This might be the most powerful episode yet, and all the episodes so far have made a strong impact. What was you reaction? Badd Medicine Arcade (Gaming channel) ua-cam.com/channels/HIstVk00GtduPIXlJLdC3A.html Early Drops & Full Reactions on YT Memberships & Patreon: www.patreon.com/baddmedicine Backup channel Subscribe here ua-cam.com/channels/1CLUwA27dz-94o3FR0o3xg.html
Please react to a movie called How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies. It's a Thai movie, it centered around a young male who, after received news that his grandma got diagnosed with cancer, decided to take care of his grandma while he himself trying to secure his inheritance from his grandma. This movie is a seriously tear-jerker movie, full of family-themed lessons and, I can dare to say, this movie is a lot better than any family movies that you've ever seen or reacted before.
“Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses -because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened.” ― Dwight D. Eisenhower We cannot afford to forget history of the true horror that everyone suffered in WW2
Sadly, comparable atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese are largely glossed over in the West. One notable difference is that the Japanese viewed everyone else like the Nazis viewed Jews, Poles, Roma & gays. The Holocaust has been drummed into the soul of Germany, while Japanese relations with China and Korea are still strained due to Japan's unwillingness to fully accept responsibility. In the words of Historian Stephen E. Ambrose, “The Japanese presentation of the war to its children runs something like this: One day, for no reason we ever understood, the Americans started dropping atomic bombs on us”.
Hate and fear are powerful tools to those in power. While a fraction of what the Nazi’s did, we did put innocent Japanese Americans into internment camps. While this was occurring we had African Americans in parts of the country where they were below second hand citizens and subject to legal atrocities. Even Eisenhower who made the comment oversaw “Operation Wetback” which led to the death of thousands. Not a post against Eisenhower as my grandfather served under him and O have pictures of them together. But a reminder as this wasn’t a one-time horrific event and it happens all the time in some form or another. We are not that different from the towns people who turned a blind eye and let this happen. The concentration camps were the Nazi’s final solution. Less known is their First Solution, which was a mass deportation. History doesn’t always repeat, but it does echo.
"If anyone ever tells you the Holocaust didn't happen, or that it wasn't as bad as they say, no, it was worse than they say. What we saw, what these Germans did, it was worse than you can possibly imagine." - Private Edward “Babe” Heffron To think of the hell that these men went through in battle, only to witness another one with these atrocities
"We are told the American soldier does not know what he is fighting for. Now, at least he knows what he is fighting against." - General Eisenhower after visiting Buchenwald.
My dad was in the 10th Armor which in real life found the camp. Easy came a day later. This was the only episode he wouldn't watch with me. Afterwards I told him I understood and felt so sorry for him. It was the main reason he never talked about the war until we watched this series. Every school in the world should watch this series when they are old enough
@@SteadyPlaying I forget, but it was a concentration camp, not what they call "death camps" which were usually outside of pre-war german territory, but often in preww1 germany. Was a different wartime legal code going on in the occupied territories. They don't mention the allies had methodically bombed all supply routes into the camps, and most of them are wasting from typhus / typhoid fever. As the germans evacuated eastern camps as the russians advanced they jammed more and more into the camps to the west and the sanitary corridor broke down in the final months and everyone started dropping like flies. American coroners did autopsies on many of the dead bodies everywhere and they were not killed with gas. The gassing is said to only have happened in the death camps which were only liberated by the russians in the east. Dying from disease is no joke in war. And if you are on the bottom of the list for who gets food shipments... disease explodes.
I went to school here in Germany and was fortunate enough to have a survivor of a concentration camp come and speak to us in a history lesson.Absolutely harrowing but it made it so much more impactful to hear than just reading in a book... not many witnesses of that time left unfortunately. That's why it's even more important to preserve a show like this!
@@SteadyPlaying one of the camps of the Kaufering system, 11 sub-camps surrounding Dachau. The one in the show would be one of those near Landsberg am Lech.
I had a good friend who was an extra for this. He was dying of leukemia and had gone through multiple rounds of chemo so he was skin and bones. He unfortunately didn’t live to see this episode air as he died about 2 months before it came out.
We watched Schindler's List. That movie should be required. The current generation are the last to meet the living survivors. My son will not ever get to speak to one, only see and hear of their memories.
About Spiers and the silver- While in England, Spiers got involved with a British widow with two kids (her husband was missing and presumed dead in Singapore). When he got her pregnant, they were married in a civil ceremony, but because he didn't go through the system and get permission first, the Army didn't recognize his marriage. As a result, he couldn't arrange an allotment to provide for her and the kids. So he was looting everything portable and shipping it back to her in England to provide for his family. In a twist that sounds too melodramatic to be true, but actually happened, her husband was found in a Japanese POW camp in Burma. She decided to go back to him, and Spiers didn't meet his son until the '60s.
That's a loyal woman right there(Since she thought he was dead). Imagine how crushed the man would be if you were a soldier in her position and she stuck with the new dude.
My uncle Mike freed a couple of those camps. He never got over what he saw. He said the smell was so bad, he could not eat for days. Years later, any time anyone said that it didn’t happen, he’d get enraged. He decked a few guys in bars who claimed as much.
The 1947 film “The Best Years of Our Lives” (highly recommended!) has a short but pivotal scene with a guy who thought the US should have sided with Germany and Japan. Needless to say, it enrages the veterans in the movie. But it was an interesting detail to include, reminding the audience that there were pro-Nazi and pro-fascist people living in the US.
Director George Stevens (who was part of the crews to film the D-Day landings and other events) was one of the first to enter Dachau and record the conditions and people there. Many of his recordings were used during the Nuremberg trials. His war years changed him and when he returned to Hollywood, he no longer made comedies. When he was preparing to direct the 1959 “The Diary of Anne Frank”, he went to view some of his footage which he hadn’t seen in over 12 years. He was so disturbed that after only 2 or 3 minutes, he stopped and never watched it again.
“A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” The book from 1943 was an immense success. It was released in an Armed Services Edition, the size of a mass-market paperback, to fit in a uniform pocket. The book was one of the most popular Armed Services Edition books shipped to American military service personnel for free during World War II. Author Smith said that she received ten times more fan mail from soldiers than she did from civilians. One Marine wrote to the author Smith, "I can't explain the emotional reaction that took place in this dead heart of mine... A surge of confidence has swept through me, and I feel that maybe a fellow has a fighting chance in this world after all." The book covers several generations of families with their serious challenges as well as joys, and there is the symbol of the ‘Tree-of-Heaven’ as being resilient and a survivor.
My grandfather, a sergeant for a mortar team in the 103rd, helped liberate a satellite camp. He was pretty open about his experiences in the war (he was extremely proud for fighting in the Battle of the Bulge) but never, ever talked about the camps. The only time he ever mentioned it was in an interview with one of the local colleges right before he died. He had nightmares every night of his life from what he saw there.
I once read that in the early to late 1930’s, there were many Jews who had fought in the German army during WW1, or had served as medics during that period, so they imagined as veterans they would be considered valuable citizens or admired for being patriotic, as well as believing “it can’t get that bad…”
I've watched it several times but for some reason today it got to me... Also, the other poster above me makes a good point: imagine all the brain power and Manpower those dumb Fanatics wasted. They actually had Einstein and chased him out of the country
Liebgott got me sooo badly in this episode. When he had to tell the prisoners they had to stay in the camp, it just crushed him...and he had been so strong for so long!! Great acting by that guy, as well as all the others.
Oak, I’m really glad that you shared your experience of going to the Holocaust Museum. I went around the same age you did (somewhere between 6th and 8th grade) and it’s still incredibly difficult thinking about it. For me the past that broke me as a kid was the ovens they have there and after that I needed to just walk to the remembrance hall at the end of the museum. It was crazy listening to you talk about things they had at the museum and I could see them like it was yesterday too.
