The World at War s01e26 Episode Script

Remember

For this road, in one day of Summer of 1944, the soldiers had arrived.
Nobody lives here now.
They had been only some hours.
When they had left, the community that it lived there has a thousand years, it was deceased.
It is Oradour-sur-Glane, in France.
In the day where the soldiers had arrived, the people had been grouped.
The men had been taken for garages and granaries.
The women and the children they had been led by this road e lead for inside of this church.
Here, they had heard the shots of the weapons that they had killed its men.
E to follow, had also been deceased.
Weeks later, many of they had assassinated that them, they had been also died, in combat.
They had never reconstructed Oradour.
Its ruins are a memorial.
Its martyrdom symbolizes thousand of other martyrdoms, in the Poland in Russia, in the Birmânia, China, in a World in War.
The World in War Memories To remember deceased.
In the World War II, England and its Commonwealth they had suffered to 480 a thousand losses human beings.
women and children, died in raides aerial in England.
Compared with the slaughter of the World War I, the number is very not raised.
But they remember deceased, each one of them being a son, father, husband, loving, brother.
We receive a telegram saying, that it had disappeared in mission.
It said thus: "We lament to inform that its husband, the Commander of Squadron Thomas Henry D.
Drinkwater, it disappeared in result of airborne operations, in the tuesday, 18 of May of 1944.
It follows letter.
Any additional information to it will be communicated immediately.
Until written notification, envoy for the Ministry of Air, it will not have to be given any information to the press.
" A battlefield is funny.
In the other day, I attended to one it hunts to the ducks.
The area effective was extended for about 6 km2 of which fifth was active, the remains waited.
A battlefield is thus, such and which.
He is extraordinary as everything seems inanimate.
It has a little of action in one I sing, or thing of the sort.
Of remaining portion, it has people that way extended, smoking.
E waiting, and sleeping, e waiting, e waiting.
She is one of the things, in particular, that the films and books do not focam, e I think that Tolstoi perhaps either the exception, on a battlefield, where nothing it seems to happen.
The action is always in some place in the other side e this is decisive.
Later they ask if one person was there and she was not.
Paris, June of 1940.
Without a doubt that they had been there.
But for these soldiers, not it has stops, nor celebrations, for little, as we are accustomed to see in the reporter.
Everything very quiet.
It does not have not to say.
Or perhaps, this was the image that they would go to hold back.
The moment that the soldiers they would go to remember forever.
Looking at it stops backwards, exactly having been it has 28 years, I obtain to hear, I obtain to see, I obtain I smell to feel it.
E I find that who was there must to feel necessarily the same, that he is something that will go to remember forever.
It has much thing that the soldiers they do not want to forget.
In Mainz, Germany Occidental person, veterans of the Afrika German Korps, they are congregated, of two in two years, to relembrar the past.
There they are the women e following of the group, come guests of Australia, of England, Italy.
Old friends, old enemies, old memories e much beer.
It has a funny thing in relation to the Marines, or in relation to the combatants of any another branch.
It has a trend to forget the things bad e to only think about the good things that they had happened.
When I am with other Marines e we speak on the war, we speak on the episodes funny that they had happened in them.
We never think very about the bad things.
E I think that it is this that happens with the combatants in general.
The good one for being in a motorized battalion it was to live intensely with our crew, e with our comrades.
At night, for example, when one arrived, one opened a hole and lead the tank for and we ate there, we slept and we made everything with our crew.
Therefore we had an enormous affection for them e in them we conheciamos all extremely well.
We knew that they they took the decisions certain e we took the tank, for all the side, to be young e irresponsible.
We never had time, to have the type of colloquy that it is normal to have, as we are having now, here seated.
I do not remember to argue the consequências of the war, or if the Germans had reason, or if we were the ones that had reason.
It was only to live day-by-day in set well pleasant e that was.
We had an friend driver, who was butcher e it always arranged way to have two bujões of water, exactly behind the exit of the exhaust pipe pipes, therefore, they were always more or less boiling.
