1 00:00:06,639 --> 00:00:11,474 During 1942, the Nazis for the first time began to comb the countries of 2 00:00:11,644 --> 00:00:13,737 Western Europe in pursuit of their 3 00:00:13,913 --> 00:00:17,110 'Final Solution', the extermination of the Jews. 4 00:00:19,000 --> 00:00:25,074 Play one of the best new FPS shooters, search Steam for PROJECT WARLOCK 5 00:00:28,261 --> 00:00:32,391 Even taking Jews from as far afield as the British Channel Islands. 6 00:00:35,735 --> 00:00:38,533 By higher order you and those family members depending 7 00:00:38,705 --> 00:00:40,673 on you shall be evacuated. 8 00:00:41,041 --> 00:00:44,010 "We never saw her again or heard anything about what had happened to her 9 00:00:44,177 --> 00:00:46,338 for 50 years, I mean it's incredible. 10 00:00:47,614 --> 00:00:49,775 When I knew that she died in Auschwitz, 11 00:00:49,949 --> 00:00:53,385 I mean we were, you know, just so upset and horrified." 12 00:00:57,023 --> 00:01:00,584 But as the Nazis at Auschwitz and the other camps in occupied Poland 13 00:01:00,760 --> 00:01:05,891 were to discover, it was one thing to conceive of mass killing on an epic scale, 14 00:01:06,733 --> 00:01:08,826 quite another to be able to carry it out. 15 00:01:12,572 --> 00:01:16,668 But how they solved this murderous problem tells us much about their mentality. 16 00:01:23,283 --> 00:01:29,188 In 1942 through an horrific process of trial and error these Nazis created 17 00:01:29,355 --> 00:01:31,482 something entirely new in History 18 00:01:32,659 --> 00:01:36,220 - Killing factories capable of murdering millions. 19 00:02:08,795 --> 00:02:12,925 The first Jews sent from Western Europe to Auschwitz were from France. 20 00:02:22,575 --> 00:02:25,408 For many German soldiers France was an easy posting 21 00:02:25,979 --> 00:02:28,573 - Far easier than fighting in the East against the Red Army. 22 00:02:33,353 --> 00:02:36,186 Those Germans that were here counted themselves lucky. 23 00:02:44,130 --> 00:02:47,725 But in reality there were relatively few German soldiers in France. 24 00:02:50,470 --> 00:02:53,462 The country had been divided into two zones by the Germans 25 00:02:53,873 --> 00:02:55,932 - Occupied and unoccupied 26 00:02:56,576 --> 00:02:59,170 - But the French administration to a large extent ran both. 27 00:03:00,680 --> 00:03:03,308 So the only way the Nazis could get the Jews out of France 28 00:03:03,483 --> 00:03:06,714 was with the collaboration of the French authorities themselves. 29 00:03:09,422 --> 00:03:13,916 On the 2nd of July 1942 an important meeting was held between the SS 30 00:03:14,093 --> 00:03:18,154 and senior figures from the French police to discuss the mass deportations. 31 00:03:19,299 --> 00:03:22,826 The minutes taken by an SS official reveal that initially the French proposed 32 00:03:23,002 --> 00:03:26,494 co-operating with the Nazis only to a limited extent. 33 00:03:53,433 --> 00:03:55,765 The French authorities knew that if they didn't cooperate 34 00:03:55,935 --> 00:03:57,732 they faced the anger of the Germans. 35 00:03:58,304 --> 00:04:00,738 But they didn't want to hand over French Jews. 36 00:04:01,341 --> 00:04:02,899 So this was their solution: 37 00:04:32,739 --> 00:04:36,573 The French authorities, having decided to hand over foreign Jews, 38 00:04:37,176 --> 00:04:41,806 organised the first round up for the early morning of the 16th of July 1942. 39 00:04:52,091 --> 00:04:54,116 In the 20th Arrondissement of Paris, 40 00:04:54,627 --> 00:04:58,723 French police paid a visit to the Mullers - Originally from Poland. 41 00:05:11,210 --> 00:05:14,737 "In the morning we were very violently woken by knocks on the door 42 00:05:15,682 --> 00:05:18,276 and I saw my mother on her knees on the ground, 43 00:05:18,751 --> 00:05:20,912 with her arms around the legs of two policemen. 44 00:05:26,459 --> 00:05:28,086 She was begging them to leave us. 45 00:05:30,129 --> 00:05:33,030 She was begging them, she was screaming and crying, 46 00:05:34,434 --> 00:05:37,562 and I saw the policemen, well the Inspectors, 47 00:05:37,904 --> 00:05:40,532 who were pushing her back with their feet saying 48 00:05:40,707 --> 00:05:44,234 - Hurry up, hurry up, don't make us waste our time." 49 00:05:45,478 --> 00:05:47,070 Taken away by the French police 50 00:05:47,246 --> 00:05:49,407 that morning were Annette Muller, 51 00:05:49,582 --> 00:05:52,847 her youngest brother Michel, and her mother. 52 00:05:55,555 --> 00:05:58,922 "I remember we were a bit frightened because it was so early in the morning, 53 00:05:59,392 --> 00:06:01,519 they told us to take 3 days worth of food, 54 00:06:01,694 --> 00:06:03,753 I seem to remember they said for three days. 55 00:06:04,297 --> 00:06:05,628 But that didn't worry me, 56 00:06:07,934 --> 00:06:10,596 it wasn't so much that I trusted my country's police 57 00:06:11,070 --> 00:06:13,368 but rather that I completely trusted my mother." 58 00:06:20,613 --> 00:06:22,945 They were taken to a camp much like this one. 59 00:06:23,649 --> 00:06:27,244 Filled with foreigners, many of whom had previously fled to France 60 00:06:27,420 --> 00:06:29,820 in an attempt to escape Nazi persecution. 61 00:06:39,198 --> 00:06:40,529 "I wasn't really that worried. 62 00:06:40,867 --> 00:06:43,392 All I was thinking about was going back for the start of term. 63 00:06:43,970 --> 00:06:45,631 I was wondering what's going to happen. 