The woman in red I believe symbolizes the nation's pride in this episode, she glared at Nixon with crossed arms in the beginning, defiant of the invaders that had come to their town and still proud of her husband's image that he had tossed to the ground. In the end, though, when they locked eyes again....she couldn't hold her stare. Her pride was crushed under the weight of shame after seeing what people like her husband were actually responsible for. And not a word was ever spoken, a true masterclass in acting with facial expressions alone.
I think she knew. She was very aware of what her husband was doing. How could she not be, and Nixon's stare is one of "I know that you knew" and her shame speaks absolute volumes.
@@Owlyross Oh for sure, when they said "Someone in town told them we were coming" it was most likely her. I just think her main purpose was a visual representation to clash with our beleaguered Nixon.
Did Spielberg use the atand out red as he did in Schnidlers List to draw attention to the character. This time as the not so innocent representation of civilians who knew in some way their neighbors were at least being treated terribly & enabled by not saying no
@@mark-be9mqI mean honestly what were they supposed to do? Go storm the camps and fight the soldiers? With what? And how? They were living under a dictatorship their hands were kind of tied. Everyone likes to think they’d be the hero’s in situations like this, but 99% of people would keep their heads down and care about their own survival. Propaganda and the control of information was another issue there wasn’t any free press people were told what the government wanted them to know.
Fun fact: the actors were not told or shown the set for the camp scene so all their reactions were genuine. As for the people in the camp they were actual terminally ill patients from a local hospital.
15:12 The soldiers shooting the Germans were French as Oak said. Also, like Oak, I have always teared up while watching this episode. Personally, I cannot believe that some people still say that the Holocaust did not take place.
Thats why its so important that Germany keeps preserving the darkest parts of its history and keeps reminding the world, what happens when extremists take over. Other nations should take notice... The most frightening part is that Germany was considered one of the most developed and sophisticated societies of the time and still it was turned so fast and easily.
@@SovermanandVioboy exactly this. Anyone who thinks their culture, their nation, their people, can't be twisted around the same way Germany was- they haven't learned their history. It's easy for an individual to say they would never, but who can speak for their entire civilization?
I am a 72 year old Army Vet. I have watched this series at least once a year, or more, for over 20 years, and to this day, I cannot watch this episode without literally crying my eyes out.
This episode gets me every single time. Quinn’s silence was deafening when they came across the camp. I could see the realization in Oak’s face when he figured out that they found a camp. His story of the holocaust museum is so powerful, about the bridge, and it really made me tear up.
The issue with refeeding syndrome cant be understated. When people are that starved, feeding them again without extreme care will most likely kill them. I cant even imagine how hard it must have been to see people that far down and not just give them the food they wanted.
That and that they couldnt have chosen a worse thing to feed them. That cheese would DESTROY their digestive system. Within minutes there would be nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea and these poor people were already dehydrated.
@@mattholtmann They gave them cheese pieces and a big piece of a loaf. Actually that cheese wasn't that bad as it was more of hard cheese but the amount was really really much to a starving and dehydrated man.
They were intelligent people, the ‘prisoners’. wouldn’t they understand the basics of starvation and over feeding. I can’t imagine it be that hard, I’m sure the prisoners quickly understood why their food was being rationed.
Fun fact - A Tree Grows In Brooklyn was published in 1943 and quickly became one of the most popular books read by American soldiers abroad. There were pocket-sized editions passed around in little mobile libraries. It’s an amazing read. I’m always glad it got a brief shoutout in this episode. This is the best episode of an excellent show-thank you for sharing your reactions with us! It’s been moving to follow along with you all.
Last semester I was doing my first round of student teaching for my History Major license. I went to a school in the Spring, and they were just getting around to WW2 by the time I arrived. I talked to my cooperating teacher about using this episode as a way to cover the Holocaust. He then pulled out an old photo album, which belonged to his father-in-law’s dad, who had liberated a Concentration Camp. I had my students watch the episode, but before we watched it I had them look at the real photos taken at those camps. It wasn’t the goal that was at the front of my mind, but subconsciously, I wanted the students to cry. To feel the pain and sorrow for the people that had to be subjected to the experiences at those camps. Here I am, a semester later, doing my last round of student teaching and getting closer to December, when I’ll turn 23 and finally have my degree in History. Unfortunately I can’t watch the reaction now, since I’m on lunch and have to get back to teaching here shortly, but I’ve been wanting to share this story since you guys started watching the show. Thanks to anyone who reads all of this!💯
Years ago when I was a young lieutenant, my unit was on a training event in Germany and I took some of my soldiers on a day trip to the camp that holds The Pyramid of Ashes. I wanted them to get a sense of the history that took place there so they never forget the horrors that one human being can inflict on another. The silence in such places is so profound that you swear you can her the voices crying out in pain. Even the animals that live in the area seem to know to be reverent if the face of such anguish, hurt, and agony. It is something I'll never forget and I hope my soldiers don't either for 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it'. I'm a recent retiree and I won't ever forget what I saw and what I felt there in that sacred place. Just this past summer, I went to the museum and I think everyone should see it at least once in their lifetime.
This episode probably hits the hardest. I studied history and tried to understand my Grandfather who ended up as a guard at Auschwitz as part of the occupation force. My grandfather, who died long before I was born, got redirect to Europe instead of the Pacific, because of the Battle of the Bulge. He was an engineer and served as a guard at Auschwitz and did some occupation duty. People said he never returned from the war. He would horrifically lash out at my ~5yo Aunt because she looked like the fat happy German babies he saw with Blond Hair & Blue Eyes. She didn't look like starved prisoners, children, babies and their corpses he had to bury, look after and try to nurse back to health. This especially happened if he drank. My ~9-10yo dad, had to talk him out of blowing his head off with the shotgun in his mouth more than once. He never saw combat but was destroyed by the war. I wonder if he felt guilty and didn't seek help because he deserve help like the millions of men who had fought and joined the war earlier. He was on the older side 35+ with kids and worked for a railway, so drafted late in the war. My Grandmother was a chemist and had married him because he was a Janitor at the lab who was incredible kind to all the animals and people. He was a soft, kind man in a time when that was still look down on by many people. He could play many instruments. General George Patton, a man with no fear of combat, blood or guts, was unable to enter a room that had people stacked like cord-wood or he threw up against a wall. At least according to some. Patton and Eisenhower toured Ohrdruf Concentration Camp together. Eisenhower said he forced himself to go into the room so he could report to congress what he saw. Not in anyway saying that to make Patton look bad. But to show how someone who had extreme personal bravery, and considered himself a warrior who had reincarnated as a warrior many times, was affected by what he saw. The horror of the camps affected someone like General Patton and my Grandfather who had very different personalities. I don't think it can ever be understood how bad it was without being there.
I went to Auschwitz when I was 16. I felt physically sick just from fucking being there. Closing in on 100 years later and it made me Ill. It just felt fucking evil. They had glass cases, huge 50 foot long 10 foot high windows fill with hundreds and hundreds of shoes. Briefcases, jackets, shirts. I can't imagine being there, then. I don't know that I want to.
I live in Germany in Remagen, wich is mentioned in this episode. I work in a museum about the war. Actually where the brigde stood, the Americans crossed. Thank you for reacting to this episode. I´m deeply touched by this series. @ TheOak can´t find words. Thank you for opening up and telling your experience. Its important never to forget.
A former German soldier once commented that he knew they were going to lose right after D-Day. The German command were astonished that we didn't use horses. Everything the Allies had was mechanized. The entire German logistic system was unloading supplies from railcars onto horse drawn wagons. You see that through out the series. The thought of 2 1/2-ton and 5-ton trucks was unheard of to the Germans. AND top of that, we shipped it all overseas? Blew their minds.
Without the Soviet Union, there would have been no victory The Americans came in towards the end of the war when most of Germany had been destroyed by the peoples of the Soviet Union.
