years.
This episode hit me hard, my grandfather was part of the British Army Corps that liberated and aided Bergen-Belsen. I can't imagine the horror he saw, but I know after the war he became a Nurse and I suspect this was the reason.
I watched this when it originally aired and it is STILL the most powerful, emotional piece of TV I've ever seen
I’m an old man, compared to the average RUclips viewer, but I watch the series once a year so I don’t forget. Everyone should be made to watch the series at least once.
Thank you for bringing this series to your channel, its important to learn and never forget.
But we did forget.... No one talked about what was going on in Germany just like no one talks about what is going on in China and North Korea right now...think about it......
The actors' reaction to the camp set were genuine, the actors were kept away from the set until the day of the shoot, so their shocked look on their faces were real
Hi Mary, this one always hits everyone the hardest. Fun Fact (or as fun of a fact as you can get considering this topic): our main actors were kept away from the camp sets, so their looks of shock are real, they knew what they were filming that day they didn't know it would look this real. The actors hired to be the prisoners were cancer patients from a local hospital, thus the pale emaciated looks came quite naturally to them and lent more horror to the scene for the main actors.
It has been said from troops that liberated various camps that have seen this episode the cancer patients were in much better shape than the people they found. The allied troops widely did not know about the camps until they were encountered, the allied command had various reports and rumors to go off of so they knew in writing what was going on but not visually until they liberated the first camp. Upon witnessing the camps himself General Eisenhower ordered members of the press corps to document everything they could. He is quoted as saying "The things I saw beggar description… The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick... I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to “propaganda.”"
12:58 - 13:15
Is a lesson we as a species need to constantly be aware of. It's the pre-cursor to genocide. It's the biggest lesson of the entire war in my opinion, and something we should never, ever, forget.
The actor Charles Durning was with the 506th when they liberated this camp outside Dachau, Germany. Once, during a Memorial Day Television Special, he read an excerpt from his personal journal detailing how they found the prisoners. Even after all those years, and him being a trained and experienced actor, he was still moved to tears to the point where he had trouble finishing his segment.
The camp shown in Band of Brothers is *Kaufering IV (Hurlach)* which was located near the town of Landsberg am Lech. Contrary to what is shown in Band of Brothers, Kaufering IV was actually found and liberated by the 12th Armored Division on April 27, 1945 with Easy Company arriving the following day. And there were only a handful survivors, along with about 500 bodies. For dramatic purposes, the producers of Band of Brothers decided to show Easy Company liberating the camp.
I don't think that is true. I don't think he was reading from his own journal. I can find absolutely no mention of Charles During being at Dachau.
Band of Brothers is a masterpiece. How strong it finishes is a great part of it.
You mentioned what it must be like when these men go home. I would recommend the movie Best years of our lives. Made in 1946 about a diverse group of men who come home and the effects it has on them. Made right after the war. Still holds up as a great movie. Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best supporting Actor, Best screenplay.
I have been trying to get someone to react to this for a long time ;-)
@@gregall2178 Mia Tiffany reacted to it.
Bless you, Mary. I love your sense of deep compassion and humanity.
The hardest, and most important, of episodes for this or any series. Thank you for your honest, emotional, and heartfelt reaction.
I enjoyed watching this with you , even though you got a "kick-in-the-gut". You obviously were very hurt by this and how the people suffered. I felt your hurt, you are a near neighbor, and you made me feel better, thanks.
One of my uncles was a tanker in the US Army and he would often speak pretty lightly about his service, trying to suggest he didn't do anything noteworthy I think. I overheard him talking with his brothers, one was my grandfather, and I just heard him saying "You could see the smoke from that camp from miles away. I couldn't go to cookout after all that, that's what I smelled."