64 00:06:45,972 --> 00:06:48,236 But I was sure we'd be back for the first day of school. 65 00:06:49,041 --> 00:06:50,372 That was my main concern." 66 00:06:55,848 --> 00:06:57,611 In the early days of the deportations, 67 00:06:57,784 --> 00:07:00,947 the Nazis' immediate request was just for Jewish adults 68 00:07:01,487 --> 00:07:03,352 - Who would then be worked to death. 69 00:07:04,824 --> 00:07:07,691 So Adolf Eichmann of the SS who was organizing 70 00:07:07,860 --> 00:07:10,795 the deportations did not initially give permission 71 00:07:10,963 --> 00:07:13,591 for the children to be sent East with their parents. 72 00:07:22,141 --> 00:07:25,907 So in early August 1942, at the camp at Beaune- La- Rolande, 73 00:07:26,446 --> 00:07:28,778 the French police broke up the families. 74 00:07:38,324 --> 00:07:39,985 "The police beat the women back, 75 00:07:40,159 --> 00:07:42,423 while we children were holding onto their clothing. 76 00:07:43,863 --> 00:07:45,296 They sprayed us with water." 77 00:07:47,500 --> 00:07:49,195 "And there were some very small children there. 78 00:07:49,368 --> 00:07:50,665 I remember people crying. 79 00:07:51,737 --> 00:07:55,537 Then all of a sudden, when the vehicle with the mounted machine-gun arrived, 80 00:07:55,975 --> 00:07:58,466 there was a silence, a terrible silence." 81 00:08:02,148 --> 00:08:04,082 "My mother was in the first row of the women 82 00:08:06,752 --> 00:08:08,652 and she signalled to us with her eyes. 83 00:08:10,590 --> 00:08:13,718 Michel was crying. We were watching her 84 00:08:14,227 --> 00:08:16,457 and that's the last image I have of my mother, 85 00:08:16,863 --> 00:08:19,957 because then they took the women away and we children were left alone." 86 00:08:27,473 --> 00:08:28,804 Over the next few weeks, 87 00:08:28,975 --> 00:08:32,604 the children who had been taken from their parents were transferred here, 88 00:08:33,246 --> 00:08:35,771 to Drancy in the suburbs of Paris. 89 00:08:44,090 --> 00:08:46,786 This makeshift concentration camp was built around 90 00:08:46,959 --> 00:08:49,951 a semi-completed complex of low cost housing. 91 00:09:01,107 --> 00:09:04,565 The eldest of the newly arrived children was around 14 years old, 92 00:09:05,444 --> 00:09:07,537 the youngest about 2. 93 00:09:11,984 --> 00:09:14,578 A handful of the adults already imprisoned at Drancy 94 00:09:14,754 --> 00:09:16,278 tried to do what they could for them. 95 00:09:19,125 --> 00:09:22,617 "The children were surrounded by these little insects 96 00:09:23,696 --> 00:09:26,631 and their appearance was already lamentable. 97 00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:32,835 They were very, very dirty and all of them had dysentery. 98 00:09:36,742 --> 00:09:39,575 We tried first of all to make lists of their names 99 00:09:39,745 --> 00:09:42,578 but most of them didn't know their family names 100 00:09:43,115 --> 00:09:47,313 so they just said things like - 'I'm Pierre's little brother. ' 101 00:09:58,798 --> 00:10:02,199 "They put us into little rooms where we slept on the cement floor 102 00:10:04,503 --> 00:10:07,700 and we had to take care not to slip on the steps in the stairwell 103 00:10:08,307 --> 00:10:10,502 because there was so much excrement on them. 104 00:10:11,978 --> 00:10:14,037 It was like walking through a nightmare." 105 00:10:22,722 --> 00:10:24,815 After a short period in Drancy, 106 00:10:25,191 --> 00:10:27,455 with permission having been granted from Berlin, 107 00:10:28,361 --> 00:10:31,592 the children were collected together to begin the journey to the East. 108 00:10:38,704 --> 00:10:42,333 "We always lied to them, we always told 109 00:10:42,508 --> 00:10:45,170 that them you're going to find your parents again, 110 00:10:45,711 --> 00:10:48,305 but despite what we said they didn't believe us. 111 00:10:49,048 --> 00:10:52,313 Strangely, they suspected what was going to happen. 112 00:10:53,285 --> 00:10:58,052 Many of them said to my friends and myself 'Madame, adopt me' 113 00:10:58,557 --> 00:11:00,718 because they wanted to stay at the camp. 114 00:11:01,694 --> 00:11:05,357 Even though it was very bad there, they didn't want to go any further. 115 00:11:05,998 --> 00:11:09,764 So the morning before their departure we dressed them the best we could, 116 00:11:10,336 --> 00:11:14,033 most of them couldn't even carry their little bags." 117 00:11:21,447 --> 00:11:23,574 "I believe that it's the worse thing 118 00:11:23,749 --> 00:11:29,016 that can happen and of course I still think about it." 119 00:11:33,092 --> 00:11:35,856 Michel and Annette Muller were spirited away to safety 120 00:11:36,028 --> 00:11:38,997 because their father had managed to bribe French officials. 121 00:11:39,965 --> 00:11:44,402 Their mother, after being forcibly taken from them, died at Auschwitz. 122 00:11:45,304 --> 00:11:49,035 But as Michel sees it, it's notjust the Germans who were to blame. 123 00:11:51,444 --> 00:11:54,277 "They arrested people simply because they were born Jewish. 124 00:11:54,980 --> 00:11:56,845 That French people should do that 125 00:11:57,016 --> 00:12:00,247 is still beyond me, even 60 years later." 126 00:12:08,060 --> 00:12:12,690 In August 1941, around 4,100 children were put onto trains 127 00:12:12,865 --> 00:12:15,299 and sent East packed into freight trucks, 128 00:12:16,068 --> 00:12:20,061 mixed in with adults from Drancy - Total strangers. 