The story progression of this episode is mastery of presentation. We start with a great and understandable disillusionment from everyone. Personal problems, exhaustion, grief and trauma, homesickness. We romanticize the soldiers now but plenty of public opinion back then was asking why are so many being sent across the seas to suffer and die? The opening quotes even hit at that "we could have been friends", similar to a conversation in All Quiet on the Western Front about the previous war. Then they find the camp and everything gets shocked back into perspective. This was not the previous war. It wasn't blood over resources, or land disputes, or foolish nationalism. It was an ideology that festered, grew, and got power, and waged war of extermination. Negotiation and reason was pointless. Its leaders never surrendered. They hid in a bunker blaming everyone else before killing themselves and their families. That's where these stories and these mediums become important. All the suffering and death inflicted on that generation is a reminder to us to never let this kind of hateful dehumanizing violence take root again, because once it does it's hell to get rid of.
My great-grandfather was a part of the individuals that found the camp. He wrote in his memoir about, first, how brave and angry the victims were that they wanted to track down the missing Nazi’s and find them themselves. Second, the smell of the dead bodies, hundreds of them piled on top of each other, he could not forget even if he was 90 at the time of writing it. That experience, I believed changed him; he never talked about the war to any of us and we found it out all in his memoir after he passed.
I'll never understand how anyone could do something like that to another human being. My grandfather was conscripted in WWII and fought in the Italian Army in Greece, when Italy surrendered he refused to keep fighting for the Axis and as a consequence was interned in a concentration camp. Being Italian and a decent cook, they put him in the kitchen. He always told the story on how he was lucky and able to survive eating potato peels he stole from the trash bin. Many others were not lucky. When the camp was liberated, he walked all the way back to Italy from Germany. He was so scrawny and malnourished he couldn't eat more then a few spoons of soup until his stomach got used to working again. Later in life he married and had 3 daughters. He was the most caring person, never raised his voice or resort to violence, always helped anyone he could. He was loved by everyone. When he passed in the late 80's the church was packed with people for his funeral. Seeing the worst, brought up in him the best. RIP granpa, wherever you are.
The ride of emotions this episode takes you on, from seeing them singing in the truck, to seeing those horrifying scenes at camp, its my 2nd watch of this show & still a heavy, hard watch & a gut punch right in the feels. We also see emotional toll war had on easy company with Antonio shouting at his replacement O'Keefe & what happened at morning jump with Nixon & his outburst about his news from home. The violins playing at start & end really sets the tone for this powerful & inpactful episode.
Yeah, this is my second watch as well. And it still brings me to tears to think not only of what those people had to go through, but the horror of having to find it. I also learned that while the officers did flee the camps, they left some of them in the charge of the "Hitler Youth" they were training up.
The thing that I always reflect on in this episode is when Perconte runs back to the company to talk to the officers and when Winters asked what they had found...this man who had been fighting since D-Day who had seen atrocities that the average person could never imagine, he had seen his friends butchered and some fall apart...and he couldn't understand or convey what he had seen. One more thing they would carry with them the remainder of their days.
I always loved the guys all singing Blood on the Risers on the drive up the mountain. When my sister had the first grand baby, my dad's friend had sent him a burned CD title Martial Malladies. All the grandbabies have grown up with us moms singing them Blood on the Risers for fun, much to our dads dismay, as their Poppo was 82nd Airborne Infantry who dropped the artillary. We may all disagree with the politics behind the military, but we raise our kids with the knowledge of the respect deserved of those who have the ability to serve.
I’ve watched so many reaction videos to this episode and it is astonishing and sad how many people don’t know what the holocaust was and don’t understand what the scene is. It’s so important that this series was made and Easy’s story was told. If not for the legacy of the men, then atleast for the holocaust. The men of easy were angry at the rise of holocaust denialism. We need to continue their story and fight.
Of all the reactions of all the shows by all the UA-cam reactors, BoB Ep9 The Appleton Oak is the best I've ever seen and by miles. Smart, emotional, visceral, real.
I've visited the infamous camp in Poland (starts with an A, don't know if writing it will remove my comment so I won't). This episode brings back everything I felt on that visit. You change when you go there. The chambers, the bunks, the mountains of shoes and hair. The most heartbreaking thing for me was the piles of pots and pans and kettles the families packed in their bags to bring with them - they had hope for a normal life and just wanted to feed their families wherever they were going.
As a German, I am ashamed of it. Even if I can't do anything about the crimes of my ancestors and even when I think of my grandparents, none of them were Nazis but had to adapt to the regime and hardly anyone had the courage to defend themselves. My father's father fought in Normandy and surrendered to the Americans. He took his own life in 1958 when my father was two years old. My maternal grandmother told my sister and me how bad it was when the bombings started. She herself was 10 and a half years away from being 16 when the war ended. Her eldest brother died in Stalingrad and she herself in 2016 and was only able to process some things from the past slowly. Especially when there was thunder and storms... Personally, I felt strange standing in uniform in a concentration camp that still existed to some extent as a reminder of the victims. But if you serve in the German army in 2003 and you see what your ancestors did, you'll feel sick. Every modern German, and certainly older people from back then who have nothing to do with it, hope that there will soon be a time when Germans are no longer seen as eternal Nazis and mass murderers. I have been living in the USA for 15 years - my wife is American and I have two daughters with her and I'm always happy when people receive me positively. The problem with Germany is when an American film is shown in which Germans are again seen as enemies of the war. Lots of people always say "we're the bad guys again, etc!" To be honest! If the film or series is very well made and believable, then I think it's important, because such a crime must not be forgotten. 11 million people murdered is extreme and understandably difficult to understand and cope with.
I’m British in my late 60’s and a forces family in army and Royal Navy. Our country still carries the scars of war, on our buildings, shows in every memorial in every city, town and village and does still in Germany. As we approach our Remembrance Day we should remember those we all lost, civilians also, and the price that was paid in other countries on both sides of the war. Wearing my poppy with pride and sadness❤️
Sir, Anyone who says or thinks that this kind of horror can only be done by Germans, is a fool! The same kinds of feelings against the Jewish people are seen today and on a level that I never though I’d see in my lifetime. The amount of outright hatred being expressed towards Jews in the cities of Australia where I live, right now, is unbelievable. My parents were RAF medical personnel who met in Germany after the war and I grew up learning from them that this kind of horror can become a reality in any nation, if people are fooled into believing propaganda. There are and were any number of evil men and women in any of the ‘Allied nations’, and no nation can honestly look down on the German people, even for the Holocaust. I wish you well sir.
@@sandraback7809 I don't really know how to respond to the comment. Everything that needs to be said has been said and I agree with you. I didn't want to portray Germany as innocent either. My ancestors started the war and my homeland paid for it. I am grateful that the USA eventually refused to allow Germany to cease to exist and that the other allied states were also convinced to rebuild Germany and give people the opportunity to prove themselves again. The war should not be forgotten and I am happy about the cooperation and solidarity of some European countries. Whether it is the UK or France and many other great nations.
As a Swede I'm glad we are all united now. And especially with the war in Europe, you Germans are very respectable and I've never met one who wasn't ashamed.
@@6totoro6what is that quote from please? That quote has such power for the scenes. I love that now we can translate philosophy or writings to visuals for others to understand perceptions from others.
These words are generally attributed to Helen Keller, others sources say was a Persian proverb that William Shakespeare or Mahatma Gandhi were the first to coin this phrase.
Imagine seeing all of the horrors of War that these people have witnessed...Then being speechless seeing this. "Why We Fight" is a nod to the epic Frank Capra WW2 series that was being shown during the War back home. I believe Spielberg intentionally has the Nazi woman in the vivid red coat as a reference and connection to the little Jewish girl in Schindler's List. I don't think there are coincidences in his films...The actors weren't even allowed to see the set until the day of shooting, they wanted to get a genuine reaction from them. While the prisoners were some actual cancer patients who wanted to be a part of this. What shocks me is how surprised most people are reacting to this, having no idea what they were about to see...I think we get so immersed in the characters and immediacy we lose track of the big picture. I implore you to see "The Fallen of WW2" for perspective of this whole tragedy. Never forget.
