Last Days, The (1998)

[bunniefuu]

[Train rolls along tracks]

BILL BASCH: There is one thing
that has puzzled me...

and has puzzled the world--

that the Germans dedicated
manpower and trains...

and trucks and energy...

towards the destruction of
the Jews through the last day.

Had they stopped six months
before the end of the w*r...

and dedicated that energy

towards strengthening
themselves...

they may have carried on the w*r
a little longer.

But it was more important
to them to k*ll the Jews...

than even winning the w*r.

IRENE ZISBLATT: I grew up
in a town called Polena...

in the Carpathian mountains.

It was a small town
of two main streets.

This leads all the way up to--

There is a church over there.
You can't see it.

We had a post office,
and we had a town hall...

and we had a church
and a synagogue.

Everybody knew each other.

It was beautiful.

I lived
in a town called Uzhorod.

It was a small town...

yet it had the feel
of a big cosmopolitan town.

Right here was a little deli.

Right around...
Right here.

And...

We used to come here...

to have our sandwiches
for the afternoon.

ALICE LOK CAHANA: We lived
in a town called Sarvar.

It's in Hungary,
close to the Austrian border.

Every day, the peasants
would bring their wares...

from the neighboring villages
in big baskets...

and they would carry them
on their head or shoulders.

Szaszovo was a very small,
little community...

consisting of , people.

No electricity
and no utilities at all.

So it was a very simplistic,
boring life.

Nothing exciting.

But then Budapest,
where I ended up...

was an entirely different life.

It was an enormous adjustment.

I looked at this city,
and I said, "Wow."

It was like--I never believed
anything like this exists.

TOM LANTOS:
Budapest was a magnificent...

world-class city...

on par with
Vienna or Paris or London...

as a great European capital.

This magnificent
Parliament building...

saw the best and the worst
in Hungarian history.

The bulk of the Jews
in Budapest...

were utterly assimilated,
deeply patriotic...

and enormously proud of their
Hungarian cultural heritage.

There were about
Jewish families in our town...

and I think that the town
was or , non-Jews.

I had non-Jewish friends.
I dated non-Jewish boys.

My parents
had non-Jewish friends.

We also felt quite Hungarian
at the same time...

not just Jewish.

So Judaism was our religion,
but we were Hungarians.

NEWSREEL NARRATOR:
On August , ...

officers and men
swear the oath of allegiance...

not to Germany,
but to Hitler personally.

nd NARRATOR: As Hitler's rule
over Germany became absolute...

to his alarmed neighbor
Austria...

Hitler promised
to keep hands off.

TOM: ln ,
when I was ten years old...

I bought my first newspaper.

And I saw the headlines--

"Hitler Marches lnto Austria"--

and I sensed that
this historic moment...

will have a tremendous impact...

on the lives
of Hungarian Jews...

my family, and myself.

NEWSREEL: Germany invades Poland
and the free state of Danzig.

Warsaw is bombed,
blasted, and shelled.

Poland is in ruins.

RENEE: There were refugees
coming to Hungary...

running away from Poland.

And most
of the Jewish families--

Friday night,
the men went to temple...

to bring these people home
and give them shelter.

They would come
and tell stories...

and I remember, very often...

we didn't believe them.

I heard a conversation between
my father and another man...

and he was telling my father...

what the Nazis
are doing in Poland.

And one thing that
l'll never forget that I heard--

And he said...

"The Nazis are taking
our young Jewish infants...

"and they're tearing them
in half by their legs...

"and they're throwing them
in the Dniester."

The Dniester
is a river in the Ukraine.

Then later, of course,
the stories were getting worse.

We began to hear about
mass shootings into mass graves.

But there was
a sort of a naive--

I hate to use the word,
but I have to--

patriotic feeling that we
Hungarians don't do such things.

Hitler was in Germany...

so what happened in Germany
didn't reflect on us.

We were far away from it.

DR. RANDOLPH BRAHAM:
There were two wars.

There was a military w*r...

There was a military w*r...

and hand-in-hand
with that w*r...

there was a second w*r--

the w*r of the SS
directed against the Jews.

[g*nshots]

The dark side of the Hungarian
national character...

was becoming
more and more obvious.

The persecution of Jews
became more and more obvious.

Jews were losing their jobs,
their businesses.

There was a Hungarian n*zi
movement, the Arrow Cross...

and this became, of course...

the most hated and feared group
for Hungarian Jews.

RENEE: People wonder how is it
that we didn't do something.

We didn't run away.
We didn't hide.

Well, things
didn't happen at once.

Things happened very slowly.

So each time a new law came out
or a restriction...

we said, "Just another thing.
It'll blow over."

TOM: Hitler moved into Hungary
on March , .

I was sixteen years old.

. March th.

Germans entered.
SS entered our town.

IRENE: Two motorcycles
was the whole n*zi regime...

that occupied our town.

Because
they were already there...

with the people that lived there
the whole time...

and did their dirty work.

Most of them were people...

that we thought were our friends
all these years...

but they turned overnight on us
and went with the other side.

And the next restriction...

was that the Jew cannot walk
out on the street...

without a yellow star.

We heard that in Germany...

they had to wear the yellow star
before they were taken away.

And in Poland, they did that.

So at that point,
we were worried.

TOM:
I did not wear a yellow star...

and I was caught.