129 00:12:32,151 --> 00:12:34,381 Theirjourney lasted two days and nights. 130 00:12:35,020 --> 00:12:39,616 Until they arrived here: the ramp at Auschwitz. 131 00:13:12,491 --> 00:13:14,550 There are few living witnesses left to testify 132 00:13:14,727 --> 00:13:17,287 to the scenes on arrival here at the ramp 133 00:13:17,763 --> 00:13:20,095 Still fewer who were members of the SS. 134 00:13:21,500 --> 00:13:23,695 But shortly after the French children arrived, 135 00:13:23,969 --> 00:13:27,666 SS private Oskar Groning began work at Auschwitz. 136 00:13:33,779 --> 00:13:37,044 "It was not long before I was assigned 137 00:13:37,349 --> 00:13:41,547 to supervise the luggage collection of an incoming transport. 138 00:13:44,390 --> 00:13:47,917 When this was over, it was just like a fairground, 139 00:13:48,627 --> 00:13:50,561 there was lots of rubbish left 140 00:13:51,130 --> 00:13:56,124 and amongst this rubbish were ill people, those unable to walk. 141 00:14:01,106 --> 00:14:05,475 And the way these people were treated really horrified me. 142 00:14:07,246 --> 00:14:14,152 For example, a child who was lying there naked was simply pulled by the legs 143 00:14:14,453 --> 00:14:17,650 and chucked into a lorry to be driven away, 144 00:14:19,058 --> 00:14:21,549 and when it screamed like a sick chicken, 145 00:14:22,494 --> 00:14:26,988 then they bashed it against the edge of the lorry, so it shut up." 146 00:14:43,349 --> 00:14:45,146 The children from France were transported 147 00:14:45,317 --> 00:14:49,447 just under two miles from the ramp up to the camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau 148 00:14:49,922 --> 00:14:53,323 and on to one of two cottages in the far corner of the complex. 149 00:14:56,629 --> 00:14:59,325 Here the Nazis had improvised gas chambers. 150 00:15:02,468 --> 00:15:06,131 The children were locked in a room and crystals of the poisonous insecticide, 151 00:15:06,305 --> 00:15:09,763 Zyklon B, thrown in through a hatch high in the wall. 152 00:15:12,778 --> 00:15:14,712 More than four thousand children were sent 153 00:15:14,880 --> 00:15:17,576 without their parents from France to Auschwitz. 154 00:15:18,918 --> 00:15:20,647 Every single one of them died. 155 00:15:25,891 --> 00:15:29,327 And in the autumn of 1942 Oskar Groning believed 156 00:15:29,495 --> 00:15:31,827 that this appalling crime was justifiable. 157 00:15:34,400 --> 00:15:36,630 "We were convinced by our world view 158 00:15:36,802 --> 00:15:40,135 that we had been betrayed by the entire world, 159 00:15:40,439 --> 00:15:44,102 and that there was a great conspiracy of the Jews against us." 160 00:15:47,313 --> 00:15:49,304 "But surely, when it comes to children 161 00:15:50,783 --> 00:15:53,911 you must realise that they cannot possibly have done anything to you?" 162 00:15:56,455 --> 00:15:59,754 "The children, they're not the enemy at the moment. 163 00:16:00,459 --> 00:16:03,553 The enemy is the blood inside them. 164 00:16:04,463 --> 00:16:08,832 The enemy is the growing up to be a Jew that could become dangerous. 165 00:16:09,201 --> 00:16:12,898 And because of that the children were included as well." 166 00:16:15,908 --> 00:16:18,536 While Oskar Groning certainly subscribed at the time 167 00:16:18,711 --> 00:16:21,839 to the Nazi delusion of a world Jewish conspiracy, 168 00:16:22,481 --> 00:16:24,915 he did not take part directly in the killing. 169 00:16:25,751 --> 00:16:27,742 Nor did he want to remain at Auschwitz. 170 00:16:28,554 --> 00:16:33,856 Documents confirm he later applied for a transfer to the front- Which was refused. 171 00:16:36,729 --> 00:16:41,291 So he carried on working at the main camp two miles southeast of Auschwitz-Birkenau. 172 00:16:42,534 --> 00:16:43,796 His job here was to sort out 173 00:16:43,969 --> 00:16:47,496 and count the money stolen from the arriving transports of Jews 174 00:16:47,940 --> 00:16:50,204 and to organise its transfer to Berlin. 175 00:16:56,348 --> 00:16:59,943 While the main motivation for the "Final Solution" was ideological, 176 00:17:00,652 --> 00:17:01,949 the Nazis' were also well aware 177 00:17:02,121 --> 00:17:04,715 that they could benefit financially from the crime. 178 00:17:06,859 --> 00:17:12,798 During 1942 around 200,000 Jews were sent to Auschwitz from all over Europe 179 00:17:13,399 --> 00:17:18,632 - From France, Holland, Belgium, Yugoslavia, Poland, 180 00:17:19,238 --> 00:17:23,675 - The Czech lands, Slovakia, Austria, and Germany. 181 00:17:25,044 --> 00:17:28,309 About 70% of them were murdered immediately upon arrival. 182 00:17:30,716 --> 00:17:32,240 Before they had been taken away, 183 00:17:32,418 --> 00:17:33,544 they had been told by the Nazis 184 00:17:33,719 --> 00:17:37,052 to leave behind their money and belongings for safekeeping. 185 00:17:40,826 --> 00:17:44,922 "In my job as administrator of these foreign currencies 186 00:17:45,297 --> 00:17:48,733 I saw practically all the currencies of the world. 187 00:17:51,236 --> 00:17:57,573 Believe it or not, I saw them from the Italian Lira to Spanish Pesetas, 188 00:17:57,843 --> 00:18:03,907 to Hungarian and Mexican currencies, from Dollars to the English Pound." 189 00:18:05,984 --> 00:18:08,976 And perhaps Oskar Groning dealt with English pounds 190 00:18:09,154 --> 00:18:11,816 because of what happened here in the Channel Islands. 