Mientras los soldados de ambos bandos lucharon alrededor de Moscú en condiciones particularmente brutales, no eran las únicas personas que sufrieron. Alrededor de 13 millones de civiles soviéticos murieron durante la guerra de Hitler contra Stalin, más civiles que en cualquier otra guerra. Este capítulo examina por qué sucedió esto y lo compara con la historia tradicionalmente aceptada de la brutal ocupación nazi y la propia brutal guerra partisana de Stalin.
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00:00The War of the Century
00:30The War of the Century
00:35The War of the Century
00:53In the Eastern War, more civilians died than in any other war conflict in history.
01:06It is estimated that at least 13 million Soviet civilians died under the German occupation.
01:16Why did this war cause such a human catastrophe?
01:24Spiral of Terror
01:36In the winter of 1941, the Germans advanced to Moscow in Operation Typhoon.
01:51The Germans had conquered about 1,000 kilometers since they invaded the Soviet Union that June.
01:57And they had captured 3 million prisoners of the Red Army.
02:01But they expected to have won the war before the arrival of winter.
02:05And then, with the supply lines almost disappeared behind them,
02:09they continued to battle as they advanced towards the Soviet capital.
02:16Until we got to Moscow, we said we had a chance to win the war, or at least the battle in Russia.
02:24I was a signal officer in the personnel section of an artillery battalion
02:28that drew maps of the surroundings of Moscow, very good quality maps.
02:36We measured and put our batteries in position.
02:39I measured the distance to the cannons and I said,
02:42what the hell, if we had a long-range cannon, we could shoot the Kremlin.
02:49All night the boys were shooting and shooting the cannons.
02:54In November 1941, days before the Germans had the Kremlin within reach of the artillery,
03:01Stalin recorded a speech encouraging the Soviet people.
03:06All the nations of Europe, under the temporary tyranny of Germany,
03:11hope that you will free them.
03:14Be worthy of this mission.
03:18You are making a war of liberation.
03:21A just war.
03:33But Stalin also knew that these troops could not stay to fight.
03:37Much of the Red Army had retreated before the lightning war that summer.
03:43This time Stalin decided that would make his soldiers keep their position.
03:49Just behind the front line, he formed blockade outposts.
03:56His mission was simple.
03:58If a soldier of the Red Army passed by, they had to shoot to kill.
04:05The blockade outposts played a psychological role, of moral support.
04:13This instilled a sense of responsibility in our soldiers.
04:17Especially the officers, so that they kept the front and did their job.
04:25We forced them to fight to death.
04:30If they did not want or fled, we eliminated them.
04:36We shot them, that was all.
04:41They were no longer fighters.
04:44It was hard, very difficult, I understand.
04:48But what were we going to do?
04:51Approximately 8,000 soldiers of the Red Army,
04:54were executed by cowardice or desertion during the winter of 1941.
05:04It was a very hard decision.
05:07It should not be judged.
05:09They used fear to crush fear.
05:13Whether it was correct or not, what else did it give?
05:16We were at war.
05:19As the resistance grew, so did time.
05:23This was not the war that the Germans had planned.
05:43March of the Red Army
06:13March of the Red Army
06:34They were horses from beer factories.
06:37Mimed creatures.
06:39Like those of the Oktoberfest in Munich.
06:42Used to a lot of food and hot stables.
06:49Those poor animals were loaded with heavy artillery.
06:54Through sandy sands, mud and then snow.
07:01Almost all of them died of heart attacks.
07:05Which meant that in front of Moscow,
07:07we could not continue to move the artillery.
07:23Then he counterattacked the Russian army,
07:26using reinforcements taken from the east of the Soviet Union.
07:30This counterattack was a surprise for our troops.
07:36And what is most important,
07:39a great surprise for the enemy.
07:42That was a thousand times more important.
07:46The Germans did not expect our reaction.