I was put into
a forced-labor camp...

in a place north of Budapest...

which had
an important railroad bridge.

And our job
was to repair the railroads...

the lines, the bridges--
nonstop--

while the British and Americans
were bombing day and night.

We were obviously worried
that we would die...

but we were also hoping
that the bombers...

will hit all of their targets
and destroy this bridge...

because that was the way
to defeat Hitler.

I escaped
from that labor camp...

and I joined
the Hungarian underground.

And the next decree would be
we have to pack up kilos.

And at first,
we didn't understand.

What do you take?

Think about your home,
your own home.

What would you take?
Twenty-five kilo.

What is twenty-five kilo?
How much is twenty-five kilo?

Do you take the pillows?
Do you take your covers?

Do you take your dishes?

What do you take?

When we were packing...

I wanted to take something
to remind me of the good times.

I was very depressed
and worried.

And so I came across
a bathing suit...

a bathing suit that...

my father brought me.

I don't want to do this.

On one of his business trips
about three years earlier...

my father came home...

and he always brought us
something...

my sister and myself.

And...

of course we always asked,
"What did you bring?"

And he opened this box...

and out of the box came this
most beautiful bathing suit.

It had a shiny satin finish...

and a print
of multicolored flowers.

And then in the afternoon...

when I heard the soldiers' boots
coming up the stairs...

I ran back and put this
bathing suit under my dress.

And that's how I left.

They broke down the front doors.
They came in.

They gave us a few minutes--

they said a half hour,
but it was not a half hour--

to get all our valuables
together...

and they marched us
out of the house.

ALICE:
I couldn't imagine...

that they'd just take out
people from their homes...

because they are Jewish.

Our friends, so-called,
and neighbors...

they were standing lined up
alongside of the road...

and they were yelling,
"It's about time."

"You go on out of here."

And "We don't need
any Jews in our town."

"We need to get rid
of all you Jews."

And I stood, and I could not
believe my eyes.

The people I went to school
with, their children...

We were friends.
We were sharing things together.

Why are they so hostile?

Why do they hate us
all of a sudden?

It's like when you read that
the Jews went out of Egypt.

We are carrying all our baggage.

The pillows and the covers
are tied in a bundle...

and we children helped
to carry it.

And I'm so ashamed.

RENEE: We wanted to believe
they're taking us to Germany...

and that we're going to work.

We really wanted to believe.

And by then...

the whole European Jewry
was already in camps...

which we didn't know.

The concentration,
ghettoization...

and deportation took place
in a concentrated manner--

that is, within twelve weeks.

And nowhere else...

was the deportation program
carried out...

with the barbarity and speed
that it was in Hungary.

They said that
they will take us to a ghetto.

I mean, we never hear that word.

It is not a Hungarian word.
"Ghetto."

RENEE:
We had no idea where we were.

ln the morning,
when we woke up...

I realized
that we are in a brickyard...

a brick-factory yard.

And in April, it was rainy.
It was a lot of rain.

And we were always--

We had to change the sheets,
because the roof was sheets...

and we were always wet.

There were thousands
of people there...

because they came
from the whole county.

And there were guards
everywhere with dogs...

walking around all the time.

Big German shepherd dogs
on very, very tight leashes.

This was all just these huts
with people all over.

ROBlN: Do you know
where your hut was?

IRENE: Yes. My hut was right
where these piles of bricks are.

[Irene crying]

And then one day,
they announced...

that everybody
that wants to go to work--

to Tokaj and the vineyard
to make wine--

should come on the train.

And everybody, voluntary,
gladly went on the train...

because this was hell.

And going to work in a vineyard
was like going to heaven.

We were taken
to the railroad station...

by the Hungarian soldiers.

IRENE:
My mother said to me...

"I rolled up diamonds
in your skirt--

"in the hem of your skirt--

"and if you don't have enough
to eat...

"those are to buy bread."

When we arrived
at the railroad station...

we realized that we're not going
on passenger trains.

The cattle cars
were waiting for us.

IRENE: My father said they
ran out of the other trains--

because there's wartime
they don't have other trains...

so they have to use
what they have.

ALICE: Anybody who didn't go
and didn't go fast was beaten.

IRENE:
When they closed the doors--

when I heard
that knock on the outside...

like a bolt
closing us in there--

it wasn't normal anymore.

I didn't accept they were
running out of the other trains.

BILL: ln Budapest, as times
started getting worse...

I really had to acquire
gentile papers.

I did not exist as a Jew.

I would have been shot.
I would have been k*lled.

You were a hunted animal
twenty-four hours every day...

and you didn't know
if anybody you encountered...

was really on your side.

Had it not been
for Wallenberg...

neither I nor
the other tens of thousands...

would have ever survived.

Raoul Wallenberg arrived
when all of Hungary...

with the exception of Budapest,
was already free of Jews.

He went to Budapest at a time
when, in the countryside...

the Jews had already been
put into cattle cars...

and shipped away from Hungary.

And he decided to join
the Swedish embassy there...

for the sole purpose
of trying to save Jewish lives.

By issuing so-called
Swedish protective passports...

he declared that the individual
who had this document...

at the end of the w*r,
planned to go to Sweden.

This was pure fiction.

But in the chaos
and the confusion of the w*r...

this miraculous,
worthless piece of paper worked.