I agree. I know that lads only react to movies, but if they were to make an exception the 20-30 min documentary „The Fallen of WW2“ should be it. It adds a perspective to all war movies.
I think Curahee, Bastogne, and Breaking Points are all better episodes than Points. But Points is just an exemplary payoff/finale to a flawless series.
It just goes to show how a big strong guy like The Oak, who doesn't really show a lot of emotion during the series, can be affected by the scenes in this episode. I was watching him from the moment he realised what the men were looking at just before Perconte ran back to tell Winters what they'd found and could see him getting more and more choked up.
Perhaps one of the most shocking chapters in the history of modern television. I mean, seeing a man as tough and seasoned as Liebgott break down like that is impressive.
I've never been to the Holocaust Museum in DC, but I have been to a few places like this in my travels. I've been to Dachau, Auschwitz, Sobibor, The Killing Fields memorial in Cambodia, the site of the Hanoi Hilton (Hỏa Lò Prison) in Vietnam, and they were all incredibly sobering but so worth the visits. I have even been to a couple of the internment camp sites in the USA (yes, nothing like the others, but still a dark side of US history that everyone should know about).
This is the most powerful, significant, important and best hour of television ever committed to film. They didn't sugarcoat anything. The scenes that get me every time are the ones that show the inmates, reaching out touch the sleeves of their liberators, the long embrace, and the salute. Stunning. This is what you get when Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks put their heads together. The discovery of the camp was portended by Janovec reading the article in the troop transport and saying "it seems the Germans are bad, very bad." They make fun of him until they see why what he's reading is true.
Dwight D. Eisenhower reaction to the Concentration Camps. "Get it all on the record now get the films, get the witnesses because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened.".
Of the larger camps, the Soviets liberated Auschwitz (the largest of all camps), the British liberated Bergen-Belsen and camps in the north, and the US liberated Dachau, Buchenwald and Mauthausen.
I heard or read that most of the vets did not want to be interviewed for this project initially. But Spielberg called Dick Winters and the major then called and spoke to his guys. They all then agreed to be interviewed....both Winters and Spielberg knew how important it was to share this story with the world.
Man I want to give The Oak hug... what a big hearted man 🥲 Apparent facts about camp scene: * camp actors were cancer patients, * actors got to see camp scene and prisoners live when filmung to capture real reactions from soldiers.
It may be that the lines at the beginning about Mozart and Beethoven reveal more than musical knowledge; Mozart was from Austria, and altho it is and has been linked with Germany over the centuries in numerous eras and in numerous ways, with changing borders and leadership, people often consider themselves as Austrian and not German. Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany so he is definitely considered as German. Beethoven is usually regarded as the greatest composer in the Western tradition and a source of pride for Germans. It isn’t clear if the statement is included to indicate the historical significance of the German contributions to art, literature, philosophy, etc or to contrast the situation in the 1940’s with the Germany of the past. Or maybe the intent was to remind the viewers that one of the Hitler’s first acts was to take over Austria, and make it one of many German “possessions.” Or it could be to remind viewers that art (in this case music) transcends politics and outlasts war, or leaders, and is what humanizes us. An interesting amount of analysis from Nixon’s short comment.
Another great reaction as always guys. I was watching "The Oak's" reaction as he was watching the episode unfold and could see him getting choked up and then to listen to him talking about it at the end choked me too. I visited Auschwitz a few years ago with my wife and it gives a strange feeling standing in the footsteps of all those people who perished and you do get an eerie feeling about the place. I also saw lots of children's shoes on show in a glass cabinet and others with clothes and spectacles in and it does make you feel sad for the victims. All the best guys.
As always, thank you for a great reaction. My grandfather survived Dachau`s Concentration Camp, the camp portrayed in this episode. When he returned home to my grandmother, he weighed 45 kilos and as much as my grandma wanted to cook all the best food for him, she had to feed him like a little bird for a long while. One of my neighbours, who was over 100 years old, died a month ago. She too was a Holocaust survivor. She never spoke about what happened to her in Auschwitz. The only thing she shared was that they ran cruel tests on her, and she never could bear children because of that.
i saw Band of brothers with my grandmother. She was 7 during WWII.(we're from denmark) She cried during this episode..the horror stories they heard from all over. I really hope you guys also check out The Pacific, Masters of the Air and Generation Kill.
This is the best, most important, but also the hardest episode to watch. The creators have done an excellent job capturing the confusion, shock, disbelief in the face of unspeakable atrocities, and the resulting anger of the soldiers. This episode, along with the Normandy landing in Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List, is the closest portrayal of this terrible subject. Even though it cannot fully capture the horror, as it's simply unimaginable what a nightmare it must have been. At this point, a big thank you to you. You are one of the few channels that can correctly and effectively put such scenes into context. My grandfather himself was interned in Dachau from 1941 until the end of the war and barely survived. Luckily, he was relatively open about it and passed on a lot of his experiences to our father, who then shared them with us as children. Remembering is especially important in this case, so that something like this never happens again.
The music during the work camp scene is really what pushes it above and beyond. It's so poignant, tugs right at your heart. Watching the scene without sound just doesn't hit the same.
This is the one we've all been waiting for. Extremely impactful episode. I really enjoy the insight by the older men of E-company looking back at how young they all were. Also interesting to see a young Tom Hardy in there
I wish i could thank my history teacher for showing us this episode in class. Think we were about 13/14 at the time in 2003/04. I watched the rest of the show at home soon afterwards & I've watched the show every Christmas since. I hope history teachers are still showing kids things like this, if they're even allowed to these days. I think it's important to do so & I'd also be showing them things like 'They Shall Not Grow Old'. If you guys haven't seen it, i recommend it.
Hearing the story about the Holocaust Museum brought back so many memories for me as well. As someone who specializes in Holocaust & Comparative Genocide Studies in my teaching, I have been there several times and it is moving every time. I’ve had the ability to travel a fair bit whilst pursuing my studies and have been to two of the camps: Theresienstadt in the Czech Republic outside of Prague, and also to Auschwitz. Nothing can prepare you for those places and what you see there, but they are necessary to happen so that people can learn about the Holocaust and how to stop it from happening again. I’m taking students to Europe this coming summer and it will cover the beginning to the end of the Nazi regime and the Holocaust and it will include a trip to Auschwitz so my students can see firsthand what happened there and how many innocent people were murdered just for being who they were. In your speaking of Eisenhower, he ordered the German public to go to all the camps and witness any and all bodies there, including helping to bury them. He ordered every encounter by the military at a camp to be filmed and recorded because, as he said, “I don’t want some son of a bitch to ever say this didn’t happen!”
The Oak - there is a series of interviews that Black Sky Radio did with all the actors on the show to mark the 10 year anniversary of the show. It is fascinating to listen to, it is on UA-cam. The interviews particularly with the actors who played Winters, Sobel, Luz, Perconte, Compton and Randleman were outstanding. Went into detail about how it affected them personally, the honour it was playing then men, the friendships. Absolutely worth it to seek out and listen too of you can x
Lipton's honourable discharge was from his role as a non-commissioned officer. He is then reinstated as a commissioned officer after his battlefield promotion to Lieutenant. So it was just a formality so his commission could go through.
I also went to visit the Holocaust museum in the 8th grade,, I will never forget the case of shoes or the hair that was shaved off the victims' heads. May God have mercy on their souls!! 😞🙏
The one thing that always surprises me is the effect this episode has on reactors. We watch it with the unconscious thought in the back of our mind that it is a TV show. Those are actors and sceneries made by prop departments and yet it effects us deeply. And then try to imagine how it was in real life. The men entering, seeing actual human beings, the smell, the unthinkable images. It was so much worse than what we see on screen. And it always makes me melancholic. Humanity is capable of so much beauty. Poetry, paintings, just the power of our imagination. But we are also capable of so much horror, such cruelty on unthinkable scales
David and Mason are the only reviewers to call out the master class of acting between Ron Livingstone and the older actress playing the German's wife. They said a thousand words without speaking. The attention to detail in the sets, especially here when they created the camp and provided the depth of size.