E if, exactly being in the way of a combat, independently of what it was happening, if it saw a pig, he caught the hammer of the lizards, e ran for the pig making right to it in the head, it dragged it and it brought stops inside for the lateral door, it caught in the bujões of the water, it lit the stove, it boiled the water, flaid the pig e we had delicious sideburns, at any time of the day or the night.
We lived well and was in part this type of.
escape of the crews, arranging the wine, the jello, the eggs e all these things that they help in the camaraderie e amused in them in such a way.
Diversion and fear.
I find that was not scared, it was terrified.
When we are scared, we are more you alert.
It is as a game.
We go for the forest, we have a weapon, the other also.
Who goes to shoot first? It is more or less as a duel.
Who goes to turn over e to press the first trigger? Fear and diversion.
Moments even of beauty.
I speak in the "luxury of the look", a Biblical expression.
Because much of the enchantment of a battle, it is this attraction for bizarro, for the stranger.
But it has in this, clearly, a beauty element e I must say that is, without a doubt, since the antiquity, one of the attractive ones more persistent of a battle.
A person can be dragged, absorbed for espectáculo.
I remember, mainly, the south of France, the terrible bombing of our airplanes, in direction of the south coast of France.
I only thought that the coast if went to separate e to be astray in the sea.
But to look at for that it was to forget that we had to enter in the boats and to arrive at the coast.
The day was bordering, one was espectáculo fantastic, for which, all, including I, we were absorbed to such point, that we forget in them proper us.
A city that if relieves.
In one hour, a soldier stimulated and hasty it can kill and make love e to face of new the death.
The room had a piano and I was there seated touching with a finger.
The certain height, enters a British, genuine soldier, they did not make caricature better, of a British soldier of infantry.
He was dirty, dirty, using the helmet, it had its Enfield metal ring, e garnet to decorate it e was with a girl Italian with its 15 years, all round one and developed well, that it showed an experienced air, although to little age.
It complimented me educadamente with the head, to follow it ignored me total, it was directed a closet in one sings e found a towel there, an income towel, or seemed thing, e placed delicately the towel in the soil.
He was very careful, because the soil was full of dust e started to have relations with the young woman, on of that.
He was exactly very careful.
Seated E I to the piano, touching a music and looking at.
Stranger was a situation very.
Still I thought:"It will be better to leave" Later I found that it was.
I tried to act in the way most correct.
They, of certain form, nor they had given possibility to me to leave there.
Later they had been even so.
The young woman smiled me over the shoulder e said the soldier: "Until at sight, American" e came back toward the battlefield.
He was bizarro, it was perhaps, under many aspects, the thing more stranger and bizarra, most unreal, that I remember of the time that I passed in the war.
This small episode that lasted to all about five minutes.
It is good for remembering the good times.
The soldiers well had been received.
All were happy.
The wine was tinto.
Wynford Vaughan-Thomas relembra the release of the vines of the Borgonha.
One hour arrived where French army made a pause e the Americans did not know reason.
I remember General Patch to say: "Mr.
Thomas, Mr.
he knows the Frenchmen well, because they do not advance?" We are in Chalons.
It was Chalons-sur-Saone, the beginning of the region of vines of the Borgonha.
I crossed that and there it was of Latre, the Tassigny, the Monsalbert and its men studying the problem.
They had to its front Vinícola atlases of France e was studying it, because he would be tragic, if they fought through Beaune and of Nuits St.
George e in the great vines of the Borgonha.
France never would pardon to them, therefore, they were stopped.
E suddenly, a young lieutenant it arrived and it said: "Courage, my generals, I discovered the weak point of the German defenses.
" Each one is in a vine of inferior quality.
By Latte it takes its decision: "I attack" e during three days we fight for the cellars e in the third day, disoriented looking in direction the Dijon, I repaired that we had freed the Borgonha.
A poet saw the essence of the things: "Vergissmeinnicht, You do not forget me".
Three weeks had passed The combatants had left Coming back to the place of the nightmare Of new, that place We find the soldier Extended to the sun To the shade of the cannon of its tank When arriving in that day Something my tank reached A demon seemed They look at.