BILL: Several of us acted
as distributors or runners...

to deliver this fake passport...

to the people that were waiting
in those protected houses.

TOM: Wallenberg leased
large apartment houses...

put up a Swedish sign indicating
that all the residents...

were under the protection
of the Royal Swedish government.

I stayed at St. Steven Park,
number twenty-five.

[Speaking Hungarian]

Most of these houses...

were upper middle-class
apartment houses.

And a -bedroom apartment that
may have had , , people...

living there
before this crisis...

suddenly became a hovel
with sixty, seventy people...

jammed into
a three-bedroom apartment.

GIRL:
Very uncomfortable.

TOM: Well, it was
very uncomfortable, honey...

but, more importantly,
it was unbelievably dangerous.

The word "protected house"
obviously is a misnomer...

because many people living
in these "protected houses"...

were rounded up...

taken to the bank of the Danube
and k*lled.

Now, to get into
the protected houses...

was not difficult.

The soldiers didn't care.

They were out in the front.
"Go in there."

However, to come out...

that was the very, very
difficult thing.

lf German soldiers...

or Hungarian n*zi soldiers
were suspicious...

they ordered us
to take down our pants...

because we were the only people
who were circumcised.

One day, I had on my body,
strapped around...

the fake passports I was
delivering to these people...

so they could get out
of the building...

and I miscalculated.

I went through the sewer line,
and I knew when to get out...

and I made a mistake.

lnstead of coming out
in the middle of the building...

I came out
in front of the building...

where two soldiers
were guarding the building.

I started running
as fast as I could...

crossing the street
back and forth.

And they were deporting
a group of Jews.

Not knowing where
they are taking them...

I jumped
into that group of Jews...

thinking, just as I got in
so many times into trouble...

l'll get out one more time.
This is just one more escape.

We wound up five days later
in Buchenwald.

IRENE: We were on the train
for about five days.

ALICE: Sitting on a heap of
luggage that we carried there.

The cattle car I was in,
there was about of us.

Mashed together like sardines,
and it's very, very hot.

They had one pail
for going to the bathroom.

And suddenly
the bucket filled up...

and then the odor
was unbearable.

They never opened the doors
to go to the bathroom.

They never gave us
any water or any food.

The children were screaming.
They wanted to go home.

Where are they taking us?

Nobody answers.

It was total darkness.

The light seeped only through
the cracks of the cattle car.

IRENE: My father found
a crack in the cattle train...

and he looked out,
and he just spoke out loud...

"I don't think
we're going to the vineyard...

"because we just
crossed the border...

"and we're heading
towards Poland."

And when he said Poland...

I remembered the man's story
about the children...

what they're doing
to the children in Poland.

I was holding my little brother,
two and half years old...

and I was holding him
so tight...

and I said to myself,
"I will never let him go.

"They will never
take him from me."

When they opened the doors
suddenly...

and suddenly the light hit you--

and because you had your eyes
for four or five days shut...

or used to this darkness,
you're almost blinded.

We were so happy because
we were going to get air.

We were going to get off
and maybe go to the bathroom...

like normal people...

and have water
and maybe some food.

And everybody would ask,
"Where are we?"

"What is the name?"

And it was a very strange name--

Auschwitz.

Here we had to be stopped.
Here was stopped.

Here was a lot of selection
happened.

MICHAEL: So you're all
standing in a line...

ALICE: Thousands of people,
and close to each other.

And confusion and noise.

And "Don't move and don't..."

Like soldiers,
standing straight, you see.

And in the middle
would the SS go here...

to check all of us...

walking their dogs
and just threatening.

MICHAEL: ln single file?

Or were there people
standing next to you?

-Five.
-Five in a row.

ALICE: So it was easy to count.
Right.

RENEE: When I jumped off
the cattle car...

I knew right away that
whatever they promised us...

whatever they told us,
were lies.

And you see
a lot of people running...

in striped clothes
and shaved heads.

Surrounded by n*zi soldiers
and vicious dogs.

They were yelling,
and they were screaming.

"Just hurry up.
Leave all your luggage there.

"Just leave everything."

All of a sudden,
there was a separation.

And my mother and my--

My mother and--

And my brother and my sister--

She held my little brother
in her arms--in one arm...

and my / -year-old sister
in her hand--

and I was holding
on to her hand...

and this is how
we were walking towards--

They were pushing us
towards that destination.

[Speaking German]

RENEE: My mother was selected
at the railroad station.

"Go to the left"--

while my sister and I
went to the right.

My mother was taken straight
from the railroad station...

to the gas chambers.

By the time my sister and I
were processed into the camp...

my mother was no longer alive.

RENEE: We were taken
to a dressing room.

And we were told we were going
to be taking a shower...

after this horrendous journey.

And we are going
to refresh ourselves...

and then we'll be assigned
to our work.

IRENE: They ordered us to take
our shoes in one hand...

and our clothes
in the other hand.

Then I remembered the diamonds
and grabbed my blue skirt...

and in the crowd, you know...

I just took out the diamonds
and held them in my hands.

And I had no clothes on my body.

And I remember I got undressed
with the rest of them...

and there I was,
standing in the bathing suit.

I had a premonition.

I had this feeling that if
I take this bathing suit off...

if I leave
this bathing suit behind...

all the wonderful memories...

that were built
in this bathing suit...