07:59I would say that the cruelty, determination and will of Stalin
08:06was first communicated to the high-ranking commanders.
08:10And then to us, the lower-ranking officers.
08:18There was a soldier, I do not know who it was.
08:22But because of his cowardice and because the fight was very hard,
08:29he could die at any moment.
08:33He could not stand it anymore.
08:36He collapsed and ran away.
08:42I killed him without thinking twice.
08:50That was a good lesson for others.
08:59When this film was shot in December 1941,
09:02the war did not go as planned by Hitler.
09:05The Germans were at war with the United States
09:08as a result of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.
09:11And the German army was facing very serious problems against Moscow.
09:15Hitler responded to the crisis in a brutal way.
09:18He ordered the German army, equipped inadequately,
09:21to endure any loss, but to continue where they were.
09:26Heinz Guderian, one of the most renowned generals,
09:29protested against the order.
09:31Hitler expelled without surroundings.
09:33Do you think that the grenadiers of Frederick the Great
09:36enjoyed dying for their homeland?
09:42The temperature that winter dropped to 43 degrees below zero.
09:46But on all fronts, the Germans tried to keep their positions.
09:51For Hitler it was easy to say, stay firm.
09:55The soldiers were overwhelmed by fatigue
09:59and could not think clearly.
10:02They were almost numb from fatigue.
10:06But that perhaps made them more willing to obey the orders.
10:11Not a step back, those who retreat will be shot.
10:16That's how we stayed in our bunkers,
10:19not too happy about it.
10:27The infantry had to sleep in the cold.
10:30You tried to make a hole in the snow,
10:33and then the order came that someone on guard
10:36had to go every two hours and make sure you were still alive.
10:40Otherwise you could freeze and die.
10:43It was a very nice death, yes, but you didn't want it.
10:48And particularly if you had been sweating during the day
10:53and cooling off during the night,
10:56you were in great danger of freezing to death.
11:04The crisis ended with both sides flooded with problems
11:08during the winter.
11:10The Red Army had prevented the Germans from taking Moscow,
11:14but they still did not have the tactics or equipment to defeat the invader.
11:19The battle of Moscow had shown the cruelty of both Hitler and Stalin.
11:25A cruelty that would be one of the decisive causes of the brutality of this war.
11:30The Red Army was the only one left.
11:34During 1942, Hitler moved his headquarters from the Wolf's Lair in eastern Prussia
11:40to Yenitsa in Ukraine.
11:45This is what is left of the headquarters of the Red Army.
11:49The Red Army was the only one left.
11:52The Red Army was the only one left.
11:55The Red Army was the only one left.
11:58The Red Army was the only one left.
12:02This is what is left of the headquarters of Hitler's vanguard in Yenitsa.
12:09From here, not only the battle was supervised,
12:12but also the German government of the occupied territories.
12:17And the way in which the Nazis would decide to govern the conquered lands
12:21would be another decisive factor for the cruelty of the war in the East.
12:25From the beginning of the invasion, Hitler made it clear that this would not be another war.
12:30There is only one duty.
12:32To Germanize these lands with the immigration of Germans
12:36and to consider the natives red-skinned.
12:42As Hitler saw it, the people of the occupied territories, including the Ukrainians,
12:47who then lived around him, should even be denied elementary school.
12:51The inhabitants of the place should be educated only enough
12:55to understand the signs of our highways,
12:58so that our vehicles do not pass over them.
13:04When the Germans occupied Ukraine,
13:06that same winter the people of the place had welcomed them.
13:10For these Ukrainians, the Germans were a promise of liberation from Stalin's government,
13:15a government that in the 1930s had brought collectivizations, oppression and famine.
13:22At first there was not much animatversion against the Germans.
13:27We dreamed of an independent Ukraine.
13:31The Soviet Union was against it,
13:34and any war against them seemed good to us.
13:38We saw the Germans as our allies,
13:41especially because we thought they would create a Ukrainian state.