Between the pilhadas things The photo infuriates of its namorada one That it wrote "Steffi, you do not forget me" In góticas letters in a notebook We see it with joy almost Humiliated It paid the high price E seemed enjoyed now For the proper equipment Good fort and, E it, prostrado But it would cry today when seeing it With the skin covered of flies The dust in the parchment eyes E the open belly as a nest , Loving and here murderous They are one only A body, A heart E the death That the soldier only leaves It wounded of death the loving one To remember the war poet, Keith Douglas, died in Normandy in 1944.
Moved away from the front, far from the battlefield, the soldiers arrive e leaves as strange.
After one weeks in the aircraft marshalling area, one late I ran away, I scaled the Apeninos e I found an old hermit.
We seat in them, we start to speak e recommenced the artillery in the valley.
It started to make me questions on the war e gradually I perceived that it not wise person what she transferred herself.
I hesitated in explaining to it what it was transferred, not only had my weak Italian, but because I perceived that it would not obtain to explain to it, because he is that the Americans e the English fought in Italy, against the Germans, with Italians on both sides.
It seemed an impossible task.
Exactly that it spoke my proper language, I would not have obtained to explain the direction to it of the war.
Proper I did not have an idea clear of the direction of the war.
Of certain form, all the people against who I fought in the war, they were all heroes, since they believed piously, in what we were trying to make.
It had an impressive spirit of devotion it stops with the mission.
This very impressive age e gave an enormous inspiration.
The certainty was this, he was not obliged the seguiz it, but it was contagiante e if applied any person, of any part of the world.
The Command of Bombers it was an extraordinary command.
During the time where I made service, I think that 40% had come of overseas, mainly of the New Zelândia, Australia and Canada, but also of many others countries, were not only English.
It had many Czechs and Poles in the Command of Bombers e the devotion was, as I always say, impressive.
Of where it came is something that I never understood.
It was the mission that it inspired this certainty, I consider therefore it a heroic certainty.
Of time in when, still I have this nightmare.
I remember somebody in the deck of a torpedo-boat destroyer, I give stocking comes back and to follow already is not there.
He had been dragged for the chain.
The deaths are terrible when they happen in last the two months of war.
We live 5 years with those men.
They were not only colleagues, they were fond friends, we knew the families, e was very sad to see to leave them in the last days of war.
"The Aeronautical Advice he puted in charge to declare to me, that in view of the period of passed time e the absence of notice relative to its husband, the Temporary Commander of Squadron, Major Aviador, T.
F.
D.
Drinkwater, since the date where it was given as missing person, we have lamentably to conclude that it lost the life e that is given as presumably deceased, for official effect, from 18 of May of 1944.
" I think that none of we patriotic age to the point to be there in felt and agitating flags.
We were only happy for to be livings creature and of, certain form, sufficiently proud of the army, which we belong as much time, that it had made as many things irrefletidas, where we cry out in such a way, e we bawl e we made as many besteiras, where we pass thousand of hours in exercises, foot in rain, in the mud and the snow, it had after all survived what, seeing the things cold, it had been a great adventure.
When young, it did not understand the reason of if going to the ceremonies in memory of the victims.
Today I go and I feel pride in going, because I remember people that they had not come back e invades me a horrible one loss feeling e, at the same time, splendid camaraderie.
Lying in a trench, bombings around, we are terrified and face to our side says: "It smokes a cigarette, friend.
This it has to pass, is as rain", e we discover that it is tentantando to give force to us e is this that we remember of the war.
The camaraderie.
To remember the camaraderie e to remember the suffering.
One another road, one another one city, the same orders.
Soldiers, some see, but they do not feel.
Others feel pleasure in what they make.
I think that he is one of the aspects melancholic of the nature human being.
This in the youngsters is noticed who they like to break windows para ouvir os vidros estilhaçarem.
It has a great number of soldiers that it feels pleasure, in killing people, in destroying things.
I consider this aspect of the nature human being little explored, but it is, with certainty, ones of the causes of the wars.