I also like the comparison between the two scenes. In the house, she stares him down until he leaves. At the camp, he stares her down until she looks away. That shift in dynamic is so powerful.
I visited a camp when I went to Europe about ten years ago. I sobbed with you Oak telling your story, as you do not forget what you see. It still smells where the ovens are. Its something you Never. Forget. 💔
Hello from Denmark, if you havent seen schindlers List and the pianist i can strongly recommend those, they are mainly about that specific subject The Holocaust. Then you have one of my personal favorites from the Germans side when they moved into Russia, an older but really well done and horrifying movie about the horrors the german soldiers faced. My honest opinion that many germans didnt have a clue about certain things happening in that horrible war.....Band of Brothers is amazing and i love your reactions to this series.
37:41 I went to the Holocaust museum in 8th grade so I was the same age as you Oak, and the room with the shoes and the rail car are two of the things I’ve never ever forgotten. They remain clear in my mind. I also remember the glasses, and the suitcases, because the people going to the camps didn’t know what they were actually going to, and didn’t know that they’d be stripped of all those things when they got there. Like you said, it’s hard to say you “recommend” going there but it’s an incredibly important experience that ensures what happened isn’t forgotten.
I've visited one of the camps. So many people, tourists, and total silence everywhere, not one word said by anyone. Crazy walking around and seeing all these buildings, the execution buildings, the ovens, the small, small, small cottages they were stuffed into - 200-300 people in tiny spaces, the piles of clothes, teeths, shoes and all that...just crazy sad! A very important episode!
I like the juxtaposition of Nixon having a really bad day, having his wife leave him with his dog, losing a bunch of guys in a jump, and then jumping straight into the literal god damn Holocaust and suddenly Nixon's problems don't seem particularly important anymore.
This episode always gets me - my Grandad's unit was one that "liberated" the camp Bergen-Belsen. He never spoke very much about what he did in WWII, all I can recall him ever telling me as a kid that he took part in the D-Day landings. My Dad was also in the military and spent some time tracking down info on his Dad's regiment/unit. When we found out about Bergen-Belsen long after my Grandad passed, and I did some reading about the camp and wished I hadn't - made me respect the hell out of my Grandad even more for being the solid standup guy he was knowing what he witnessed.
I visited Auschwitz and Mauthausen concentration camps. Both was terrifying, both in different way. Actually there is not much left from Auschwitz camp... so you have to imagine a lot of things. The hardest thing to watch was the museum part that is located in former baracks. But Mauthausen is a former fort with a quarry next to it... and you do not need imagine anything. The stories we've read about that camp was just a nightmare stuff.
We had a visiting speaker, long time ago in my school, he told us he was liberated from a camp like this with his father. The soldiers didn't know what to do in a situation like this and gave out food. His father died eating too much for his body to survive.
I have been to Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald, and the memorials for several other camps. During the tour of Buchenwald, they take you to the main guard station at the main gates. From there, you can see the modern Siemens plant on the same grounds that the plant was located on during WW2. They tell you the number of times that the plants surrounding the camp were bombed, but the camp and the railroad station were never bombed. They insinuate that the allies knew of the camps and never bombed them. The tours at Auschwitz will really mess you up, but if you are in Poland, you have to check it out. If you take the tour at Buchenwald when you are on the train platform, squat down and look closely at the concrete. You can see the groove worn in the concrete leading to the tree line where the large crematorium were.
Thank you so much for reacting to this. It is so important for people all over the world, regardless of nationality, religion or other differencies to never forget what hate can lead to...
It wasn’t the British who executed those Germans. Those helmets look nothing like what the British wore, frankly, it’s closer in design to American helmets. That said, it always appeared French to me but I have seen others who say they were Belgian.
The helmets of French and Belgian soldiers were indeed similar, only the chrest was different. But I think its way more likely that those are french soldiers, bcs they come across them after the scene with the castle in the background and the landscape implies that they are alrdy in the south (you wont find mountains like this in the Mosel-area), prolly in Baden-Wüttemberg - the part that would later become the french occupation zone.
I always loved how in awe the Germans on the wagon are as they see the allies moving with nothing but trucks and motorized equipment while they're on wagons/horseback and foot. It's like they knew right there and then that they never stood a chance.
Hey guys. The actor that played nix did a behind the scenes that you can find on UA-cam. There was also interviews of the cast a few years ago on UA-cam that talks about meeting the vets and the impact this had on their lives.
The actors get together every year just like the soldiers did after the war, they also have attended several conventions which are available on UA-cam where they share stories for the 20th anniversary of the show
My father-in-law was a top turret gunner/flight engineer flying from England to Germany on B17's in WWII. Near the end of the war, as he said, they were just running out of targets and didn't need all the personnel, so he was given a chance to go to the continent to travel around with a team to evaluate captured German aircraft. They were to make sure any that were flyable - weren't. (They'd tape 4 hand grenades together, hold the paddles down, pull the pins - then toss the bundle into a cockpit - and run - boom!) In their travels they cam across a newly liberated camp or facility of some type - they didn't know exactly where they were or what it was so they went in to see what it was. My FIL had a camera with him that day and in the telling of the story to me he paused and got out a photo album to show me the pictures he had taken. They could have been used as set design for this episode of BoB. Heaps of bodies, pits full of bodies, bodies stacked like cord wood. A few emaciated survivors were still there. It was a work camp, not a "death" camp (a lot of those were in Poland) but people were worked to death - in horrendous numbers. I asked my FIL if he then knew "what he had been fighting for" - his answer was a simple, "Yes".
I ran across a situation in Saudi Arabia where a contractor was whipping workers with a fly whisk. I had to watch it for hours. I didn’t understand how pissed off I could be, but found out when I got relieved on my post. My skinny self dumped all my gear and went to have a talk with someone who took one look in my eyes and immediately ran to his truck. That translates. One of my finest moments.
I saw one of the DoD films of the camps in my high school History class in the 70's. It is something I will never forget. The depiction of the camps in this episode was incredibly realistic. Like 9/11, we should never forget the Holocaust.
In Sweden after the war we had The White Buses. War prisoner bus. They came here to get better. Our prines Folke Bernadotte orginast it. 15 000 people was saved.
I'm 45 years old now, a Dutch citizen and as a kid back in the day our schools up North ( dunno if it was thru the rest of the country ) as a day trip they took us to Auschwitz, as Oak said kids shoes, clothing, teeth that were pulled, shaved hair, some barracks where those poor people had to sleep in, they even had a gas chamber left, you won't ever forget it. The moment you walk in there even as a kid when life is good and u have no worries and its all giggles and games, the air feels thick and it's hard to breathe there...
At our school we had a holocaust survivor come and tell us the horrors of concentration camps. It was heartbreaking and just so mind blowing what kind of evil could actually happen in this world. This woman lost her entire family just at the entrance of the camp and the rules they had before you even entered the camp were insane. Also during this time at my church we had a former German officer who moved to America not long after the war and he shared his thoughts and knowledge of what happened on the German side. He said he had absolutely no idea this happened and he said to his knowledge he knew groups of people were being taken to work camps but everyone in Germany were being assured they were being taken care of. Hitler even had videos and messages of people in the camps pretending to be happy and lying that they were being taken care of. Disgusting. Now I have children and one day they’re going to have to learn of these horrors. Never forget and I hope everyone continues to share this knowledge to our children and children’s children.
This might be the most powerful episode yet, and all the episodes so far have made a strong impact. What was you reaction?