I realize now that my uncle would have been in a lot of very serious stuff, he was in the 2nd Armor Division. He would have fought throughout Europe. I often think about the quiet unassuming and gentle man having lived through all that at age 20 or so and what that did to him for the rest of his life. He never mentioned much, the only reason I know about what unit he was in and that he would have been a tank commander is that his son, another uncle mentioned it. That he was pulled out of school at Texas A&M to be an officer because he had ROTC training.
This episode makes me think of my grandfather, every single time. He died of cancer when I was 15, but he served in WWII and I learned years later that apparently his unit liberated a concentration camp. He never talked about it but my dad said one night when he was home visiting his parents, he and my grandfather went to the local bar and after one too many he started telling my dad about it. Never spoke of it to him before or after. I ended up focusing on WWII and, specifically, the Holocaust within my history major in college, and always wished I could have talked to him about it.
What always gets me about this episode is the framing with the Beethoven string quartet. Especially when they talk about Mozart vs. Beethoven. Germany has given the world such great music and such unspeakable horrors. It's quite incomprehensible.
For the most part, there were reports of the camps that made it into allied hands, but the troops on the ground weren't told and had no idea.
I am finding it difficult for myself to come up with the correct term, I don't want to say I have been waiting for this episode, that just doesn't seem right, so forgive me for the incorrect term but this is the episode I'm really invested in about learning your reaction to, I personally found this incredible hard to watch when I first seen it, I had to pause it a few times walk away and come back, I find it so incredibly hard to believe this actually happened, I sure hope one day we as a civilization can learn from our past and never repeat it.
Anticipating?
‘Why We Fight’ is also the name of a series of films US Gov’t commissioned to show the soldiers why they were going to war. All the men in Easy Co. would have seen them. Frank Capra (It’s a Wonderful Life) was one of the directors. They are available on RUclips.
My grandpa was American infantry and was there, and he was shocked when these camps were found. My understanding was that he didn't know either until it was happened upon. That said, our family is in large part ethnically German (been in America for centuries though) but ny grandparents had many friends from Germany, including plenty of WWII vets who had immigrated. There was never any anomosity between them, everyones attitude was that fighting for your country is a duty, and that there was nothing personal about it. A few were still quite fond of Hitler, and they would tease each other about Hitler and FDR respectively. That said, I never heard anyone say anything supportive of the Holocaust, everyone seemed to understand that atrocities were inherently part of the total war against each other, but executing civilian prisoners en masse has a different context.
After WWII, most Americans and Germans didn't harbor animosity, but the Americans who fought in the Pacific often did harbor animosity toward the Japanese, due to the war crimes and atrocities there against American POWs (Executions, torture, forced labor, the Bataan Death March, etc.) and this was seen to be outside the scope of legitimate warfare.
And unfortunately, Putin is playing into the fact that Russians REALLY hate Nazis for the atrocities done to their POWs and civilians. How the Jewish President is leading a Nazi regime though is quite baffling, and sad that many Russians believe Putin.
I cry every time I see this, it's probably the most poweful TV episode of any show ever made. It's so haunting, and bravo to HBO for making it. This should been shown as a Histoy Lesson to all.
Librarian here. In a library I worked in there was a collection of European illustrated magazines from the 30-40s. One was British, and covered the end of WWII. One issue had a supplement, which was sealed; it was recommended that adults kept it away from children. There was a report of the liberation of several concentration camps. With photos.
In previous issues of the magazine, there was not even a hint of that situation. So, yes, one could say most people didn't know what was going on, not even the people around the camps. That's why in several places the locals were brought to the camps and forced to help with the burials.
My great uncle served in the US Signal Corp in WW2. He told me and my sister a story about how he was at one of the camps in Germany when they were liberated. He said that the soldiers were so disgusted with what they found, that they went to the nearby town and told all the Germans there to dress in their finest clothes and assemble in the square. They then took all the civilians to the camp to help the soldiers clean up the bodies and mess. He told us that story years before Band of Brothers ever came out.