I kept remembering how I wore
there on the swimming pool...

and how the boys
were whistling at me...

and my friends were so jealous.

And now I'm gonna take it off,
and I'm gonna leave it here.

Everything that meant anything
in life to me...

I'm going to leave behind.

They kept on saying...

if anybody has any valuables
left, to leave them.

They had a section for that.

And I held on to the diamonds
for dear life...

because that was to buy bread.

So I put them in my mouth.

And then,
when I walked up again...

I saw they were opening up
people's mouth...

and they were looking
in the mouth and--

But I was
at the road of no return.

I couldn't give them up anymore
because I would be shot.

"Why didn't I leave them
back there?"

I had them in my mouth,
and I didn't know what to do...

so I swallowed them.

We walked into
the shower room...

and the dressing room
was locked behind us.

And a commando came in...

and removed
all our belongings right away.

They did give us a shower--
a little trinkly shower.

Again, there was another door...

on the other side
leading out to the courtyard...

on the other side
of this building.

And at the door
they had a pile of clothes...

and they ordered everybody
to pick one piece of clothing.

We waited till about midnight,
and then they permitted us...

to walk into
one of these wooden barracks.

ALICE: A thousand people
in a barrack.

lf one person turned,
everybody had to turn...

because we were so close
to each other.

I used to wake up so cold.

And I used to have
returning dreams...

that I'm at home,
that I'm very cold...

but my father
would come and cover us.

And then you wake up
to a whistle.

It's dark outside,
and this is a madman's hell.

RENEE: We saw this group
of about twenty men...

coming through the camp.

And as they were marching by,
I was watching.

"Maybe I know somebody."

And suddenly
I recognized my father.

And my first thought
was to hide.

It was terribly painful seeing
him with his shaved head...

in this uniform like a prisoner.

This man
who was helping everybody...

who was the kindest human being.

I just couldn't imagine
how would he feel...

if he saw us with
the shaved heads in this rag.

So I really just wanted to hide
so he can't see me.

And at that moment,
our eyes locked.

And I could see his tears
rolling down his cheek.

That was the last time
I saw my father.

IRENE:
I saw trucks coming...

and screams on the trucks.

And I saw two children
fall out of the truck.

And the truck stopped...

And the truck s--

And one SS man
came out from the front...

and he picked up
the children like that...

and he banged him
against the truck...

and the blood
came running down...

and threw him into the truck.

So that's when
I stopped talking to God.

They told us that
we're going to get a number.

A prisoner's number.

Well, of course, we expected
to get a prisoner's number...

on our clothing or somewhere.

And they set up these tables...

and at each table
sat a few girls...

with these huge books
opened in front of them.

And we presumed that they are
going to put our name in it...

and the number
that they are going to give us.

And then we realized that
they are putting this number...

on our flesh, on our arms.

They took five of us
and put drops in our eyes.

We didn't know why.
They didn't tell us.

And they put us in the dungeon.

They closed us in there...

and we were standing in water up
to our ankles, tightly packed.

And it seemed like forever.

It seemed like
it was an eternity.

They never opened the door.

They never gave us
anything to eat or drink.

So we drank the water
we stood in.

We went to the bathroom
in the water we stood in.

And then they opened the door
and took us out.

And they brought us up
into the courtyard...

and they examined our eyes.

Some of the people couldn't see
for several days after that.

And they took us
back to the barrack.

We found out later
that what they were doing...

is they were trying to change
the color of our eyes.

[Speaking German]

RANDOLPH: Having survived
the first / years...

of the w*r...

the Hungarian Jews
were k*lled...

in the last chapter of Hitler's
w*r against the Jews...

when the leaders of the world
were already fully aware...

of all the details of Auschwitz.

When we came to Auschwitz...

it was during
the Final Solution...

when he just
was desperate already.

He was losing the w*r.
Hitler was losing the w*r.

But he was not going to lose
the w*r against the Jews.

The sadism, the cruelty...

the irrationality...

of the German
and Hungarian Nazis...

of k*lling the remaining
Jewish population...

when the w*r was all over...

when they could have gained
brownie points...

by being more civilized with--
vis-a-vis these people...

was really not present because
their hatred was so blind.

RANDOLPH:
The Nazis diverted trains...

and other transportation means
useful to the Germans...

for purposes of deporting Jews.

That is, to complete
the Final Solution program.

While I was in Auschwitz,
the transports were coming in.

Two, three transports a day
with thousands of people.

RANDOLPH:
Within less than six weeks...

more than , Hungarian Jews
were deported to Auschwitz.

The gas chambers,
the crematoria could not cope.

The SS had to dig special pits
to burn the bodies...

using the Jews' own fat as fuel.

I saw how they were throwing
people into these fire pits.

I said to myself...

"Something is wrong with me.
My mind is going.

"I couldn't be seeing this."

ALICE: What vast landscape
you are seeing here.

How could people,
normal people...

go back after working here
or plan this?

OK, somebody had to plan it.

Somebody had to be an engineer.

Somebody had to really put on
a map this kind of efficiency.

The whole time
I was in the camp...

through the experiments,
every time I was selected...

I swallowed the diamonds.

So every time I swallowed them,
I had to find them again.

We were allowed to go
to the latrine once a day.

I never sat on the hole because
I had to find my diamonds.