To remember deceased.
Soon at the beginning of the World War II, Germany suffered circa of five million deaths.
of prisoners in Russia, half million of civilians had died in aerial attacks of the Allies e another half million, in the end of the war.
To remember deceased e the traumatizados survivors.
The effect of the war in the people who in it had participated very they are varied.
Many people had been total mutilated, it wants psychologically, it wants physically.
I assume that the majority of that they had survived, she was apparently unbroken, but with some traumas.
Of certain form, these traumas they make the people well.
They make to feel them that they had reached the objectives e I find that much people it passes the entire life, without never trying this sensation of accomplishment.
But those that had participated in operations of war, normally they feel that they had fulfilled an objective, mainly, if they believe in what they are trying to make, what, in war time, quickly it is reached.
On the other hand, I find that it left very negative traumas.
Perhaps one of less obvious, it has taken the people who they had participated in these operations to feel, later, that the society must to them something of very special e when the war finishes they come back toward house, for the places of where they had left e waits that they take care of of them e if makes responsible for them, thing that the people do not make, nor they feel obligation to make.
To remember the mud.
We accustom in them to this, clearly.
We accustom in them to everything.
Easily insensitive to the suffering of the others.
A curious thing, almost can to compare it the television nowadays e what it has made in them.
The people continue hiding the reality of the situations.
I turned over for my children, during the attack with napalm in the Vietname and it said to them: "They are not thus, she is a truth child, that torch in flames running for the field.
" But it does not mean nothing for them.
E that one is a truth man disputing a potato, you give to die of hunger.
To remember deceased.
In the World War II they had died of which half million they were civil.
The Japanese combatants they fought until a death.
They died about twenty soldiers, for each mutilated wounded or.
We had a surgeon ortopédico of Baltimore, e it gave to me definition to it, that still today I use, of affection for the incapacity.
It said me:"He knows where he finds affection, son? It finds in the dictionary, some place between sífilis and dirt.
" E I have remembered this all these years.
To remember the civilians who had been apanhados in the way.
They did not obtain to see itself of a bomber, but in the land the soldiers knew.
Ones of the things that it seems caused to have me more feeling of guilt, in the World War II it was the failure in the discrimination between combatants and civilians.
I felt, as well as many others, that we had guilt in these bombings indiscriminate terrorists.
Many soldiers had had that to kill innocent women and children.
In this direction, it has a species of collective guilt, although the decisions to have been taking in the levels highest e approved by much people, it wants soldiers, wants civilians.
To remember deceased.
In the World War II, America not it was invaded nor bombed.
But the United States died in combat, far from its houses.
When I came back toward house I discovered, e is a thing that me grumbler leaves, that the readjustment to the type of life of them, to the life that I had before leaving, it was virtually impossible, because no matter how much we detestemos to be in a war, the things for which we come back seem banal very.
The local assembly to speak in new sanitary installations they are subjects that not they seem important.
E clearly, this worries the people who encircle in them.
I isolated myself during about one year.
I must have had a behavior terrible.
I am conscientious of this.
I never forgot myself this e never I left to lament, because I must have infernizado the life with they encircled that me.
But I did not obtain to communicate me.
I lost my power of communication with the people that I knew I have as many years, because I knew a new type of people, congregated for the circumstances e with a common task.
I find that it was this.
More roads, that they take the villages more.
More orders to obey.
"Handle, has taken two men e clears up the village.
It leaves the men it stops backwards, for now.
It brings the women and the children.
E, handle, hurries the farewells.
" I find that taught to me, for the remaining portion of the life, that he has a line that the man if atreve not to transpose.
A line that separates reasonable and the human one, of the mere official one.
The handle and the soldiers also they have woman and children.
To remember the dead Russians.
In the World War II, the Soviet Union, already suffered for the terror of Stalin, it lost 20 million people.
Millions had died in combat in ground Russian: the bloody defeats of 1941 and 1942; the bloody victories of 1943 and 1945.
