The Civilian Serves

The war in the South Pacific, a country doctor in Colorado, victims of industrial pollution in a Japanese village — all were captured in unforgettable photographs by the legendary W. Eugene Smith. This program showcases over 600 of Smith’s stunning photographs and includes a dramatic recreation in which actor Peter Riegert (Crossing Delancey, Local Hero) portrays the artist using dialogue take from Smith’s diaries and letters. Interwoven through the program are archival footage and interviews with family and friends of this brilliant, complicated man, whose work developed from twin themes of common humanity and social responsibility.

The history of the Warsaw Ghetto (1940-43) as seen from both sides of the wall, its legacy and its memory: new light on a tragic era of division, destruction and mass murder thanks to the testimony of survivors and the discovery of a ten-minute film shot by Polish amateur filmmaker Alfons Ziółkowski in 1941.

The SS chief Heinrich Himmler wanted to exchange Jews against so-called German Reich abroad, against arms sales or for cash - with the express approval of Hitler.

In February 1944, in a courtyard at Fresnes Prison, the Germans staged a spectacle to stigmatize a group of communist resistance fighters—all foreigners and mostly Jewish—who had been arrested a few weeks earlier. The propaganda aimed to discredit these fighters, portraying them as terrorists and criminals, even though they had managed to carry out numerous attacks against the occupiers in Paris. The red poster, plastered in thousands of copies across the country, would immortalize them in legend. They were subsequently executed at Mont-Valérien, near Paris. Missak Manouchian, the Armenian who led these fighters, now embodies this group in the collective memory as he is enshrined in the Panthéon, on behalf of all his comrades, 80 years after their execution.

Documents the denial of rights to American citizens of Japanese descent who were forced from their homes to Utah's desert rangeland during World War II. This documentary discusses internment, contains interviews with former internees, and has footage of Topaz from Dave Tatsuno's movie filmed during camp.

Fifty million people died in the Second World War, the biggest massacre in the history of humanity. But the animal kingdom also paid a heavy toll, despite no official numbers being compiled for the victims. This included combat animals, animals that backed up humans, those that entertained or consoled them, some that fed people, and other animals that were symbols. On all fronts and on all continents, at all points of the compass, beasts accompanied mankind in this global conflict. This full archive documentary - partly colorized - shows how dogs, horses, elephants and pigeons became WW2 soldiers’ best friends in battle.

The life of Maximo Guillermo "Max" Manus, a Norwegian resistance fighter, before and after World War II.

Yael Hersonski's powerful documentary achieves a remarkable feat through its penetrating look at another film-the now-infamous Nazi-produced film about the Warsaw Ghetto. Discovered after the war, the unfinished work, with no soundtrack, quickly became a resource for historians seeking an authentic record, despite its elaborate propagandistic construction. The later discovery of a long-missing reel complicated earlier readings, showing the manipulations of camera crews in these "everyday" scenes. Well-heeled Jews attending elegant dinners and theatricals (while callously stepping over the dead bodies of compatriots) now appeared as unwilling, but complicit, actors, alternately fearful and in denial of their looming fate.

In Iasi, Romania, from June 28 to July 6, 1941, nearly 15 000 Jews were murdered in the course of a horrifying pogrom. At the time, the programmed extermination of European Jews had not yet began. After the war, the successive communist governments did all they could to ensure the Iasi pogrom would be forgotten. It was not until November of 2004 that Romania recognized for the first time its direct responsibility in the pogrom. All that remains of this massacre are about a hundred photographs taken as souvenirs by german and romanian soldiers, and a few remaining survivors.

This short documentary produced by the University of Oregon Multimedia Journalism graduate program explores memories of Portland's Japantown – Nihonmachi – and the thriving Japanese American community in Oregon prior to World War II. The film features Chisao Hata, an artist, teacher and activist, and Jean Matsumoto, who was incarcerated at the Portland Assembly Center and in the Minidoka concentration camp as a child.

Hitler's Hidden City

A Hand of Peace: Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust

Comprised of footage shot during the Nazi regime, including propaganda, newsreels, broadcasts and even some of Eva Braun's colorized personal home movies, we explore the way in which the Third Reich infiltrated the lives of the German population, from 1933 to 1945.

Co-produced by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Research Institute, this Academy Award-winning documentary relates the harrowing story of Gerda Weissmann Klein and her journey of survival and remembering both before and after the war.

Emmy Awards nominee for "Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Research: Multi-faceted portrait of the man who succeeded Lenin as the head of the Soviet Union. With a captivating blend of period documents, newly-released information, newsreel and archival footage and interviews with experts, the program examines his rise to power, deconstructs the cult of personality that helped him maintain an iron grip over his vast empire, and analyzes the policies he introduced, including the deadly expansion of the notorious gulags where he banished so many of his countrymen to certain death.

To historians, physicist Lise Meitner deserves to be placed on a par with Einstein, Heisenberg and Otto Hahn. In the 1930s on the verge of World War II, she led a small group of scientists who discovered that splitting the atomic nucleus of uranium releases enormous energy. This extraordinary film tells the story of a woman who was far ahead of her time as a scientist and a pioneer of feminism.

Miany, 84, is increasingly losing her words. In front of her granddaughter's camera, she recounts a childhood memory from 1939. Between memory and forgetting, a story on the edge of time.

Highlights the increasingly important roles women occupy on the various fronts of WW II. In England, their more active jobs include ferrying planes from factory to airfield and operating anti-aircraft guns. In Russia, they are fighting on the front lines as well as acting as parachute nurses, army doctors and technicians. In Canada women have joined active service auxiliaries, and thousands labour day and night in factories turning out the tools of war. From the Canada Carries On series.

Reveals an alternate history of the post-war world. This is a version of history where, in contrast to what we are all told, fascist ideology prevailed. The story of Klaus Barbie, Nazi torturer, American spy, tool of repressive right-wing regimes, is symbolic of the real relationship that the "Western" governments had with fascism and makes us see the world as it is today - and the politicians that inhabit it - in a different way.

A 15 minute documentary utilizing archival Super 8 film footage and original animation about a father fulfilling his dream of reconnecting his 5 small children to the steps of his own father when he fought for the Canadian military in WW2 through a trip to Europe in 1973.