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Please react to a movie called How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies. It's a Thai movie, it centered around a young male who, after received news that his grandma got diagnosed with cancer, decided to take care of his grandma while he himself trying to secure his inheritance from his grandma.
This movie is a seriously tear-jerker movie, full of family-themed lessons and, I can dare to say, this movie is a lot better than any family movies that you've ever seen or reacted before.
I think this episode says it all. I think that’s why they called it why we fight. 😢
@15:24 Those were Italians not Brits.
@@Lord-Wheatabix nah, they were French. The Italians were allies with the Axis and were out of the game at this point
@@Lord-Wheatabix Free French I believe
“Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses -because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower We cannot afford to forget history of the true horror that everyone suffered in WW2
Sadly, comparable atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese are largely glossed over in the West. One notable difference is that the Japanese viewed everyone else like the Nazis viewed Jews, Poles, Roma & gays. The Holocaust has been drummed into the soul of Germany, while Japanese relations with China and Korea are still strained due to Japan's unwillingness to fully accept responsibility. In the words of Historian Stephen E. Ambrose, “The Japanese presentation of the war to its children runs something like this: One day, for no reason we ever understood, the Americans started dropping atomic bombs on us”.
How right he was. Holocaust deniers are as widespread as flat earthers.
The most admirable thing Eisenhower ever did or said.
*AMEN!*
Hate and fear are powerful tools to those in power. While a fraction of what the Nazi’s did, we did put innocent Japanese Americans into internment camps. While this was occurring we had African Americans in parts of the country where they were below second hand citizens and subject to legal atrocities.
Even Eisenhower who made the comment oversaw “Operation Wetback” which led to the death of thousands.
Not a post against Eisenhower as my grandfather served under him and O have pictures of them together. But a reminder as this wasn’t a one-time horrific event and it happens all the time in some form or another. We are not that different from the towns people who turned a blind eye and let this happen.
The concentration camps were the Nazi’s final solution. Less known is their First Solution, which was a mass deportation. History doesn’t always repeat, but it does echo.
"If anyone ever tells you the Holocaust didn't happen, or that it wasn't as bad as they say, no, it was worse than they say. What we saw, what these Germans did, it was worse than you can possibly imagine." - Private Edward “Babe” Heffron
To think of the hell that these men went through in battle, only to witness another one with these atrocities
That's what I was saying unreal. But it was worse than reality they have seen.
109 countries
and then catholic church was heping Eichman and Mengele escape using Vatican passports.
And its still happening today in China and many other places...
"We are told the American soldier does not know what he is fighting for. Now, at least he knows what he is fighting against." - General Eisenhower after visiting Buchenwald.
My dad was in the 10th Armor which in real life found the camp. Easy came a day later. This was the only episode he wouldn't watch with me. Afterwards I told him I understood and felt so sorry for him. It was the main reason he never talked about the war until we watched this series. Every school in the world should watch this series when they are old enough
Which camp was this portraying out of interest? Thanks for your coment
@@SteadyPlaying I forget, but it was a concentration camp, not what they call "death camps" which were usually outside of pre-war german territory, but often in preww1 germany. Was a different wartime legal code going on in the occupied territories.
They don't mention the allies had methodically bombed all supply routes into the camps, and most of them are wasting from typhus / typhoid fever. As the germans evacuated eastern camps as the russians advanced they jammed more and more into the camps to the west and the sanitary corridor broke down in the final months and everyone started dropping like flies.
American coroners did autopsies on many of the dead bodies everywhere and they were not killed with gas. The gassing is said to only have happened in the death camps which were only liberated by the russians in the east.
Dying from disease is no joke in war. And if you are on the bottom of the list for who gets food shipments... disease explodes.
I went to school here in Germany and was fortunate enough to have a survivor of a concentration camp come and speak to us in a history lesson.Absolutely harrowing but it made it so much more impactful to hear than just reading in a book... not many witnesses of that time left unfortunately. That's why it's even more important to preserve a show like this!
@@SteadyPlaying one of the camps of the Kaufering system, 11 sub-camps surrounding Dachau. The one in the show would be one of those near Landsberg am Lech.
@@SteadyPlaying It's Kaufering IV, between Kaufering and Hurlach.
I had a good friend who was an extra for this. He was dying of leukemia and had gone through multiple rounds of chemo so he was skin and bones. He unfortunately didn’t live to see this episode air as he died about 2 months before it came out.
Sorry to hear that
I was wondering how they achieved the visual for some of them… that’s tragic I’m sorry for your loss
God bless him.
Band of Brothers should be mandatory viewing for history students before graduation.
We watching this in my History class! I don’t think it was mandatory but our teacher had us watch this show I think in my Sophomore year (2016)
We watched Schindler's List. That movie should be required. The current generation are the last to meet the living survivors. My son will not ever get to speak to one, only see and hear of their memories.
My class watched The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
But America built up again the same companies and people who were involved in the Holocaust.
About Spiers and the silver-
While in England, Spiers got involved with a British widow with two kids (her husband was missing and presumed dead in Singapore). When he got her pregnant, they were married in a civil ceremony, but because he didn't go through the system and get permission first, the Army didn't recognize his marriage. As a result, he couldn't arrange an allotment to provide for her and the kids. So he was looting everything portable and shipping it back to her in England to provide for his family.
In a twist that sounds too melodramatic to be true, but actually happened, her husband was found in a Japanese POW camp in Burma. She decided to go back to him, and Spiers didn't meet his son until the '60s.
Wow 😮 that’s nuts! I didn’t know that. I feel so bad for him and that husband
@@Nightmare_Texas Plus her and the kids. One of those situations where nobody did anything wrong, but everyone was punished for it.
@@GlennWH26 That's just so sad and messed up in so many ways. I couldn't imagine.
That's a loyal woman right there(Since she thought he was dead). Imagine how crushed the man would be if you were a soldier in her position and she stuck with the new dude.
That's a storyline straight out of Casablanca.
My uncle Mike freed a couple of those camps. He never got over what he saw. He said the smell was so bad, he could not eat for days. Years later, any time anyone said that it didn’t happen, he’d get enraged. He decked a few guys in bars who claimed as much.
The 1947 film “The Best Years of Our Lives” (highly recommended!) has a short but pivotal scene with a guy who thought the US should have sided with Germany and Japan. Needless to say, it enrages the veterans in the movie. But it was an interesting detail to include, reminding the audience that there were pro-Nazi and pro-fascist people living in the US.
Director George Stevens (who was part of the crews to film the D-Day landings and other events) was one of the first to enter Dachau and record the conditions and people there. Many of his recordings were used during the
Nuremberg trials. His war years changed him and when he returned to Hollywood, he no longer made comedies. When he was preparing to direct the 1959 “The Diary of Anne Frank”, he went to view some of his footage which he hadn’t seen in over 12 years. He was so disturbed that after only 2 or 3 minutes, he stopped and never watched it again.
“A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” The book from 1943 was an immense success. It was released in an Armed Services Edition, the size of a mass-market paperback, to fit in a uniform pocket.
The book was one of the most popular Armed Services Edition books shipped to American military service personnel for free during World War II. Author Smith said that she received ten times more fan mail from soldiers than she did from civilians.
One Marine wrote to the author Smith, "I can't explain the emotional reaction that took place in this dead heart of mine... A surge of confidence has swept through me, and I feel that maybe a fellow has a fighting chance in this world after all." The book covers several generations of families with their serious challenges as well as joys, and there is the symbol of the ‘Tree-of-Heaven’ as being resilient and a survivor.
My grandfather, a sergeant for a mortar team in the 103rd, helped liberate a satellite camp. He was pretty open about his experiences in the war (he was extremely proud for fighting in the Battle of the Bulge) but never, ever talked about the camps. The only time he ever mentioned it was in an interview with one of the local colleges right before he died. He had nightmares every night of his life from what he saw there.
Nixon was totally crushed by survivor's guilt. He covered it up with sarcasm and drinking.