13:47Alexei Briz, who speaks German fluently,
13:50began to work for the Nazis as an interpreter.
13:54I wanted to prosper.
13:56Everyone dreams of having something better,
13:59and I thought this would be a temporary job.
14:02I thought I would continue with my studies.
14:12But the Nazis were not going to create a better life for the Ukrainians.
14:17To begin with, Hitler enviously looked at the country's agriculture.
14:23It is inconceivable that amorphous masses that do not contribute at all to civilization
14:28occupy infinite plots of one of the richest soils in the world.
14:47According to Hitler's wishes,
14:49the Germans were about to steal food from the Ukrainians
14:52and transport large quantities of it to Germany.
15:16If a man does not love you anymore,
15:19a friend, a good friend,
15:22that is the greatest treasure he has.
15:28The man whom Hitler ordered to supervise this exploitation
15:31was Erich Koch,
15:33one of the toughest among the most radical currents of Nazism.
15:40Koch was a benedict.
15:43A brutal person.
15:45Thirsty for power.
15:49It is difficult to say more.
15:52I found him repulsive.
15:59The way in which Koch led the looting of Kiev and the rest of Ukraine
16:03was one of the first proofs of the brutality of the Nazi occupation.
16:09Koch was guided by his own maxim
16:11that the lowest of the German workers
16:13was a thousand times more valuable than the entire population of Ukraine.
16:18Koch's boss, Alfred Rosenberg,
16:20did not agree with this point of view.
16:23Even though he himself was a convinced Nazi,
16:25he wanted the cooperation of the Ukrainians
16:27and was even willing for them to have a certain independence from the Nazis.
16:33When Koch and Rosenberg's personalities collided,
16:35Koch showed contempt with his superior.
16:39Seeing the way in which Koch retaliated against Rosenberg,
16:43I would have thrown him out.
16:47But Rosenberg endured it.
16:51I still remember how Koch turned him upside down.
16:59This dispute reached Hitler's ears.
17:02And his position was clear,
17:04as shown in his minutes of meeting with Koch.
17:09Both the Führer and Reich Commissioner Koch
17:11rejected an independent Ukraine.
17:13In addition, we will not leave practically anything standing in Kiev.
17:21For the Nazis, the Jews were the most hated enemy.
17:26This propaganda film shows Jews doing forced labor for the Germans
17:30in the occupied territories.
17:33But in the autumn of 1941,
17:35the Nazis also persecuted and murdered men, women and Jewish children.
17:39Sometimes with the help of the population.
17:43Victoria Ivanova was nine years old when, in 1942,
17:46she witnessed how they betrayed her mother.
17:51My mother was shot because she was denounced.
17:57Among the Ukrainians there were people who saved Jews.
18:01And there were people who betrayed them.
18:06Some allied with the Germans and joined the police.
18:14They wanted to please the Germans and maybe take advantage of it.
18:19Maybe they were hungry and wanted to get a piece of bread.
18:22But that does not justify them.
18:27Wasn't it horrifying that the Germans killed so many Jews and Gypsies?
18:32That was another world.
18:35We always kept ourselves at bay.
18:38But it horrified us.
18:41I remember the reaction of the natives of Ukraine.
18:45My father said that the same would happen to us.
18:53Although the Jews, Gypsies and the Communist Party were pointed out by the Nazis,
18:57the rest of the population also lived in fear.
19:01Because this was an occupation based on terror.
19:08They saw us coming as a kind of saviors
19:11who would free them from the Bolshevik communist regime.
19:16And my personal opinion is that the Nazis were too stupid to take advantage of that.
19:24We could have really come as liberators,
19:26but that idea of important gentlemen who were considered second-class human beings was ridiculous.
19:34In the army we never felt that way.
19:37The idea that the suffering of civilians in the occupied territories was due only to the Nazis,
19:43denies what happened in Kharkov, east of Ukraine.
19:50Because it was close to the border, it was administered by the army.