The obvious choice for viewing after "Band of Brothers" is "The Pacific". They were intended as a companion series. I'm not sure how true it is, but rumor has it that Hanks and Spielberg are working on a new series in the same vein; this time viewed from the perspective of the 8th Air Force during the strategic bombing campaign.
Yep. Broke me too. When I watched the series, I was warned that everyone cries and I got through the first 8 episodes OK and thought, "Maybe I'll make it through without crying. I mean, the war is basically over at this point." Yeah, nope. Was sobbing on this one.
Major Winters didn't make a fuss over things like looting among his soldiers. Although he directly blamed the Nazis for the war in Europe, he also held the rest of the German people responsible for remaining apathetically silent during Hitler's rise to power.
Its a great series and a great episode. You reaction was excellent. I love this series and I enjoy watching with you again with. No shame in breaking down while watching this episode. I would be concerned for anyone who isn't moved by these events.
Your review and empathy is...beautiful. Just started watching this series with my kids. So they understand what their great-grandparents had to do. This episode so impossible... So hard.
Much of Band of Brothers is fictionalized and was written for dramatic effect, and not for historically accuracy. For instance, the liberation of *Kaufering IV (Hurlach)* shown in this episode of Band of Brothers is almost entirely fictional. The camp was actually found and liberated by the 12th Armored Division on April 27, 1945 with Easy Company arriving the following day. And there were only a handful of survivors and about 500 bodies. But the producers of Band of Brothers decided that it would be much more dramatic to show Easy Company liberating the camp filled with emaciated prisoners.
Thank you for your heartfelt and sincere reaction to this episode, "Why We Fight". Please do watch/react to the classic "Best Years of Our Lives" an award winning movie made in 1946 about three WWII veterans returning home after serving in the war. (Yes, the film is on YT.) Many consider it one of the best films regarding WWII ever made. Thank you again, for your reviews of BAND OF BROTHERS!!
Glad you made it through this one. Episode 10 will be a relief. Absolutely hope you'll watch "The Pacific" next, but I know you need a break; here are 3 excellent comedies you might like, all are in the AFI top 100 comedies of all time: "The Jerk" with Steve Martin, "Good Morning Vietnam" with Robin Williams, "Raising Arizona" with Nicolas Cage. I tried to pick movies you haven't seen, but I could be mistaken. Blessings to you...
Thank you Mary.
It's hard to think of a more impactful, better made piece of television than this particular episode. It should be required viewing for everyone, and especially as time goes on, because you're so right, Mary - as we become more separated from these events in time, it's easier to doubt whether they truly happened. The experiences testimonies of men like the Easy Company vets stand as vital reminders of how easily we as a species can give in to the worst sides of our nature, and we can never afford to forget that.
I knew it would Mary. Most of us did. This episode tears me apart every time, too. Thank you for watching.
American soldiers did not know, not until they saw them. I imagine it was worse for the Russians. They saw the worst of them, and they knew exactly what they were looking at. Some of their families were doing the same thing in Siberia at the time.
Yes, I know that we had our own camps for certain groups of people. Those of Japanese descent, to be specific. That was not fair either. Nothing was fair in those days. More came out than went in, at least here.
There's a movie on RUclips called "The Wave" (1981). A california school teacher was teaching his high-school class about this and his students couldn't believe it actually happened. So he teaches them how it happened. I believe there is also a german version, "Die Welle" (2008) re-titled "The Wave" (but I haven't watched that one).
My dad was US Army. When I was in middle school (6-8th grades here) he was stationed in Germany. First in Wildflecken, then Mainz. Germany was a beautiful country withe wonderful people. I love art, architecture, history, and music and Germany has it all in spades. I loved every second...except one. We went to Dachau. I'm glad I went - in a way. It was a very important learning experience for me, but it's not one I can ever repeat. It was too heart shattering.
I wept again while watching your reaction. This is such a brutal episode of television but it is so important. We must never forget.