One day, the SS woman
walked by the door...

and she saw me in the corner.

And I already had
the diamonds in the hand...

and usually I was waiting
until on the way back...

I would rinse them off
in the mud...

or if there was no mud...

in the soup
that we were gonna get next.

But I had no time,
and I had to swallow them.

ALICE: My God.
This is the latrine.

Oh, my God.

At this place, I was with
my sister, Edith, next to me.

And so Edith whispers to me
and says...

"It's almost Shabbat.
This is Friday.

"It's almost Shabbat."

How we used to celebrate Shabbat
in our house...

with food and with singing...

and with praying
and lighting the candle.

I told her, "Why don't we
celebrate inside the latrine?"

We ran back to the end...

and we started to make
our Shabbat ceremony...

and we started to sing...

[Speaking Hebrew]

And as we sang the melody...

other children
came around us...

and they started to sing
with us.

Somebody was from Poland,
somebody was German...

somebody was from Hungary,
Czechoslovakia...

all thrown together...

and suddenly the Hebrew songs,
prayers, the Shabbat...

united us in the latrine
of Auschwitz.

IRENE: People couldn't endure
all this pain...

the conditions
and the hunger and the lice.

The lice were
as big as my pinkie nail...

embedded into our bodies.

We were sore from
scratching and infections.

And so when
the electricity went on...

they ran to the barbed wire
to commit suicide.

Then they punished us.

For every man
that ran through the wire...

they took a hundred inmates
and k*lled them...

in front of everybody
as an example.

They didn't even let us die
when we wanted.

And then I thought of something.

They took away my parents.

They took away my identity.

They took away my siblings.

They took away my possessions.

There is something
that they want from me.

And then I thought of my soul.

And I says, they're not
going to take my soul.

And I decided
right then and there...

I'm going to get up from this
mud and I'm going to fight...

because I'm not going
to become ashes.

RENEE:
When we arrived to Auschwitz...

thousands and thousands of
people were cremated every day.

The Nazis used Jewish inmates,
a special Sonderkommando...

to remove the bodies
from the gas chambers...

and taking the bodies
into the crematorium.

As far as I know,
there is only four of us...

that worked in
the Sonderkommando alive today.

And we are
the only eyewitness...

that saw the whole thing
from "A" to "Z"...

how the Final Solution was done.

I'm Jewish from Greece.

And I lived in Greece...

until the time they took me
to concentration camp.

The first week of April, ,
I arrived in Auschwitz.

They selected some of the Greeks
to go to work on crematorium.

Now is my first day there.
I don't know what was going on.

I saw , people, all naked,
go into the big chamber...

which eventually
they take only people.

They were putting in
, people.

So nobody could do anything
but stand up their children.

And fifteen minutes later,
after they close the chambers...

and the SS threw the gas
from these four openings...

they open up.

What did I see?

I see the people
I saw fifteen minutes ago.

I see them all dead...

standing up with their children,
black and blue.

And I said to myself,
"What's going on?

"What's going on here?"

There was a Polish guy
that was there before...

and I said, "Where is God?"

He says, "God is where
you have your strength."

There were four crematoriums,
you know.

And they were working
twenty-four hours.

There were a lot of big shots
from Berlin...

coming and watching
how the Jews were dying.

There was a hole
in the hermetically closed...

and they were looking there how
the Jewish people were dying.

It takes two to four minutes.
Depends where you are.

A lot of people think that we--
working in the Sonderkommando--

we were guilty of something...

because we were doing
such kind of a work.

But ourselves,
we couldn't get out of it.

lf you don't do whatever
they're asking you to do...

they k*ll you right away.

One time I had
two friends of mine...

very close friends of mine,
they came in, you know.

Their names were the Venezias.

And I told them right away
that they were going to die.

They asked for food.

Whatever I had,
I gave them to eat.

I told them exactly
where to keep themselves...

where the openings were,
so they can die fast.

And after they were through...

I took them out,
and I washed them...

and I put them in the oven
to be burned.

[Machine g*n firing]

TOM: We could hear the a*tillery
moving closer and closer.

And Budapest
was the b*ttlefield...

between the Germans
and the Soviet Army.

And although we knew it would be
weeks before the Soviet Army...

would hopefully liberate
the remaining Jews...

we knew that lots of hardships
were still ahead.

ALICE:
ln Auschwitz, after Christmas...

we hear more the bombing
came closer and closer.

IRENE: The Nazis didn't want
anybody to get liberated.

So they were herding the people
away from the camp.

RANDOLPH:
The death march was in winter.

Those who could not keep pace
were simply shot by the wayside.

lf anybody tries to run away...

or do anything
that is not permitted...

will be shot on the spot.

There were three of us friends
together up to that point.

And we swore
that we would sacrifice...

each other's life
for each other...

that we would never
let each other down.

Kids. We had this sort of
a dream that will be possible.

One of the three had
a knee injury and had gangrene.

One of the soldiers
noticed him limping...

so he comes up,
and he wants to sh**t him.

When we step in front of him,
he pulls out his Luger...

and he says,
"I give you three seconds.

"Count to three.
Either you let him go...

"or all the three of you die."

Can you imagine?

Even though you're young,
that decision we had to make.

Here we promised that
we will die for each other...

but we couldn't keep that
promise under threat of death.

We did let him down.

We arrived,
about ten days' march or so...

we arrived into Dachau.