19:53And they were looking for the same exploitation as the Nazis like Koch.
20:05German soldiers approached the city, preventing the population from getting food in the field.
20:11Only those who worked for the Germans were given rations.
20:15As a result, thousands began to starve.
20:19They didn't pay much attention to the people who died.
20:24They thought it was a norm.
20:30I don't think it would have shocked them.
20:35No.
20:37They took it very easily, I'm afraid.
20:42Well, I wouldn't like to think so, you know.
20:45But I'm afraid it was so.
20:48They took it easy.
20:50They took it easy.
21:13First, they killed dogs and fed the dogs.
21:17But the dogs didn't last long.
21:21Either they had escaped or they had been killed.
21:26People ate rats, pigeons, crows.
21:41Inna Gabrilchenko was luckier than most.
21:44She had occasional work in a German slaughterhouse,
21:48and sometimes she could take to her house bottles of cow blood.
21:52With the blood, I don't know if you know, you can make a blood omelette.
21:57It's like making scrambled eggs.
22:01Let's say it's like an omelette without eggs.
22:05It only filled my stomach.
22:09I could afford it.
22:11And all people who could afford it did it.
22:20Have you ever tried the bark of a birch tree?
22:29I can recommend it, it's sweet.
22:33It is not exactly sweet, but sweet.
22:38You can try it.
22:41You can try the leaves of the young fruits of jasmine.
22:46It is eatable.
22:49There are many things that you would hate to eat today.
23:08Approximately 100,000 civilians died during the German occupation of Kharkov.
23:14Many of them children.
23:16Among the children who suffered the German occupation was Anatoli Reva, 6 years old.
23:39Near the orphanage there was a kitchen and a military center of German soldiers.
23:43When you were begging for something to eat, sometimes they told you,
23:48wait, wait.
23:52And they brought you a bag full of excrements.
23:57Shit, to speak clearly.
24:01That's what they gave to the children.
24:13From the first days of the war, Stalin had asked the people of the occupied territories to fight against the Germans.
24:18This led to the greatest guerrilla war ever seen until then.
24:29These partisans included not only those who had fled from the Germans
24:34before the war, but also those who had fled from the Germans
24:38to the forests, but also special guerrilla fighters from the Ministry of the Interior
24:43who infiltrated the enemy lines.
24:48Men like Mikhail Timoshenko.
24:53Our mission was to destroy their troops and equipment.
24:58Fly bridges and railways.
25:03Destroy communications.
25:06In other words, destroy everything that the enemy could use.
25:11Destroy everything. Destroy it all.
25:16The Soviets represented the supposed feats of the partisans
25:21in their film propaganda leaflets.
25:26With this they hid an uncomfortable fact of the war of the partisans.
25:31The way it was directed made the brutality of the conflict increase.
25:36The partisans did not like the German soldiers they captured.
25:41If prisoners of war were captured, what happened to them?
25:46We probably killed them with a shot.
25:50Why?
25:53What could we do with them?
25:57Release them so they could try to kill us again?
26:02The Soviet propaganda showed very polite partisans
26:07who accepted food from the inhabitants of the place, happy to contribute to the communist cause.
26:12The reality was very different.
26:16You felt them coming.
26:20They appeared at your door and you knew they were coming to steal.
26:25They were bandits.
26:28One of them was looking at the house and the other was looking at the garden.
26:33We lived during the day, even at the hour.
26:38We did not know if they would come to kill us,
26:42if we could escape or not.
26:46It was a terrifying environment.
26:50If you did not let them pass, they would knock down the door or enter through the window.
26:54They would always manage to enter.
26:59On one occasion, during the winter, they arrived.
27:04They broke the glass with a rifle and the glass flew.
27:09Give us some bacon or we'll kill you, they said.
27:14My father went up to the entrance to the shed,
27:18which was on the chimney, to pick it up.
27:21There was nothing you could do.