191 00:18:13,025 --> 00:18:15,789 900 miles from Auschwitz geographically, 192 00:18:16,595 --> 00:18:19,462 but, by any other measure, light years away. 193 00:18:24,570 --> 00:18:27,300 The Channel Islands were famous before the war as a gentle 194 00:18:27,473 --> 00:18:29,407 and friendly holiday destination. 195 00:18:39,184 --> 00:18:43,553 The Potts family from Kent travelled to the Channel Islands in 1939. 196 00:18:44,189 --> 00:18:46,623 With them was their Nanny, Therese Steiner, 197 00:18:46,892 --> 00:18:48,621 who had sought safety in Britain from growing 198 00:18:48,794 --> 00:18:51,319 anti-Semitism in her homeland, Austria. 199 00:18:53,899 --> 00:18:56,925 "We em, got to love her really because we, we saw a lot of her, 200 00:18:57,102 --> 00:19:00,367 I mean she was with us all the time really and em, 201 00:19:00,606 --> 00:19:01,595 especially in the Channel Islands" 202 00:19:01,773 --> 00:19:03,331 "It was like having two mothers really." 203 00:19:04,776 --> 00:19:08,610 In Spring 1940 when the Potts family decided to return to England, 204 00:19:09,414 --> 00:19:12,747 the British Channel Islands authorities followed Home Office guidelines 205 00:19:12,918 --> 00:19:15,250 and refused to let Therese go with them. 206 00:19:16,054 --> 00:19:19,387 As an Austrian they classed her as an 'enemy alien'. 207 00:19:20,792 --> 00:19:22,521 "Although my mother pleaded with them, 208 00:19:22,694 --> 00:19:24,685 they came the next day and took her away. 209 00:19:25,230 --> 00:19:27,198 And in fact we never saw her again. 210 00:19:27,533 --> 00:19:29,626 I think there were anti-Semitic people there, 211 00:19:29,801 --> 00:19:32,463 there was, should I tell you something about this man who's, 212 00:19:32,638 --> 00:19:34,162 who actually said to my mother, 213 00:19:34,573 --> 00:19:38,236 'lf you must trail Jewesses about after you what do you expect? ' 214 00:19:38,744 --> 00:19:41,907 So she told me, which is pretty disgusting." 215 00:19:49,054 --> 00:19:51,648 This meant that Therese was trapped in the Channel Islands 216 00:19:51,823 --> 00:19:54,519 when the Germans invaded in the Summer of 1940. 217 00:19:58,463 --> 00:20:01,057 German propaganda made much of the co-operative attitude 218 00:20:01,233 --> 00:20:05,397 of many of the Channel Islanders - Including the famed British Bobbies 219 00:20:08,840 --> 00:20:11,001 And it was the police on Guernsey that organized 220 00:20:11,176 --> 00:20:15,135 the registration of Jews on the island at the Germans' behest. 221 00:20:16,882 --> 00:20:19,476 A total of four Jews registered on Guernsey, 222 00:20:19,952 --> 00:20:22,182 twelve on the neighbouring island of Jersey. 223 00:20:31,930 --> 00:20:36,390 One of the Jews who registered on Guernsey in the autumn of 1940 was Therese Steiner 224 00:20:37,002 --> 00:20:40,369 - Like the others her card was marked with a red J. 225 00:20:47,112 --> 00:20:49,979 Eighteen months afterwards, in April 1942, 226 00:20:50,649 --> 00:20:54,244 three foreign Jews on Guernsey - Auguste Spitz, 227 00:20:54,419 --> 00:20:57,047 Marianne Grunfeld and Therese herself 228 00:20:57,689 --> 00:21:00,180 - Were summoned to the central police station on the island. 229 00:21:02,227 --> 00:21:05,219 Therese's appointment was with Sergeant Ernest Plevin. 230 00:21:06,865 --> 00:21:11,825 "You will have to appear on the 21st of April 1942 at 19.00 231 00:21:12,004 --> 00:21:14,234 at the Weighbridge in St Peter Port. 232 00:21:17,843 --> 00:21:19,936 You have to take with you this order together 233 00:21:20,112 --> 00:21:22,137 with papers proving your identity. 234 00:21:23,949 --> 00:21:26,543 You should fit yourself with warm clothes and provisions, 235 00:21:28,086 --> 00:21:30,611 but your luggage must not be heavier than you can carry." 236 00:21:38,330 --> 00:21:40,059 "I've still got a picture in my mind. 237 00:21:40,432 --> 00:21:44,869 I was taking her down to a white truck, 2 of us went down with her 238 00:21:45,037 --> 00:21:47,665 and I think we must have taken her suitcase on a bike, 239 00:21:48,307 --> 00:21:51,071 wheeled it you know as one does and em, 240 00:21:51,810 --> 00:21:55,177 we stood there saying goodbye and seeing her go through the, 241 00:21:55,547 --> 00:21:58,482 this gateway in the valley and she was waving, 242 00:21:58,650 --> 00:21:59,878 she went and that was it. 243 00:22:02,921 --> 00:22:04,752 It was all a mystery where had she gone, 244 00:22:05,023 --> 00:22:06,320 you know you sort of hoped that 245 00:22:06,491 --> 00:22:09,392 she would come back but eventually she didn't. 246 00:22:12,531 --> 00:22:15,728 It was all outside our experience really wasn't it. 247 00:22:15,901 --> 00:22:18,062 Things like that didn't happen in England." 248 00:22:22,808 --> 00:22:25,106 Neither the authorities in Guernsey nor in France 249 00:22:25,277 --> 00:22:27,973 knew that the Jews they handed over were to be murdered. 250 00:22:28,947 --> 00:22:33,509 But they did know all too well how much the Nazis hated the Jews. 251 00:22:37,089 --> 00:22:40,081 After a few weeks in France the three women deported from Guernsey 252 00:22:40,258 --> 00:22:43,386 were arrested during the round-ups of July 1942 253 00:22:44,363 --> 00:22:46,160 and transported to Auschwitz. 254 00:22:48,166 --> 00:22:49,690 All three of them died there. 