Yes you’re right❤
When Perconte returns the salute of the survivor gets me every time.
I once read that in the early to late 1930’s, there were many Jews who had fought in the German army during WW1, or had served as medics during that period, so they imagined as veterans they would be considered valuable citizens or admired for being patriotic, as well as believing “it can’t get that bad…”
Same
Same...
I've watched it several times but for some reason today it got to me... Also, the other poster above me makes a good point: imagine all the brain power and Manpower those dumb Fanatics wasted. They actually had Einstein and chased him out of the country
Liebgott got me sooo badly in this episode. When he had to tell the prisoners they had to stay in the camp, it just crushed him...and he had been so strong for so long!! Great acting by that guy, as well as all the others.
Liebgott is played by a Scottish actor who has a rather English accent in real life. He pulled off the American accent and German speaking quite well.
@scottsutoob I knew that but thanks for the info. His American accent was great as was other Englis actors portraying Easy guys
Oak, I’m really glad that you shared your experience of going to the Holocaust Museum. I went around the same age you did (somewhere between 6th and 8th grade) and it’s still incredibly difficult thinking about it. For me the past that broke me as a kid was the ovens they have there and after that I needed to just walk to the remembrance hall at the end of the museum. It was crazy listening to you talk about things they had at the museum and I could see them like it was yesterday too.
I went when I was 15, so 23 years ago, and I can see it like I was there today.
The woman in red I believe symbolizes the nation's pride in this episode, she glared at Nixon with crossed arms in the beginning, defiant of the invaders that had come to their town and still proud of her husband's image that he had tossed to the ground. In the end, though, when they locked eyes again....she couldn't hold her stare. Her pride was crushed under the weight of shame after seeing what people like her husband were actually responsible for. And not a word was ever spoken, a true masterclass in acting with facial expressions alone.
I think she knew. She was very aware of what her husband was doing. How could she not be, and Nixon's stare is one of "I know that you knew" and her shame speaks absolute volumes.
@@Owlyross Oh for sure, when they said "Someone in town told them we were coming" it was most likely her. I just think her main purpose was a visual representation to clash with our beleaguered Nixon.
Did Spielberg use the atand out red as he did in Schnidlers List to draw attention to the character. This time as the not so innocent representation of civilians who knew in some way their neighbors were at least being treated terribly & enabled by not saying no
@@mark-be9mqI mean honestly what were they supposed to do? Go storm the camps and fight the soldiers? With what? And how? They were living under a dictatorship their hands were kind of tied. Everyone likes to think they’d be the hero’s in situations like this, but 99% of people would keep their heads down and care about their own survival. Propaganda and the control of information was another issue there wasn’t any free press people were told what the government wanted them to know.
Fun fact: the actors were not told or shown the set for the camp scene so all their reactions were genuine. As for the people in the camp they were actual terminally ill patients from a local hospital.
15:12 The soldiers shooting the Germans were French as Oak said.
Also, like Oak, I have always teared up while watching this episode.
Personally, I cannot believe that some people still say that the Holocaust did not take place.
Also, the actor who played the person who shot them was Tom Hanks
@@richspaeth964 It's not, that's a myth, and if you look at it closely it's not even similar.
Thats why its so important that Germany keeps preserving the darkest parts of its history and keeps reminding the world, what happens when extremists take over. Other nations should take notice...
The most frightening part is that Germany was considered one of the most developed and sophisticated societies of the time and still it was turned so fast and easily.
@@SovermanandVioboy exactly this. Anyone who thinks their culture, their nation, their people, can't be twisted around the same way Germany was- they haven't learned their history.
It's easy for an individual to say they would never, but who can speak for their entire civilization?
18:30 I’m actually surprised how many reactors didn’t guess correctly what it is they found. Good on the Oak for getting it right.
too many undereducated fools on YT.
I am a 72 year old Army Vet. I have watched this series at least once a year, or more, for over 20 years, and to this day, I cannot watch this episode without literally crying my eyes out.
This episode gets me every single time. Quinn’s silence was deafening when they came across the camp. I could see the realization in Oak’s face when he figured out that they found a camp. His story of the holocaust museum is so powerful, about the bridge, and it really made me tear up.
you see Spears grimace, you know things are going way worse than just "bad"
The issue with refeeding syndrome cant be understated. When people are that starved, feeding them again without extreme care will most likely kill them. I cant even imagine how hard it must have been to see people that far down and not just give them the food they wanted.
That and that they couldnt have chosen a worse thing to feed them. That cheese would DESTROY their digestive system. Within minutes there would be nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea and these poor people were already dehydrated.
@@mattholtmann I thought it was bread? Looked like bread when they were breaking it.
@@Elydir no it was cheese unfortunately.
@@mattholtmann They gave them cheese pieces and a big piece of a loaf. Actually that cheese wasn't that bad as it was more of hard cheese but the amount was really really much to a starving and dehydrated man.
They were intelligent people, the ‘prisoners’. wouldn’t they understand the basics of starvation and over feeding.
I can’t imagine it be that hard, I’m sure the prisoners quickly understood why their food was being rationed.
Thank you all for showing your emotions and not holding them back!! This is why I love BM. ♥️💙🙏🏽
Fun fact - A Tree Grows In Brooklyn was published in 1943 and quickly became one of the most popular books read by American soldiers abroad. There were pocket-sized editions passed around in little mobile libraries. It’s an amazing read. I’m always glad it got a brief shoutout in this episode. This is the best episode of an excellent show-thank you for sharing your reactions with us! It’s been moving to follow along with you all.
Last semester I was doing my first round of student teaching for my History Major license. I went to a school in the Spring, and they were just getting around to WW2 by the time I arrived. I talked to my cooperating teacher about using this episode as a way to cover the Holocaust. He then pulled out an old photo album, which belonged to his father-in-law’s dad, who had liberated a Concentration Camp. I had my students watch the episode, but before we watched it I had them look at the real photos taken at those camps. It wasn’t the goal that was at the front of my mind, but subconsciously, I wanted the students to cry. To feel the pain and sorrow for the people that had to be subjected to the experiences at those camps. Here I am, a semester later, doing my last round of student teaching and getting closer to December, when I’ll turn 23 and finally have my degree in History. Unfortunately I can’t watch the reaction now, since I’m on lunch and have to get back to teaching here shortly, but I’ve been wanting to share this story since you guys started watching the show. Thanks to anyone who reads all of this!💯
The look of resignation on their faces when the train car is opened has always struck me. Just great acting.
It's the dropping arm for me in that scene.
Years ago when I was a young lieutenant, my unit was on a training event in Germany and I took some of my soldiers on a day trip to the camp that holds The Pyramid of Ashes. I wanted them to get a sense of the history that took place there so they never forget the horrors that one human being can inflict on another. The silence in such places is so profound that you swear you can her the voices crying out in pain. Even the animals that live in the area seem to know to be reverent if the face of such anguish, hurt, and agony. It is something I'll never forget and I hope my soldiers don't either for 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it'. I'm a recent retiree and I won't ever forget what I saw and what I felt there in that sacred place.
Just this past summer, I went to the museum and I think everyone should see it at least once in their lifetime.
This episode probably hits the hardest. I studied history and tried to understand my Grandfather who ended up as a guard at Auschwitz as part of the occupation force.
My grandfather, who died long before I was born, got redirect to Europe instead of the Pacific, because of the Battle of the Bulge. He was an engineer and served as a guard at Auschwitz and did some occupation duty. People said he never returned from the war. He would horrifically lash out at my ~5yo Aunt because she looked like the fat happy German babies he saw with Blond Hair & Blue Eyes. She didn't look like starved prisoners, children, babies and their corpses he had to bury, look after and try to nurse back to health. This especially happened if he drank. My ~9-10yo dad, had to talk him out of blowing his head off with the shotgun in his mouth more than once.