BILL: Oh, my God.

After fifty-three years...

it's as if it were yesterday.

You could find them right here
in the street, just laying...

and we didn't even
pay any attention.

You stepped over bodies.
Didn't pay attention.

They didn't mean anything.

-Right here?
-Yeah.

I never knew anybody's name...

never wanted to know anybody.

I never wanted to know
just in case someday...

someone will know this person...

whose shoes I have taken off
when he died.

lf you can imagine
that every morning...

my job was for a while--

I had to go barrack
to barrack to barrack...

and take those bodies and
bring them to the crematorium.

We had one of those pushcarts.

I remember the Sonderkommandos
that worked the crematorium...

came out and opened the gate.

They took it over from here
and walked it in.

We were never allowed
to cross this.

They never talked about
a crematorium, but we knew.

lf we walked in here,
we never got out.

We never got out from here,
from this area...

because if they let him out,
and he escapes...

they have witness,
they have testimony...

so they wouldn't let him out.

Oy, look at this.

The inhumanity of man
against man.

It's beyond belief.

This is the most monstrous thing
that man devised.

Burning human beings
just to get rid of them quicker.

Unbelievable.

It's just so emotional for me.
It's so hard.

Now, why did I survive?

Why did God spare me?

Somebody started to yell,
"Americans, Americans!"

We didn't know
what they mean by Americans...

and they were pointing up
to the sky.

Planes came out from behind
the mountains, from nowhere...

and they just bombed the convoy.

And they didn't touch us.
None of us got hurt.

That's when I found out
the first time...

that the United States
was at w*r.

It was April th when
I was ordered to go to Dachau.

Actually,
it was the night of the th...

and we were ordered
to take off...

as fast as possible
to get to Dachau...

not knowing what we were facing.

We thought it was
a German military camp...

that we were going in to take...

and therefore we were gonna
capture the people inside it.

We were in the vicinity...

of what we found out to be
concentration camps.

BILL: Suddenly,
we hear machine g*ns...

g*ns sh**ting off.

First thought
was that we are being k*lled.

And then we saw
the American soldiers...

climbing and crawling
and sh**ting...

and then we saw German soldiers
coming from that direction.

As they met here in the center,
the Germans gave up.

But visualize , people
coming out of those barracks.

Outside the camp
on railroad tracks was...

forty boxcars,
I believe, was the count...

absolutely full of dead bodies.

And not having had any knowledge
of what we were facing...

this was totally unreal.

Most of them
were wearing flannel pajamas.

That's all what they had.

Blue striped, white striped
flannel pajamas.

PAUL: People were weak.

Weak probably isn't even
the right term.

But they were emaciated.

Some of the people looked
very old who weren't old.

MIHO: They were walking dead.
That's what we called them.

Skeletons.

PAUL:
A few came out first...

then more came out
and more came out...

and they kept
coming toward us...

because it was almost
as if they realized--

and I guess they did--

they realized
that we were different...

that we were people
coming to help them.

And the Americans held the g*n
against the Germans...

but they didn't k*ll them.
They let us have them.

And taking a dozen or so
German soldiers we caught...

literally tore them apart
piece by piece.

We captured a German colonel,
and I went back and told him...

that we're gonna send you to
our officers to talk to you...

and he spit in my face...

and I k*lled him.

It wasn't long before
the w*r was over after that...

but throughout those last days,
we intended to stop Germany...

from ever having
the opportunity...

to stand up again and do this
to anybody.

l've seen
many a horrible sight...

that two years
in ltaly, France, and Germany...

but the worst
l've ever seen in my life...

were the survivors
of the Holocaust.

This is something which is...

to this day I cannot forget.

I wasn't young anymore.

I was very old.

I was sixteen,
but I was very old.

Returning to freedom
was very difficuIt.

We didn't know how
we were going to make peace...

with the outside world
which didn't want us...

and we didn't know...

who we were going to find
or not find.

They didn't know
what to do with us...

and they put us in a DP camp...

which is
a displaced persons camp.

And the closest one
from where I was was in Austria.

And all the survivors
that had no other place to go...

were in that camp.

So it was another camp,
but it was free.

TOM: After the Soviet Army
liberated Budapest...

and I became
a free human being again...

I did not know for months...

whether my mother
or other members of my family...

would ever return.

RENEE: I was hoping
that going back to Auschwitz...

is finally going to give me
some closure.

And I was shocked to find out...

that it opened up
new questions and new doubts.

Renée. R-e-n-é-e.

RENEE: This is the first time
that I decided...

to find some records
on my family.

And my sister was Klara.

Give me some.

Klara.

Mm-hmm. lt's my sister.

Yeah.

RENEE: I found records
of my sister, my father...

and my own...

and when I asked about
my mother...

the archivist, the historian
told me...

that those who were taken...

from the railroad station
and k*lled immediately...

there is no record of those.

This is a test
of her blood or...

or some medical researchment
of Klara Weinfeld.

RENEE: I found out that
my sister was experimented on...

that they were doing
some blood tests on her.

And what does the zero mean?

RENEE: And he said,
"I really don't know.

"Nobody ever asked me."

But there is a Dr. Munch who
was the head of this clinic...

who is still alive.

Then I found out you're going
to interview this man...

and that I may have a chance
to ask him...

what those symbols meant.