For what it's worth...I'm from the cav, did a tour. Thanks for posting this. It needs to be remembered.
I second The Best Years of Our Lives - best picture in 1946 about returning American servicemen and trying to adjust to normal life after the war. PTSD, alcoholism, disability, unemployment…
This is an immensely well written and powerful episode. The music at the start, in a German town devastated by war, with German civilians playing a beautiful piece written by a German composer, demonstrates the peak of civilisation which the German culture achieved. Then the episode contrasts this, the German soldiers "marching proud in surrender" but also the horrifying atrocity of the Holocaust that the German people helped (through inaction of the majority and participation of the minority) perpetrate, the depraved depths of the destruction of humanity. Before, finally, ending with the string piece playing, and the news that Hitler, the driving force behind the descent of the German people, is dead, that on one hand the catalyst of the horror is finished, but on the other the impact and consequences of that horror continue. And then the music ends. Story telling at its best.
Another chilling movie to watch is Conspiracy (2001). It is a movie about the meeting to discuss the "Final Solution." It is based off transcripts from the actually meeting. It is incredibly difficult to watch, but powerful.
That is an incredible film. Conspiracy manages to be a horror film done in a Hitchcock style of mostly one location and focused on dialogue. The writing, acting, and directing are sublime.
Great performances allround but Stanley Tucci and Kenneth Brannagh stand out.
The structure of this episode is that we see Easy hardened to the war. They were looting. They did not worry about pushing people out of their homes. You were even expecting sexual assault with the farm girl. In our eyes they weren’t that different from the Germans. And then, all of a sudden, the difference becomes crystal clear. Easy was fighting against an evil they weren’t even aware of.
I'm sorry for the pain and crudity in this episode. My father used to watch this TV series on DVD, I watched just the first episode and this one. I was 10 years old, I could feel the sadness and horror of people who were there. I didn't realize the Nazis murdered people who weren't at the Allied army.
Over 20 years since I first saw this episode, and it's still tough to watch every single time.
You wonder what it takes for a human being to be able to do that sort of thing to another human. Unfortunately, I frequently see comments from people in Britain (and others around the world, of course) where you can see with a little bit more nudging, they'd be doing the same thing. Not necessarily to the same group of people, but dehumanising people of a certain characteristic is definitely not unique to the Nazis, and is unfortunately not completely confined to history.
Just look how the GOP in America dehumanizes queer people in their rhetoric currently. It can happen everywhere, even in places like the US
@bujin1977 I agree with you, but here's an interesting conundrum, is it dehumanising if the object of hate doesn't act human? For me, I'd have no problem with the animals capable of this been shown the same treatment to understand what it feels like for their victims.
Another interesting point is, have you ever noticed victims can sometimes become aggressors? Often atrocities are committed in revenge which are just as bad. A typical situation would be atrocities in the soviet Union. They suffered appallingly, that's true, but the swaft of death brought about when resisting soviet leadership was often just as bad, if not worse
We are a complicated species aren't we?
And Mary was in such a good mood at the start of this episode. I felt bad knowing what was coming...
My grandfathers were in the Pacific, but one of their friends I met was in the European theater and he told me (I was a kid at the time) when his division drove past a camp during the night getting within one mile of it, none of them knowing what that horrible smell was until a day or two later.
I have been to Auschwitz and Birkenau and I cannot describe the absolute scale of the camps, Birkenau is huge and it was being expanded.
There is STILL a feeling that something absolutely unholy happened there, you can feel it in your soul, you don't even hear a single bird singing.
A visit will change you forever.
As always you get to the heart of the episode in your reaction. Some suggestions, "Zero Dark Thirty", "The Verdict", and "The Day of the Jackal' (1973). Episode 10 will satisfy you.