255 00:23:01,146 --> 00:23:04,775 The same month that the three deportees from Guernsey arrived at Auschwitz, 256 00:23:05,484 --> 00:23:07,349 Heinrich Himmler, one of the leading figures 257 00:23:07,519 --> 00:23:10,955 behind the Nazis' programme of mass murder visited the camp. 258 00:23:15,026 --> 00:23:18,120 By now there were about 30,000 prisoners in Auschwitz 259 00:23:18,630 --> 00:23:21,622 - Most of them either Jews or Polish political prisoners. 260 00:23:26,905 --> 00:23:30,102 Himmler inspected the huge expansion of the camp complex 261 00:23:30,842 --> 00:23:34,334 - The main camp, the extension at Birkenau 262 00:23:35,514 --> 00:23:39,177 and the building of the giant synthetic rubber factory at nearby Monowitz. 263 00:23:45,190 --> 00:23:49,126 He even witnessed the murder of Jews in one of the gas chambers in Auschwitz, 264 00:23:49,995 --> 00:23:54,091 a portion of his itinerary omitted from the photographic record of his visit. 265 00:23:57,402 --> 00:23:59,370 Himmler was pleased with what he'd seen. 266 00:23:59,738 --> 00:24:02,935 So much so that he immediately promoted the commandant of the camp, 267 00:24:07,712 --> 00:24:11,512 Rudolf Hoss, the man who oversaw all this horror, 268 00:24:12,451 --> 00:24:14,646 was made SS Lieutenant Colonel. 269 00:24:20,926 --> 00:24:22,917 Hoss had created a comfortable life for himself 270 00:24:23,094 --> 00:24:24,618 and his family at Auschwitz. 271 00:24:25,263 --> 00:24:27,823 They all lived together in a house on the edge of the main camp. 272 00:24:33,405 --> 00:24:36,374 But life for prisoners here on the other side of the wire 273 00:24:36,842 --> 00:24:38,400 - Inside the main camp 274 00:24:39,311 --> 00:24:43,714 - Was a struggle against starvation, disease and appalling physical abuse. 275 00:24:45,383 --> 00:24:48,750 A battle Kazimierz Piechowski fought every day. 276 00:24:52,691 --> 00:24:55,182 "I was very healthy, very strong 277 00:24:56,328 --> 00:24:59,320 and this helped me in the camp because even if someone was young, 278 00:25:00,131 --> 00:25:03,100 if he was a mummy's boy, he had no chance. 279 00:25:04,870 --> 00:25:08,169 You had to be hard, you had to have a strong will, 280 00:25:08,807 --> 00:25:11,503 to say to yourself: I must survive." 281 00:25:13,879 --> 00:25:15,847 And in order to ensure his survival, 282 00:25:16,548 --> 00:25:19,449 in the summer of 1942, Kazimierz Piechowski 283 00:25:19,618 --> 00:25:23,076 attempted one of the most daring escapes in the history of Auschwitz. 284 00:25:26,124 --> 00:25:27,989 On Saturday, the 20th of June, 285 00:25:28,426 --> 00:25:30,986 Piechowski and three other Polish political prisoners 286 00:25:31,162 --> 00:25:34,029 walked out of the gate of the main camp towards their normal place 287 00:25:34,199 --> 00:25:36,224 of work a few hundred metres away. 288 00:25:39,204 --> 00:25:41,968 Unnoticed they managed to break into a storeroom 289 00:25:42,140 --> 00:25:45,871 where the SS kept their uniform supplies, guns and ammunition. 290 00:25:51,283 --> 00:25:53,274 They quickly dressed themselves as SS. 291 00:25:55,921 --> 00:25:58,856 They planned not to use the guns they took to shoot any Germans, 292 00:25:59,524 --> 00:26:00,786 knowing that the retribution which would 293 00:26:00,959 --> 00:26:04,156 then be taken on the rest of the inmates in the camp would be horrific. 294 00:26:05,397 --> 00:26:07,331 Instead, if they were stopped at the final check point 295 00:26:07,499 --> 00:26:11,094 on the outside perimeter, they planned to kill themselves. 296 00:26:17,776 --> 00:26:20,609 Because one of the prisoners also worked in the SS garage 297 00:26:20,845 --> 00:26:22,676 - Which was closed because it was a weekend 298 00:26:23,315 --> 00:26:25,044 - They also managed to steal a car. 299 00:26:28,353 --> 00:26:32,722 They were taking a massive risk, one on which their very lives depended. 300 00:26:36,595 --> 00:26:39,462 "The problem was whether they would let us through without a pass, 301 00:26:40,065 --> 00:26:42,431 without documents, without anything. 302 00:26:43,768 --> 00:26:46,236 But we believed: yes, they would." 303 00:26:48,273 --> 00:26:50,400 "We still have 80 metres to go, 304 00:26:51,242 --> 00:26:54,006 but Genek has already reduced the engine to 2nd gear 305 00:26:54,479 --> 00:26:55,946 because the barrier is down. 306 00:26:59,751 --> 00:27:03,949 We have 50 metres to go. The barrier is still down. 307 00:27:05,123 --> 00:27:07,990 And then we have literally 15 metres to the barrier. 308 00:27:08,994 --> 00:27:10,621 I switched off and I'm thinking, 309 00:27:11,730 --> 00:27:14,665 'lt's time to kill ourselves, just as we'd agreed. ' 310 00:27:15,867 --> 00:27:18,358 And at that moment I got a thump on my back 311 00:27:18,837 --> 00:27:22,864 and Jozek is hissing in my ear: 'Kazik, do something! ' 312 00:27:24,142 --> 00:27:28,841 I came to my senses: that's right, they're counting on me." 313 00:27:55,473 --> 00:27:59,102 "You could say it was euphoria. We were all pleased. 314 00:28:01,112 --> 00:28:03,774 We were young, free, armed. 315 00:28:04,883 --> 00:28:06,180 We realised that it wouldn't be easy 316 00:28:06,351 --> 00:28:09,684 to get us back into that hell - Into Auschwitz." 317 00:28:15,060 --> 00:28:17,654 Weeks after Piechowski's successful escape, 318 00:28:17,829 --> 00:28:19,922 Hoss like other commandants 319 00:28:20,365 --> 00:28:22,356 - Received notice of the extreme displeasure 320 00:28:22,534 --> 00:28:25,094 of the SS Inspector of Concentration Camps. 