How was the Second World War experienced in Rouveen, Overijssel? This Orthodox Christian village near Staphorst was self-sufficient during the war. And largely isolated from the outside world. The last eyewitnesses of the war, the children of that time, are now all very old. In the Duutsers, residents of the Overijssel village of Rouveen talk movingly openly about their war memories to fellow villager and filmmaker Geertjan Lassche. Their stories are interspersed with historical video fragments and photos from the past. This is how an honest child's view of growing up in a rural village unfolds. How did the war come to the village? Who is that stranger in the village in front of them, that German? And in what those of other strangers? When does unrest arise, and unrest in fear of hatred? What about the Jewish labor camps in the village and how did they view the Canadian liberators?
A group of American Army nurses are captured by the Japanese in April 1942 and spend three years in a prisoner-of-war camp in Bataan. Lt Margaret Ann Jessup, the head army nurse, survives the camp and testifies against the Japanese in front of the United States Congressional subcommittee years later as a colonel.
The compilation documentary We Will Remain Faithful is a testimony to the Czechoslovak resistance during the Second World War. The film covers the period from the end of the First Czechoslovak Republic to the victorious Allied advance in 1944. Director Jiří Weiss compiled it from archival footage, his own authentic and subsequently staged war footage, and material from both Allied and enemy newsreels.
This documentary about WW II, composed of clandestine Allied film takes and German Wochenschaubilder, focuses on the French Resistance, especially the heroic but disastrous battle of the Vercors plateau in July 1944, where German troops mercilessly slaughtered the Maquis and the inhabitants.
Historians and engineers investigate how Allied forces conspired to destroy Hitler's "supergun".
In June 1940 nothing was written. The appeal of June 18 by General de Gaulle was a hope but also a start. The start for an essential page of the History of France, written by De Gaulle and his followers, without whom nothing would have existed in the Resistance to the German tyranny and this film wishes to honor their memory.
Unflinching and deeply personal, D-Day In 14 Stories interviews many of the last surviving veterans who were on the beaches of Normandy that fateful day 75 years ago (a rare spectrum of Allies and Axis); seldom-heard voices, including a female Resistance fighter, an African American, a Native American, Jewish Americans and a 5-year old French boy.
By tracking scientists and Holocaust survivors in Lithuania, The Good Nazi tells the story of a Schindler-type Nazi officer who turned his back on his dark ideology and risked his life to save hundreds of Jews.
In 1945, 160 German cities lay in ruins and the loss of millions of lives, billions in material assets and countless cultural treasures was mourned throughout Europe... With the question “How could it happen?”, the film goes back to the year 1914, when the “primal catastrophe of the 20th century” took its course with the First World War.
An Irish doctor survived the atomic bomb attack on Nagasaki and was given a Samurai sword for the lives he saved. 70 years later his family searches for the origin of their father's sword.
Eisenhower the military man is the focus of this mini-series, his relationships with the other wartime leaders, and, very discreetly, his personal relationship with his driver, Kay Summersby.
A meditation on youth, war and stunning bravery, featuring footage, taken from the National Archives, from the documentary filmed in 1943 by legendary Hollywood director William Wyler about the famous Memphis Belle flying fortress and the gripping narration from some of the last surviving B-17 pilots.
Allied prisoners tunnel out of a stalag, then return to avenge fellow escapees executed by the Nazis.
Milan, the last months of WWII. While everything starts to crumble down, RSI police chief Bruno Spada tries to crush the local anti-fascist resistance.
Human torture. Factories of death. War atrocities. The crimes that haunt the pagse of history are chronicled in the piercing documentary Camps of Death. Following Hitler's murderous career, the film traces his rise to power, his ultimate demise, and the subsequent nuremberg trials that publicized the horrors of Hitler's regime. Concentration camp footage combines with chilling POW interviews to graphically create the nazi nightmare that few could hope to survive. A powerful look at the third reich adn the horrifying fate of its enemies.
This film tells the story of Col Rudder’s 2nd Ranger Bn and their heroic attack on the gun battery at Pointe du Hoc, which covered both Omaha and Utah beaches. Despite their thorough training scaling techniques that included sectional aluminium commando ladders, rocket grapples and ropes experienced commanders predicted a disaster. In the event bad weather, navigational errors and communications failure meant that less than 200 Rangers were delivered to the foot of the cliffs late and under enemy fire. Small groups of Rangers battled their way up ropes and ladders, with grenades bursting around them, to scale the muddy unstable cliff. A handful of men spread out and cleared the stunned defenders but, as often is the case, seizing the objective was only a part of the battle. Isolated for over 24 hours, with no relief from the near disaster at Omaha, the Rangers fought on against increasingly determined German counter-attacks.
The story of two soldier-cameramen, Sgt Mike Lewis and Sgt Bill Lawrie, who witnessed the liberation of Belsen during the closing days of World War II.
With the Fifth Panzer Army fighting its way towards the River Meuse, the cross roads town of Bastogne, vital for the success of Hitler's last attempt to check the Allies in the west, the Americans rushed reinforcements to hold it. 101st US Airborne Division was resting in reserve near Paris when the call for immediate deployment to the Ardennes came and reached Bastogne just before the German ring around the town closed. Wearing only normal uniforms, the 101st joined the other garrison troops in a siege where they fought not only the enemy's panzers but the freezing, snowy, cold to hold the vital road junction. Filmed on the ground we tell the story of the heroic defence of Bastogne.
Drawing upon eye-witness accounts from survivors and participants in the bombing of Hiroshima, this programme shows how both Japan and the United States are still facing enormous problems in coming to terms with the legacy of that fateful August day.
The Katyn massacre, carried out by the Soviet NKVD in 1940, was only one of many unspeakable crimes committed by Stalin's ruthless executioners over three decades. The mass murder of thousands of Polish officers was part of a relentless purge, the secrets and details of which have only recently been partially revealed.