27:25Who could know if they were partisans or bandits?
27:30Everyone who had a gun was the master.
27:42From Moscow, Stalin led the partisan war.
27:47With a law that would bring terror to the occupied territories,
27:52Stalin asked the partisans not only to kill the Germans,
27:56but also all Soviet citizens who could be helping them.
28:00An order that was often interpreted
28:03as if the relatives of the suspect should also be killed.
28:06Stalin's desire was to remember that he could still take revenge
28:10on those of his subjects who now followed orders from Germany.
28:13It was the beginning of anarchy.
28:17The generalized terror caused by the partisans
28:21was not a story that the communists wanted to tell
28:25at the end of the war.
28:28In this film, we see a woman hanged by the partisans
28:32and exposed as a warning to the population.
28:35There was no more power than my own.
28:39We wrote the sentences.
28:42The traitors had to be executed.
28:46We took them to the forest and shot them.
28:50It was the usual procedure.
29:05Don't you think that they sowed terror among the people?
29:09That they should be very afraid of them?
29:13Certainly, it was in essence a situation of terror,
29:17but against dishonorable people, according to our laws.
29:21We were not afraid of the Germans.
29:25We were not afraid of the Germans.
29:29We were afraid of the Germans.
29:32According to our laws.
29:36This partisan secret report, unclassified for this program,
29:40denounces that in a large sector of the partisans,
29:44drunkenness, robbery, beatings and rapes were constant.
29:53First, the partisans killed my sister's husband.
29:58She fell to the ground and said,
30:02kill me too, I can't live without him.
30:06And they killed her.
30:10I don't know why they did it.
30:14Maybe someone disliked the partisan leader
30:18who took revenge on the whole people.
30:22One of the alleged murderers was the partisan Yefim Goncharov.
30:26Before the war, he was the local teacher.
30:29Who could imagine that the principal of a school,
30:33such a respectable person, could do such a thing?
30:37The communists never investigated these murders.
30:41After the war, Yefim Goncharov received a medal
30:45and became president of the district committee.
30:49The partisans became a growing problem for the German invaders.
30:54If the Germans suspected that a town had been used as a camp
30:57by the partisans,
31:01the common practice was to reduce the town to ashes.
31:05If we saw an abandoned trench,
31:09empty cartridges on the ground,
31:13it meant that the partisans had been shooting from there and had fled.
31:17So I gave the order, pour fuel,
31:21and we threw some straw,
31:24because it didn't matter to us to burn the houses of the Russians
31:28or to hurt them.
31:32In fact, they were inferior.
31:36They were not as civilized as we are.
31:42I didn't give any importance to the fact
31:46that they were burning Russian houses.
31:50I knew they weren't worth it.
31:54They wouldn't survive.
31:58That was what I felt.
32:02They couldn't be compared to a German, English or French house at all.
32:06We also stole the cows.
32:10You also stole the pigs, right?
32:14Yes.
32:18What were they supposed to eat if they took their food?
32:21Yes, of course, but we didn't shoot them.
32:25We let them live, it was the best we could do.
32:29Many of them would die for it. It was cold.
32:33Yes, I know. It could have happened,
32:37but we knew the Russians had a lot of resources and could easily find more trees
32:41and build shelters like we did.
32:45And what would you say if someone told you that burning a town was a war crime?
32:48Yes, it may be a war crime,
32:52but it was an order, and I did it.
33:08In Ukraine, the brutal German government
33:12helped create a new partisan movement,
33:15one that would sow even more chaos.
33:27The Ukrainians had always been extremely nationalist,
33:31and now that the dream of an independent Ukraine had been crushed,
33:35many took up arms against the invaders.
33:45The Soviet Union and the Soviet Union
33:53Thousands of Ukrainians left their cities
33:57and sought refuge in the forests.
34:01Even those who had previously collaborated with the Germans, like Alexei Briz.
34:05At that time, I was completely against them.