321 00:28:33,478 --> 00:28:38,609 Security had to be improved - Especially given what was to come. 322 00:28:45,890 --> 00:28:47,790 For in the summer of 1942, 323 00:28:48,226 --> 00:28:50,854 Himmler issued a secret order of great significance 324 00:28:51,029 --> 00:28:55,557 for Polish Jews many of whom were imprisoned here in the Warsaw ghetto. 325 00:29:02,040 --> 00:29:05,806 On the 19th of July Himmler decreed that all Polish Jews 326 00:29:05,977 --> 00:29:07,740 in the huge surrounding area the Nazis 327 00:29:07,912 --> 00:29:11,814 called the General Government should be 'resettled' 328 00:29:12,617 --> 00:29:16,246 - By which he meant 'murdered' - By the end of 1942. 329 00:29:17,889 --> 00:29:20,084 This amounted to some 2 million people 330 00:29:20,959 --> 00:29:23,519 - Hundreds of thousands in the Warsaw ghetto alone. 331 00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:32,692 Himmler did not use Auschwitz to murder so many people so quickly 332 00:29:33,404 --> 00:29:35,395 but turned to more recent creations, 333 00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:40,340 places which unlike Auschwitz were pure factories of death. 334 00:29:45,517 --> 00:29:49,476 What would become the most deadly of them all was situated here, 335 00:29:49,921 --> 00:29:52,219 60 miles north east of Warsaw. 336 00:29:58,296 --> 00:30:01,356 About 900,000 people were killed at Treblinka. 337 00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:06,400 It was second only to Auschwitz as the most murderous place in the Nazi state. 338 00:30:08,439 --> 00:30:11,306 All that's left today is a clearing in a forest. 339 00:30:12,677 --> 00:30:16,408 This secret place was destroyed by the Nazis before the war was over. 340 00:30:17,715 --> 00:30:19,706 But thanks to evidence from eye-witnesses 341 00:30:20,485 --> 00:30:23,215 it's possible to reconstruct the plan of the camp. 342 00:30:24,689 --> 00:30:27,351 It was a place very different from Auschwitz-Birkenau. 343 00:30:29,794 --> 00:30:36,290 Treblinka was, by comparison, tiny: 400 metres by 600. 344 00:30:39,037 --> 00:30:42,973 Treblinka was small because it only had one purpose- Murder. 345 00:30:45,210 --> 00:30:49,237 99% of the Jews were dead within two hours of arriving at the camp, 346 00:30:50,315 --> 00:30:53,341 poisoned by exhaust fumes in Treblinka's gas chambers. 347 00:30:57,856 --> 00:31:00,882 "I'll never forget what I saw - Not 'til my dying day. 348 00:31:02,527 --> 00:31:04,961 Those little children, those people 349 00:31:05,430 --> 00:31:08,593 - What did they ever do to anyone? What did they ever do? 350 00:31:14,405 --> 00:31:15,929 It was a terrible thing." 351 00:31:19,777 --> 00:31:23,645 During the early weeks of the camp's operation there was utter chaos. 352 00:31:24,682 --> 00:31:26,445 The gas chambers broke down, 353 00:31:27,218 --> 00:31:29,482 arriving trains were kept waiting for days 354 00:31:30,388 --> 00:31:33,118 and hundreds of bodies lay around unburied. 355 00:31:36,728 --> 00:31:40,027 "The decomposing human corpses caused such a stench, 356 00:31:40,465 --> 00:31:41,898 and it was just terrible. 357 00:31:43,001 --> 00:31:44,764 You couldn't go out into the yard, 358 00:31:45,203 --> 00:31:48,400 no way could you open a window or go outside." 359 00:31:52,143 --> 00:31:55,078 The situation at Treblinka was spiraling out of control. 360 00:31:56,547 --> 00:31:58,708 Which is why at the end of August 1942 361 00:31:58,883 --> 00:32:01,750 senior SS officers traveled towards the camp. 362 00:32:06,024 --> 00:32:09,790 We know who they were and what was said because of the later testimony 363 00:32:09,961 --> 00:32:13,829 of SS Sergeant Josef Oberhauser who witnessed it all. 364 00:32:19,704 --> 00:32:21,729 The officers were Christian Wirth 365 00:32:22,040 --> 00:32:24,304 - Who had been appointed inspector of the death camps 366 00:32:25,143 --> 00:32:28,772 - And his superior, SS Major General Odilo Globocnik. 367 00:32:40,425 --> 00:32:41,892 For the Commandant of Treblinka, 368 00:32:42,060 --> 00:32:46,429 Dr Irmfried Eberl, their visit brought disturbing news. 369 00:33:11,923 --> 00:33:13,390 The Nazi leadership had embarked upon 370 00:33:13,558 --> 00:33:16,288 their programme of mass killing with minimal preparation 371 00:33:16,928 --> 00:33:18,896 - As they saw it they could solve any problems 372 00:33:19,063 --> 00:33:24,228 - That were created as they went along. Dr Eberl had become a problem. 373 00:33:45,423 --> 00:33:47,414 As SS Major General Globocnik saw it, 374 00:33:47,692 --> 00:33:50,320 Eberl's crime was not that he had committed mass murder 375 00:33:50,828 --> 00:33:54,389 - But that he had not pursued the killings with efficiency and in secret. 376 00:33:57,635 --> 00:33:59,933 At Auschwitz, Hoss faced the same difficulty 377 00:34:00,104 --> 00:34:02,595 that had confronted Dr Eberl at Treblinka. 378 00:34:03,241 --> 00:34:06,005 Disposing of thousands upon thousands of bodies. 379 00:34:07,378 --> 00:34:09,846 At first he had them buried in this large field. 380 00:34:17,388 --> 00:34:19,447 But in the heat of the summer they putrefied. 