MUNCH:
Nothing important.

-Six months.
-Bitte?

-Six months.
-Six months.

RENEE:
I tried to be civilized...

but he was very evasive...

and I became very angry.

I kept thinking that thousands
and thousands of people...

died in his clinic.

I am going to go back
to Crematorium ...

because I know that my mother
was taken there for sure.

I'm going to light
some candles...

and I know that I am not
coming back here anymore.

And now...
just very recently...

I got a new letter
from Bergen-Belsen...

that they don't have Edith Lok.

They looked through
their books...

but they found an Edith Schwarz.

And I remembered at one point...

my sister Edith decided
she will use my mother's name...

but I forgot it.

And all these years
I looked for Edith Lok.

Can you find me, though,
with Hungaria--

Hungaria?

Let's just look at it.

It's not alphabetized.

ALICE:
Going back to Bergen-Belsen...

I want my husband
to say a prayer...

with my children and with me...

because we will
symbolically bury Edith.

MAN: This is a cemetery where
all the people were buried...

who were brought after
liberation...

to the military blocks.

We found the name
of your sister.

She died here, we think,
on the nd of June .

So all the people who died
in those days...

were buried here,
one beside the next one.

ALICE: Today is the most
special day of my life.

Finally, the search is over...

and we know now what happened
and when it happened.

I brought here
my mother's prayer book...

and here we will say for you...

the prayers
that's traditional...

and light this candle
in your memory...

and remember you forever...

as long as we live.

Yitgadal v' yitkadash
shemai rabah.

B'almah divrah charutay
viyamlich malchutai...

b'chayachon uv 'yamaichon...

uv'chayai kol bet Yisroel...

ba'agala u'bizman kariv,
v'imru amen.

Yehai shemai raba mevorach
l'olam olmai olmaya.

Yitbarach, v'yishtabach.

'yitpaar v'yirroman,
v'yitnaseh...

v'yithadar, 'v'yithaleh
v'yithallal...

shemai dekudisha, b'rich hu.

ALICE: But there are a lot
of people like me out there...

who are still looking...

because for us...

liberation wasn't the last day.

TOM: I got an announcement
that I had been selected...

to receive
an academic scholarship...

to the University of Washington
in a town called "Seetle..."

because nobody told me
it's pronounced Seattle.

I had a ticket
on the SS Marine Falcon.

I went to bunk B- ,
put down my knapsack...

and they called for chow.

I had no idea what chow was.

It wasn't part
of my English vocabulary.

So I got into the chow line.

We had these huge metal trays...

and this was
a period when, of course...

my mental preoccupation
was still with hunger.

And these wonderful people
slopped on...

all the wonderful things
on this metal tray.

And at the end of the line...

there was a huge wicker basket
of oranges...

and a huge wicker basket
of bananas.

My mother always taught me
to do the right thing...

and I didn't know
what the right thing was.

So there was
another huge sailor...

and I asked him,
"Sir, do I take a banana...

"or do I take an orange?"

And he said, "Man, you eat
all the damn bananas...

"and all the damn oranges
you want."

And then I knew I was in heaven.

IRENE: I loved my town...

and I see it
picturesque and happy.

I'm planning to go there
for the first time...

since I left in .

Now, look at the sign, Robin.

Look at it.
It says Polena in Russian.

The river is running
on the right-hand side.

We used to go bathing here.

I'm hoping I can find...

some of the people that I knew
before the Holocaust...

and maybe
that I can talk to them.

ROBlN: There's the mushrooms
in the jar, see?

[lrene speaking Hungarian]

IRENE:
Maybe they can tell me...

things that happened
while we were away.

[Speaking Hungarian]

IRENE:
This one woman, Mariska...

she remembered my grandparents,
my father, my mother, and me.

I was most surprised
that she remembered me.

I was really afraid the people
were going to be hostile...

that they were going to be
accusing me of coming back...

to take something
away from them.

I was asked
in a very nice way...

am I planning
to take my property...

and come back to live there?

And I said no.

I just want my children to know
where I come from...

and I wanted to see my town
where I grew up...

one more time before I die.

RENEE:
Going back to my hometown...

with my family, with my child...

showing her
this beautiful town...

which everywhere we went,
the word "Jew" doesn't exist.

This building was
the Jewish community center.

I wanted
to go to the Jewish temple...

which was a beautiful synagogue.

Look how they let this--
Oh, my God.

What they did to this city,
you just have no idea.

It's just unbelievable.

We went to the temple...

and there I met this man,
this Jewish man.

He was also in Auschwitz.

Hello.

RENEE: Then he walked us
through the temple...

and explained to us this is
no longer a Jewish temple.

RENEE: It was very painful
to see that this holy place...

was transformed
into a place of entertainment.

The most difficult part
was going back to my house.

Oh, my God!

That is the original...

That's the original gate.

The entrance.

The entrance. Yeah.

RENEE:
It was neglected...

this beautiful house that
my father took care of always...

and everything
was manicured around it.

MAN:
I think it's locked.

RENEE: No, it isn't.
It just doesn't open.

[Sobbing]
It doesn't open.

RENEE: At that moment I wished
I wouldn't have seen it.

[Sobbing]

One of the neighbors
who was a young child...

at the time they took us away
was still there.

He has now a Russian wife
who was very sympathetic.