If you're interested, you may want to watch the movie Conspiracy with Kenneth Branaugh, Stanley Tucci and Colin Firth. It's all about the Wannsee Conference, the meeting of high ranking Nazi officials, where they discuss, plan and ultimately implement their Final Solution, to the Jewish question. The movie is based off of the notes taken during the meeting. While there is no violence or gore in the movie, it's still chilling just watching and hearing them discuss such a vile and repugnant topic so casually and with such ease.
You're so sweet. Im so sorry for you to have to see this, and I'm so sorry it ever happened.
"American Graffiti"
Breakthrough movie for George Lucas, Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfus, Harrison Ford, Suzanne Somers, and Cindy Williams. One of the most profitable (box office/cost) movies ever made. In the top 100 movies per AFI. Academy award nomination for Best Picture ("The Sting" won that year... another good suggestion).
I found this information on another person's comment
None of the actors playing American soldiers had seen the concentration camp set, or the extras playing the victims, before they were to film there, and the reactions of most of the cast are genuine. Ross McCall, playing Joe Liebgott, said there were talks of bringing the actors to a camp to prepare them for the scene - but they ultimately decided not to, for the sake of getting honest reactions.
The specific camp that was liberated in this episode was the Ohrdruf Concentration Camp. The liberation occurred on April 4, 1945. The US Army brought in tents and emergency shelters immediately, as well as a volunteer force of medical personnel. The Army began relocating the prisoners as quickly as they could, beginning the day after the camp's liberation. In total it took about a week to get all the prisoners to better accommodations in order to give them medical care and food.
Watching a first time reaction to this episode is as heart wrenching as viewing it myself the first time. Thank you Mary
Not sure which episode is a more difficult watch, this one or the Okinawa episode in The Pacific. Okinawa is definitely more personal for me with my grandfather fighting there. Both brutal episodes.
I'm very late but you made a really good point about you having never seen the camps found before w/out knowledge of their existence.
“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
Easy company was not the American unit to discover this camp, the 12th Armored discovered it. Easy arrived the following day.
Amazing reaction to this show as always Mary. The last few episodes have been very tough but so important we understand what these heroes went through as well as remembering the victims of this awful conflict and the ideology driving it.
If you have not seen them then I'd love you to consider reviews of Scandinavian shows like the Killing or the Bridge, or maybe BBC shows like Sherlock. Stranger Things is coming back on Netflix, The Wire and Sopranos are top of most critic lists but are large series to tackle and not easy subject matters either. If you are going big the personally I think you would love The Expanse, which is great Sci Fi.
08:10 Man carrying older man is speaking Serbian, he is saying "People help, please help, he is still alive, you can still save him"
I was in elementery school when I first watched the series, to hear those words, to understand them, while everything else was subtitled, oh man the filing of dread.
Mary, I completely agree. If you have a chance to visit a nazi camp it is a life changing experience. I visited Mathausen when I was in college. Our group arrived and got off our bus as we were walking in we were just chatting and having fun (not being disrespectful, just being chatty college students). Then we past a family that was coming out and just from seeing them our demeanor changed. There is an aura in a place that has experienced something that evil, you don't know what it is, you just feel it.
I would never say the experience of going there was pleasant, it was not , but it was memorable and impactful and it really drove home just how horrific and evil those events were and why it should never be forgotten.
My following comment is not meant to downplay the horrible (many adjectives required here) camps in Europe. My parents, still living, are survivors of Japanese camps in Indonesia during WW2. Both originally from the Netherlands (now US citizens) were living there as children of Dutch military families. They experienced terrible, horrific conditions, abuse, hard labor, and starvation. Many didn't survive to tell their story but, thank God my parents did. Mary, thank you for reacting to this series. Heel erg bedankt.
A movie from a different perspective, "The Flowers of War" ... A Chinese made movie about the historical 1937 Japanese invasion / massacre of Nanking. So based on a true event but story is based on a novel which was inspired from the diary an American Missionary.
You make me cry, lady.. I had cried a lot when I 1st watch this episode long years ago...