Millions of war prisoners they had died at the hands of the Germans, private of food, clothes, shelter.
For these prisoners it did not have possible escape.
About a million he was died the shot.
E had died millions of civilians Russian victims of shoot outs, bombings, marches forced in the cold, extreme hunger, war of century XX.
To remember the dead Russians.
The twenty million.
Soldier, remembers deceased.
It remembers all the others.
they had died in the World War II, most of them of hunger.
E in the busy Europe, had died more than 1,5 million of Yugoslavs for a country that never it left to fight.
E three million Poles e more than five million of Jews.
E more than half million of Frenchmen, men and women, many of them in the Resistance.
E courageous men and women in the Norway, Holland, Denmark and Belgium e hundreds of thousand in the Tchecoslováquia, Romenia, Bulgaria and Hungria.
E for more than 300 a thousand Greeks e a million and way of Italians, in a country that fought for the two sides.
E Spanish in Russia e Indian in the Birmânia.
All remember them it.
"I not wise person who the death she had reached as much.
" Mothers and children, parents and children.
The young ones are new others to remember.
Perhaps too much young to understand.
I think that one of the great ones consequências of the war, it is to isolate the ones that in it had participated, it wants of its parents, it wants of its children, e the same is applied, in a different way, between a father and a son.
Proper I feel this, in my relation with my parents, at the time of the war, e with my children today.
In certain way, nor ones, nor others want to face, the circumstances where we live in the war.
E we have this species of arrogant feeling, that they had to want to understand the terrible things that in they had happened, but they do not want.
E this in such a way isolates in them of the generation older, as of new.
I find that the people, of these generations they face a conflict, under any circumstances, but I find that the war, as many other aspects of the life, it tends to emphasize these factors, originating and fomenting many times this conflict of generations.
Nuremberg.
Here, in this space, Adolph Hitler spoke to the Party National-Socialist e to the German nation, has 40 years.
of Germany Occidental person, elect two times for the vote popular, it is Willy Brandt.
Brandt was a treasonous one for Germany de Hitler.
It fought in Norwegian resistance.
In Warsaw, as in Jerusalem, it remembers deceased.
Of all the population German of today, half was not been born when the World War II started.
We have all the type of things to relembrar.
We have this letter here of the Buckingham's palace: "The Queen and I give our directions pêsames, in its great pain.
We pray so that the gratitude of its country, for a life so nobly lost, to its service, it can bring to them some form of consolation.
" Of 1939 the 1945.
J.
You tan, E.
Fraser, L.
Humpford G.
Nixon.
They were very young.
They had not asked for stops to die as heroes.
They preferred to have lived for they loved who them.
For who they loved.
E this was the last letter that it wrote its woman: "Beloved, leaves to say me to it, one more time, I love that you.
This last end-of-week it left me so happy, for beings my woman, because so I am gotten passionate by you e I know that I go to love you for the remaining portion of my life obliged e, my beloved, you land on water for me.
My love, I am certain of that you are part of me, because I always feel myself so happy when I am with you.
As soon as we separate in them I am completely entediado.
I do not obtain to think about nothing, not to be in you.
That is horrible, wanted.
Please, you do not judge me indifferent or idiotic, although power to be it, but I do not obtain to continue.
Perhaps this night is tired e after one hours of sleep, I will be able to write to it a pretty letter.
We will see, in all the case.
Distrust that my days of flight operational they are close to the end.
The lieutenant-colonel said me, already for two times, that I cannot participate in as many missions in the future, e it is very worried about this.
It said me:'It is not just for you and its woman.
To keep I do not intend you in operations for much more time, exactly that it is what you intend.
' I had reason in what he said.
But that devil! I go to have homesicknesses of this life.
It has three years that I walk in this e the problem now it is that I do not know to make more nothing.
My beloved, now I have that to lie down to me.
Badly I obtain to see what I write.
I love you, my treasure, more than what everything in this world.
Its forever, Tone.
" In the village of Oradour-sur-Glane, in the day where the soldiers they had arrived, they had killed 600 men more than, women and children.
To remember.

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