34:09I was their enemy.
34:12Not only in a personal way,
34:16but as a representative of my nation.
34:20At that time, all Ukrainians had a negative attitude towards the Germans.
34:26Briz joined the Ukrainian nationalist partisans,
34:30a third force that hated not only the Germans,
34:34but also the Soviet partisans,
34:38and carried out a bloody war that committed great atrocities against both.
34:42against the Germans and against the Soviets.
34:46But while the Germans hung or shot people,
34:50the Soviet partisans were different.
34:54We discovered that they used Asian methods of torture.
34:58They ripped out tongues, cut ears or noses.
35:02I can't say if they did it while they were alive.
35:06Probably not.
35:09We often found mutilated bodies.
35:13Of course there was cruelty.
35:17But war is war.
35:21We did not make prisoners,
35:25as they did not make prisoners.
35:29There were no options.
35:33It was killing or dying.
35:36In the vicinity of the hometown of Briz, Goraloh,
35:40as in the rest of Ukraine,
35:44the Soviet partisans took revenge on those who supported the Ukrainian partisans.
35:48I had never seen anything like it.
35:52Why tie people up and set them on fire?
35:56They did it for fun, like vampires.
36:00I do not know.
36:03I do not understand.
36:07It is impossible to understand.
36:11They burned the whole body.
36:15And not only the Ukrainian partisans suffered that fate.
36:19These fragments of film never shown to the German public during the war
36:23show the Soviet mutilation of German prisoners.
36:33These acts were only used to make up for the German retaliation.
36:37During our retreat,
36:41we saw 20 soldiers killed in the most brutal way.
36:45Their ears had been cut,
36:49their eyes had been taken out,
36:53and their genitals had been cut.
36:57Naturally we felt a huge fury,
37:00but the commander gave the order that all civilians in the area
37:04were executed as reprisals.
37:08We should not stop even in front of women or children.
37:24Did you think that the order of the commander was logical?
37:27Yes, in this case it seemed logical and correct to me.
37:31And did not you wonder what the civilians had to do with it?
37:35I did not.
37:39They all took part in this retaliation.
37:43Along with my comrades, I shot refugees who were going on a sled,
37:47crossing the ice at 400 meters.
37:51We saw how they stumbled and fell.
37:54Hitler was not worried about all these arbitrary murders.
37:58When he learned at the beginning of the war
38:02that Stalin had asked for the actions of the partisans,
38:06Hitler commented,
38:10This war of partisans has its advantages.
38:14It gives us the opportunity to eliminate everyone who turns against us.
38:24Hitler thought that only by terrorizing the population
38:28could the partisans be defeated.
38:32But that escalation of reprisals of terror
38:36seemed not to be working.
38:40In November 1942,
38:44the head of the intelligence agency of the German army for the East,
38:48Colonel Reinhard Gellin, advocated a different approach.
38:51He suggested that they should encourage citizens to help the Germans
38:55and said that the current concept of the Nazis to treat the Soviets as inferior was
38:59a major mistake.
39:03Hitler did not agree.
39:07He had come to a very different conclusion.
39:11Only when the struggle against the partisans was carried out with ruthless brutality
39:15could we reap success.
39:21The result was a greater emphasis
39:25on carrying out large operations against the partisans
39:29that swept the occupied territories, leaving the chaos behind.
39:33After our front line,
39:37the partisans controlled large areas
39:41of the German army.
39:45The Germans, on the other hand,
39:48the partisans controlled large areas.
39:52We carried out large operations against the partisans
39:56where we used entire divisions.
40:00Of course,
40:04there were a large number of deaths,
40:08including civilians.
40:12Very unpleasant things happened.
40:15During these assaults,
40:19sometimes the villagers remained in their houses,
40:23thinking that because they were innocent they were safe.
40:27We tried to persuade my brother to come to the forest.
40:31He said no.
40:35He simply did not believe what was happening.