381 00:34:20,358 --> 00:34:23,794 So special units of Jewish prisoners were ordered to exhume them. 382 00:34:28,032 --> 00:34:30,262 "We had to dig the bodies out and burn them. 383 00:34:32,203 --> 00:34:33,602 A big fire was made here with wood 384 00:34:33,771 --> 00:34:37,502 and petrol and we were throwing them right into it. 385 00:34:39,744 --> 00:34:42,076 There were always 2 of us throwing the bodies in 386 00:34:43,448 --> 00:34:46,144 - One holding the legs and one on the arms. 387 00:34:48,386 --> 00:34:50,251 The smell and the stench was terrible. 388 00:34:52,590 --> 00:34:54,990 The bodies were not only bloody but rotten as well. 389 00:34:56,694 --> 00:34:58,992 We were given some rags to put over our faces." 390 00:35:07,805 --> 00:35:10,137 "The SS men were constantly drinking vodka 391 00:35:10,308 --> 00:35:13,106 or cognac or something else from their bottles 392 00:35:14,779 --> 00:35:18,044 - They couldn't cope with it either, it was terrible." 393 00:35:23,121 --> 00:35:27,387 "It was terrible, one can never forget it, it should not have happened." 394 00:35:31,662 --> 00:35:33,289 "I'm here now to make sure that history 395 00:35:33,464 --> 00:35:35,364 will not forget what happened here... 396 00:35:37,468 --> 00:35:42,906 that people were killed here, that they were burned and killed here. 397 00:35:45,343 --> 00:35:48,801 They were killed worse than animals. Worse." 398 00:35:55,319 --> 00:35:58,186 In order to make Auschwitz a more efficient killing factory 399 00:35:58,756 --> 00:36:02,089 Hoss had sought advice from the SS expert in body disposal. 400 00:36:04,095 --> 00:36:07,360 In September 1942, Hoss made a special journey 401 00:36:07,532 --> 00:36:11,559 to a remote area of Poland near the small village of Chelmno. 402 00:36:16,374 --> 00:36:20,333 We know the purpose of his visit and what was said from Hoss' own memoirs, 403 00:36:20,845 --> 00:36:22,176 and from other testimony. 404 00:36:29,954 --> 00:36:32,684 Hoss wanted to meet SS Colonel Paul Blobel 405 00:36:33,457 --> 00:36:36,585 and examine first hand his new field cremation units. 406 00:37:18,703 --> 00:37:21,570 It was this willingness to overcome the practical difficulties 407 00:37:21,739 --> 00:37:25,470 of mass murder that helped the Nazis pursue Himmler's dream 408 00:37:26,344 --> 00:37:30,075 to murder millions of Polish Jews by the end of 1942. 409 00:37:36,087 --> 00:37:38,521 In the wake of Himmler's order of the 19th July, 410 00:37:39,223 --> 00:37:41,919 round-ups were held in hundreds of towns and villages. 411 00:38:15,760 --> 00:38:19,992 But the deportations in Poland did not always go the way the Nazis wanted. 412 00:38:25,136 --> 00:38:28,299 The Jews of Przemysl, in the summer of 1942, 413 00:38:28,572 --> 00:38:31,666 heard a rumour that it was shortly to be their turn to be deported. 414 00:38:33,511 --> 00:38:36,071 The ghetto had been sealed on 15 July 1942. 415 00:38:36,947 --> 00:38:38,744 Now, less than 2 weeks later, 416 00:38:39,517 --> 00:38:42,645 the SS wanted to transport the Jews to their deaths. 417 00:39:05,309 --> 00:39:07,539 At the German Army headquarters in Przemysl, 418 00:39:07,845 --> 00:39:11,611 Lieutenant Albert Battel heard the news of the impending deportations. 419 00:39:19,457 --> 00:39:21,948 Before the war, Battel, who was trained as a lawyer, 420 00:39:22,193 --> 00:39:24,184 had been in trouble with Nazis party officials 421 00:39:24,362 --> 00:39:27,331 because he had been decent and polite towards Jews. 422 00:39:29,300 --> 00:39:33,828 Now, he was furious about the planned SS operation against the Jews of Przemysl. 423 00:39:36,674 --> 00:39:39,802 On the 26th July Battel gathered trucks together 424 00:39:39,977 --> 00:39:43,811 and drove up to the ghetto to take away the Jews who worked for the army. 425 00:39:46,917 --> 00:39:49,215 He had the support of his superiors in the German army 426 00:39:49,387 --> 00:39:50,945 to resist the deportations. 427 00:39:51,756 --> 00:39:54,953 They were anxious not to lose their source of Jewish forced labour. 428 00:40:00,831 --> 00:40:03,800 Once Battel arrived he harangued the guards on duty. 429 00:40:06,103 --> 00:40:09,869 He threatened to force entry by requesting that a platoon of soldiers be sent. 430 00:40:12,376 --> 00:40:15,106 It was obvious to the guards on duty outside the ghetto 431 00:40:16,247 --> 00:40:18,272 - Battel wasn't going to give up lightly. 432 00:40:28,426 --> 00:40:30,587 "Well, he had to have guts to do that, 433 00:40:31,629 --> 00:40:35,156 to get trucks into the ghetto and get out the Jews, 434 00:40:35,733 --> 00:40:40,761 it wasn't, it wasn't the thing you know the average German would do. 435 00:40:41,405 --> 00:40:45,933 Everybody thought that this is a heroic thing to do." 436 00:40:59,423 --> 00:41:09,298 "He was a very nice human being, he was a lawyer, you know, 437 00:41:10,267 --> 00:41:13,600 but with lawyers there's good lawyers and bad lawyers." 438 00:41:18,909 --> 00:41:23,107 Battel even sheltered many of the Jews in the basement of the Army headquarters. 439 00:41:26,784 --> 00:41:29,810 Shortly after hiding the Jews he was transferred from his post. 440 00:41:32,590 --> 00:41:36,117 A secret investigation into the incident by the SS reached Himmler 441 00:41:37,495 --> 00:41:40,123 who noted that Battel should be arrested after the war 442 00:41:40,731 --> 00:41:42,699 and expelled from the Nazi party. 