She was scared to tell me...

what really happened
after we left.

At that moment,
I felt very lucky...

I will have a chance to go back
to the United States to my home.

I saved the diamonds
all the way--

all the way through
the whole everything.

And when I was free...

I didn't talk
about the Holocaust...

but I took the diamonds
and mounted them...

into a teardrop-shaped
pendant...

because every time
I had to save them...

I had to cry so much...

so I felt that the tears
are appropriate for that...

and I told my children
that these diamonds...

should go down
from generation to generation...

to the firstborn girl
in the family...

until...forever.

And you can see
they are different shapes...

and they're different cuts.

And they're
the only thing that l...

that I'm holding
that my mother ever held.

OK, well, I don't know
what you think about...

TOM: My life today is something
I myself cannot believe.

Having been elected by
my constituency in California...

of some , people
nine times...

it all seems like a dream,
and it all places...

an incredible sense
of responsibility on me.

As the only survivor
of the Holocaust...

ever elected to the Congress
of the United States...

I know I speak
for all of my colleagues...

Republicans and Democrats...

in expressing our outrage
at the most recent t*rror1st...

The central focus of my life
obviously is human rights...

because I am convinced
that this is really the path...

of a more civilized world.

My wife Annette and I have known
each other all our lives.

We grew up as children
in Budapest...

and we have been married now
for forty-seven years.

We have two daughters
who early on came to us...

and said that they planned...

a special gift
for their parents.

Since our families
were wiped out...

they will give us
a large family.

And we have been blessed with
wonderful grandchildren...

and it's really
the focus of our life.

RENEE:
I would like to be known...

as an educator
of the Holocaust...

so I go to
the Museum of Tolerance...

where I was a founder
of the Outreach Program...

and I speak to groups
who come into the museum.

...came into being. When
these things are happening...

you almost begin to believe
that you did something wrong.

Why would they do this to me...

I feel that it is my duty...

to make the world aware...

of what happened
during that time.

I always felt that
my language is inadequate...

and that if I wanted to tell
the story of my experiences...

I have to talk through a medium.

And I found art,
because art transcends.

It's beyond words.

I wanted the surface
to be very much layered.

It should look like
a crumbled wall...

like it's papered over
with yesterday's news...

because people want
to forget the past.

People want to forget
about the Holocaust.

What keeps me going is really...

the family...

that my husband and I created.

My grandchildren,
three wonderful children...

two of them rabbis...

and my beautiful daughter.

She teaches me every day
what is important in life...

And my husband,
who is four-generation lsraeli.

And such a gallant man.

And he helped me
to construct a life.

This painting is
"Arbeit Macht Frei."

When you read this welcome gate,
so to speak...

"Arbeit Macht Frei..."

My art today
is about the Holocaust...

because I have no memorial
for my people.

I don't know where they are.

Why, so many
of my family members died...

so many got k*lled...

that the Basch family
was almost wiped out.

We have regenerated.

So when we get together,
we are quite a large group.

And the joy of sitting
with my family...

and looking around and saying
that I was so close to death...

and here I am
sitting at a table...

and there are eleven,
twelve of us rejoicing life.

The pleasure of living
is wonderful.

-Salud.
-L'chaim.

One day, it was on a Sunday,
someone knocked at my door...

and I asked him into the door.

They had something wrapped in
a newspaper under their arm...

and they said,
"Are you Paul Parks?"

And I said yes.

He says, "We've been looking
for you for several years."

"Off and on, various people
have been looking for you.

"We wanted to find you."
I said, "Why?"

"There was a fellow
who was liberated by you guys...

"at Dachau
who remembered you...

"and he died
several years ago...

"and he'd made
a menorah in the camp.

"He made it out
of concrete nails...

"and welded it together
and braised it together...

"while he was in the camp,
and he wanted you to have it.

"So we've been looking for you
to give it to you...

"and here it is."

And he gave me
this beautiful menorah.

IRENE: Liberation was like
a present from the world...

and that's the first time
I acknowledged God again...

that He is around
and helped me get to this point.

I don't think that God
created the Holocaust.

I think that God gave us a mind
and a heart and free will...

and it is up to man...

what he's going to do
with his life.

And I blame man, not God.

I cannot rationally explain,
emotionally explain...

intellectually explain
the Holocaust.

I cannot find...

a place
for a higher authority...

in this nightmare.

What kind of people are we?

What are the books teaching us?

What is the difference
between me...

and another child?

What is the Bible teaching me?

What is this about?

Hitler remained a pathological
anti-Semite to the end.

ln one of his last testaments,
or warnings to his followers...

was for them to continue
the w*r against the Jews.

BILL: ln his will ex*cuted
April , , it says...

"Above all,
I enjoin the government...

"and the people to uphold
the race laws to the limit...

"and to resist mercilessly...

"the poisoner of all nations,
international Jewry."

RANDOLPH: The Holocaust
has to be taught as a chapter...

in the long history
of man's inhumanity to man.

One cannot ignore
the discrimination...

inflicted on many people...

because of race, color,
or creed.

One cannot ignore sl*very.

One cannot ignore
the burning of witches.

One cannot ignore
the k*lling of Christians...

in the Roman period.

The Holocaust, perhaps,
is the culmination...

of the kind of horror
that can occur...

when man loses his integrity...

his belief
in the sanctity of human life.