40:39He wanted to protect the house.
40:42We could not take him with us.
40:46But he was an adult, a teacher.
40:50He did not believe what was happening.
40:54He thought it made no sense.
40:58He stayed and died.
41:02A brother murdered by Hitler's army.
41:06A sister murdered by the partisans.
41:09It did not mean anything to them.
41:13It was like crushing a fly, just a gunshot.
41:17We spent all those years scared of everyone.
41:21It was obvious that the Germans were not very scrupulous
41:25with their definition of a partisan.
41:29Herr von der Greven was a senior officer
41:33of the German Army Group Center.
41:36He wrote a report on one of the actions against the partisans,
41:40Operation Otto, as 1A or Operations Chief.
41:44It is a list of 1920 partisans and their collaborators,
41:48killed by soldiers of their army group.
41:52But only 30 rifles and a handful of weapons were recovered.
41:56More than 90% of those who killed the Germans did not have weapons.
41:59Yes, here it says 1A.
42:03Of course, I read it.
42:07This is my signature.
42:11Or at least I had it on my table.
42:15But in relation to this disproportion,
42:19I must say that we had such incredible problems
42:23that we did not know what to do.
42:26I must say that we had such incredible problems
42:30that if I read it, I just had to take a look at it.
42:40You have already said that unpleasant things happened there.
42:44How can you justify yourself now for what happened?
42:47How can you justify yourself now for what happened?
42:59Look, the partisans surely had the necessary weapons for their actions.
43:03Look, the partisans surely had the necessary weapons for their actions.
43:07If they did not have the weapons, they would not have done anything.
43:11And we would not have employed a single German soldier to fight them.
43:18So you simply accept what happened to innocent civilians?
43:22The fury of the troops was immense.
43:26So I imagine that the innocent people,
43:30or whatever innocent means, died too.
43:34or whatever innocent means, died too.
43:38In the town of Maximaica, the Germans made another strike against the partisans.
43:42In the town of Maximaica, the Germans made another strike against the partisans.
43:45Their actions showed the little value that life had now in the occupied territories.
43:49Their actions showed the little value that life had now in the occupied territories.
43:58On the morning of July 2, the Germans took us out of bed,
44:02me and my brother, who was deaf-mute, and took us to the road.
44:06me and my brother, who was deaf-mute, and took us to the road.
44:09They tied one villager next to another and made us walk.
44:13They tied one villager next to another and made us walk.
44:17We walked in front of the German soldiers.
44:21They followed us 10 meters.
44:25They followed us 10 meters.
44:29This was because if the partisans had buried mines,
44:33the soldiers would not fly.
44:36This was because if the partisans had buried mines,
44:40the soldiers would not fly.
44:44I felt like we were walking towards our death.
44:48I felt like we were walking towards our death.
44:52Either we stepped on a mine and flew,
44:56or we avoided the mines and the Germans would shoot us.
45:00or we stepped on a mine and flew,
45:03or we avoided the mines and the Germans would shoot us.
45:07The feeling was that we would die anyway.
45:11I was lucky, we walked and there were no mines.
45:15I was lucky, we walked and there were no mines.
45:19We did not fly.
45:23What could we think?
45:27They took us to a life-and-death situation.
45:30There were many reasons for so many innocents to die in this war.
45:34There were many reasons for so many innocents to die in this war.
45:38In particular, the Nazi campaign for an empire based on racial domination.
45:42The atrocities of the partisans, along with the Nazi reprisals,
45:46and the character of Hitler and Stalin.
45:50Two men who believed that terror could only be fought with more terror.
46:01But despite how much the innocents suffered,
46:05with their blood the war would not be won.
46:17This war would be decided in the battlefield of a savage war conflict
46:21that echoed the brutality of the actions that took place behind the front.
47:00This war would be decided in the battlefield of a savage war conflict
47:04that echoed the brutality of the actions that took place behind the front.