443 00:41:51,041 --> 00:41:54,442 In 1981, nearly thirty years after his death, 444 00:41:55,312 --> 00:41:58,645 Battel was awarded the title 'Righteous Among The Nations' 445 00:41:59,216 --> 00:42:01,548 at Yad Vashem here in Israel. 446 00:42:03,287 --> 00:42:07,189 A tree planted in his honour grows in Yad Vashem's 'Garden of the Righteous' 447 00:42:08,058 --> 00:42:09,719 - A reminder that not every German, 448 00:42:09,894 --> 00:42:14,092 when called upon, participated in the Nazis' 'Final Solution' 449 00:42:23,240 --> 00:42:25,572 But for every Lieutenant Albert Battel 450 00:42:26,210 --> 00:42:28,804 there were countless more willing perpetrators. 451 00:42:29,980 --> 00:42:33,347 And one of the most enthusiastic worked here at Treblinka 452 00:42:37,821 --> 00:42:40,949 By the end of 1942 the new Commandant, Franz Stangl, 453 00:42:41,125 --> 00:42:43,423 had overseen the transformation of the camp. 454 00:42:46,564 --> 00:42:49,863 The Nazis' journey at Treblinka to perfect a large scale method 455 00:42:50,034 --> 00:42:52,798 of killing had finally been completed. 456 00:42:54,438 --> 00:42:56,872 Gone was the chaos of Dr Eberl's rule. 457 00:42:57,808 --> 00:43:00,106 Now Stangl ran a death camp whose true purpose 458 00:43:00,277 --> 00:43:02,837 was even hidden from unsuspecting new arrivals 459 00:43:08,218 --> 00:43:10,311 "There were flowers planted on the ground 460 00:43:11,221 --> 00:43:14,190 and of course people couldn't imagine where they were. 461 00:43:17,695 --> 00:43:21,028 He painted the huts and put up all sorts of signs as 462 00:43:21,198 --> 00:43:23,098 if it was a real railway station. 463 00:43:26,036 --> 00:43:28,834 I remember that once one of them said these words, 464 00:43:29,873 --> 00:43:31,431 I'll never forget these words, 465 00:43:34,044 --> 00:43:40,677 he said it in German: 'Come quickly because the water is getting cold. ' 466 00:43:42,820 --> 00:43:44,151 That's how far they went. 467 00:43:47,391 --> 00:43:51,589 The manner in which it worked is macabre it was a horrible thing to see." 468 00:43:55,566 --> 00:43:57,761 At the core of the camp Stangl helped create 469 00:43:57,935 --> 00:44:01,632 was a huge new gas chamber complex disguised as shower rooms 470 00:44:02,506 --> 00:44:05,771 with the capacity to kill over 3,000 people at one time. 471 00:44:12,816 --> 00:44:15,011 Until recently no one knew exactly how many people 472 00:44:15,185 --> 00:44:18,677 were murdered during 1942 in death camps like Treblinka. 473 00:44:21,258 --> 00:44:24,056 But a few years ago the text of an intercepted German cable 474 00:44:24,228 --> 00:44:27,129 was discovered which reveals that between them, 475 00:44:27,564 --> 00:44:31,193 the camps of Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec and Majdanek 476 00:44:31,402 --> 00:44:39,332 had murdered 1,274,166 people during 1942. 477 00:44:39,977 --> 00:44:42,468 The intercept contains a number of typing errors, 478 00:44:43,147 --> 00:44:44,842 but in order to reach this total the number killed 479 00:44:45,015 --> 00:44:50,180 at Treblinka has to be 713,555. 480 00:44:50,688 --> 00:44:54,146 Treblinka was thus the largest killing centre in the Nazi State. 481 00:44:56,060 --> 00:44:57,288 But not for long. 482 00:45:02,433 --> 00:45:04,560 Because planners at Auschwitz had been working hard 483 00:45:04,735 --> 00:45:06,999 to change the function of new crematoria 484 00:45:07,171 --> 00:45:09,264 which were to be built at Auschwitz Birkenau. 485 00:45:25,856 --> 00:45:28,347 Over several months the plans were altered. 486 00:45:30,694 --> 00:45:34,460 What had been conceived as basement mortuaries were converted. 487 00:45:38,102 --> 00:45:40,900 First a chute designed to allow bodies to be slid down 488 00:45:41,071 --> 00:45:44,006 into the basement was suddenly removed from the plans. 489 00:45:46,510 --> 00:45:49,638 Next, extra steps were added at the side of the building 490 00:45:50,247 --> 00:45:52,647 - A strange addition, since the original function 491 00:45:52,816 --> 00:45:55,614 of the basement was to hold the dead, not the living. 492 00:45:58,455 --> 00:46:02,186 Then the doors into one of the large underground mortuaries were altered. 493 00:46:06,196 --> 00:46:10,826 First to open outwards, and then re-formed as one single door, 494 00:46:11,468 --> 00:46:16,838 reinforced and made gas tight and with a peep-hole added. 495 00:46:21,712 --> 00:46:24,840 This basement mortuary was now to become a gas chamber. 496 00:46:30,320 --> 00:46:34,381 Auschwitz was one of the last camps with large capacity killing factories. 497 00:46:35,626 --> 00:46:38,060 But when they opened in the spring of 1943, 498 00:46:38,862 --> 00:46:40,386 they would mark the beginning of that phase 499 00:46:40,564 --> 00:46:44,432 of the camp's operation that would make the place infamous in history. 500 00:46:48,772 --> 00:46:51,297 A moment of transition symbolized by the arrival 501 00:46:51,475 --> 00:46:54,069 of a new member of the Auschwitz medical staff. 502 00:47:04,888 --> 00:47:06,480 A man who had just been injured fighting 503 00:47:06,657 --> 00:47:10,787 on the Eastern front and who had won the Iron Cross for bravery. 504 00:47:13,497 --> 00:47:15,931 His name was to become notorious... 505 00:47:17,367 --> 00:47:19,460 Mengele. Dr. Josef Mengele. 506 00:47:20,305 --> 00:47:26,771 Craving big poker? Feast your eyes on Venom. $5 million GTD. AmericasCardroom.com