He never saw combat but was destroyed by the war. I wonder if he felt guilty and didn't seek help because he deserve help like the millions of men who had fought and joined the war earlier. He was on the older side 35+ with kids and worked for a railway, so drafted late in the war.
My Grandmother was a chemist and had married him because he was a Janitor at the lab who was incredible kind to all the animals and people. He was a soft, kind man in a time when that was still look down on by many people. He could play many instruments.
General George Patton, a man with no fear of combat, blood or guts, was unable to enter a room that had people stacked like cord-wood or he threw up against a wall. At least according to some. Patton and Eisenhower toured Ohrdruf Concentration Camp together. Eisenhower said he forced himself to go into the room so he could report to congress what he saw.
Not in anyway saying that to make Patton look bad. But to show how someone who had extreme personal bravery, and considered himself a warrior who had reincarnated as a warrior many times, was affected by what he saw.
The horror of the camps affected someone like General Patton and my Grandfather who had very different personalities. I don't think it can ever be understood how bad it was without being there.
I went to Auschwitz when I was 16. I felt physically sick just from fucking being there. Closing in on 100 years later and it made me Ill. It just felt fucking evil. They had glass cases, huge 50 foot long 10 foot high windows fill with hundreds and hundreds of shoes.
Briefcases, jackets, shirts. I can't imagine being there, then. I don't know that I want to.
I live in Germany in Remagen, wich is mentioned in this episode. I work in a museum about the war. Actually where the brigde stood, the Americans crossed. Thank you for reacting to this episode. I´m deeply touched by this series. @ TheOak can´t find words. Thank you for opening up and telling your experience. Its important never to forget.
A former German soldier once commented that he knew they were going to lose right after D-Day. The German command were astonished that we didn't use horses. Everything the Allies had was mechanized. The entire German logistic system was unloading supplies from railcars onto horse drawn wagons. You see that through out the series. The thought of 2 1/2-ton and 5-ton trucks was unheard of to the Germans. AND top of that, we shipped it all overseas? Blew their minds.
Without the Soviet Union, there would have been no victory
The Americans came in towards the end of the war when most of Germany had been destroyed by the peoples of the Soviet Union.
The story progression of this episode is mastery of presentation. We start with a great and understandable disillusionment from everyone. Personal problems, exhaustion, grief and trauma, homesickness. We romanticize the soldiers now but plenty of public opinion back then was asking why are so many being sent across the seas to suffer and die? The opening quotes even hit at that "we could have been friends", similar to a conversation in All Quiet on the Western Front about the previous war.
Then they find the camp and everything gets shocked back into perspective. This was not the previous war. It wasn't blood over resources, or land disputes, or foolish nationalism. It was an ideology that festered, grew, and got power, and waged war of extermination. Negotiation and reason was pointless. Its leaders never surrendered. They hid in a bunker blaming everyone else before killing themselves and their families. That's where these stories and these mediums become important. All the suffering and death inflicted on that generation is a reminder to us to never let this kind of hateful dehumanizing violence take root again, because once it does it's hell to get rid of.
My great-grandfather was a part of the individuals that found the camp. He wrote in his memoir about, first, how brave and angry the victims were that they wanted to track down the missing Nazi’s and find them themselves. Second, the smell of the dead bodies, hundreds of them piled on top of each other, he could not forget even if he was 90 at the time of writing it. That experience, I believed changed him; he never talked about the war to any of us and we found it out all in his memoir after he passed.
I'll never understand how anyone could do something like that to another human being.
My grandfather was conscripted in WWII and fought in the Italian Army in Greece, when Italy surrendered he refused to keep fighting for the Axis and as a consequence was interned in a concentration camp. Being Italian and a decent cook, they put him in the kitchen. He always told the story on how he was lucky and able to survive eating potato peels he stole from the trash bin. Many others were not lucky. When the camp was liberated, he walked all the way back to Italy from Germany. He was so scrawny and malnourished he couldn't eat more then a few spoons of soup until his stomach got used to working again.
Later in life he married and had 3 daughters. He was the most caring person, never raised his voice or resort to violence, always helped anyone he could. He was loved by everyone. When he passed in the late 80's the church was packed with people for his funeral.
Seeing the worst, brought up in him the best.
RIP granpa, wherever you are.
The ride of emotions this episode takes you on, from seeing them singing in the truck, to seeing those horrifying scenes at camp, its my 2nd watch of this show & still a heavy, hard watch & a gut punch right in the feels. We also see emotional toll war had on easy company with Antonio shouting at his replacement O'Keefe & what happened at morning jump with Nixon & his outburst about his news from home. The violins playing at start & end really sets the tone for this powerful & inpactful episode.
Yeah, this is my second watch as well. And it still brings me to tears to think not only of what those people had to go through, but the horror of having to find it. I also learned that while the officers did flee the camps, they left some of them in the charge of the "Hitler Youth" they were training up.
I think I've seen it like 8 times and it never fails to make me cry. I don't cry easily but this is just my kryptonite
The thing that I always reflect on in this episode is when Perconte runs back to the company to talk to the officers and when Winters asked what they had found...this man who had been fighting since D-Day who had seen atrocities that the average person could never imagine, he had seen his friends butchered and some fall apart...and he couldn't understand or convey what he had seen. One more thing they would carry with them the remainder of their days.
I always loved the guys all singing Blood on the Risers on the drive up the mountain. When my sister had the first grand baby, my dad's friend had sent him a burned CD title Martial Malladies. All the grandbabies have grown up with us moms singing them Blood on the Risers for fun, much to our dads dismay, as their Poppo was 82nd Airborne Infantry who dropped the artillary. We may all disagree with the politics behind the military, but we raise our kids with the knowledge of the respect deserved of those who have the ability to serve.
I am never able to watch this episode without crying. 23 years since I first watched it, and it still gets me every time.
A lot of the extras playing the prisoners were cancer patients under going treatment to better show just how emaciated the people in the camp were.
And some of them didn’t live long enough to see it once it was released.
I’ve watched so many reaction videos to this episode and it is astonishing and sad how many people don’t know what the holocaust was and don’t understand what the scene is. It’s so important that this series was made and Easy’s story was told. If not for the legacy of the men, then atleast for the holocaust. The men of easy were angry at the rise of holocaust denialism. We need to continue their story and fight.
Of all the reactions of all the shows by all the UA-cam reactors, BoB Ep9 The Appleton Oak is the best I've ever seen and by miles. Smart, emotional, visceral, real.
I've visited the infamous camp in Poland (starts with an A, don't know if writing it will remove my comment so I won't). This episode brings back everything I felt on that visit. You change when you go there. The chambers, the bunks, the mountains of shoes and hair. The most heartbreaking thing for me was the piles of pots and pans and kettles the families packed in their bags to bring with them - they had hope for a normal life and just wanted to feed their families wherever they were going.
Auschwitz?
As a German, I am ashamed of it. Even if I can't do anything about the crimes of my ancestors and even when I think of my grandparents, none of them were Nazis but had to adapt to the regime and hardly anyone had the courage to defend themselves. My father's father fought in Normandy and surrendered to the Americans. He took his own life in 1958 when my father was two years old. My maternal grandmother told my sister and me how bad it was when the bombings started. She herself was 10 and a half years away from being 16 when the war ended. Her eldest brother died in Stalingrad and she herself in 2016 and was only able to process some things from the past slowly. Especially when there was thunder and storms... Personally, I felt strange standing in uniform in a concentration camp that still existed to some extent as a reminder of the victims. But if you serve in the German army in 2003 and you see what your ancestors did, you'll feel sick. Every modern German, and certainly older people from back then who have nothing to do with it, hope that there will soon be a time when Germans are no longer seen as eternal Nazis and mass murderers. I have been living in the USA for 15 years - my wife is American and I have two daughters with her and I'm always happy when people receive me positively. The problem with Germany is when an American film is shown in which Germans are again seen as enemies of the war. Lots of people always say "we're the bad guys again, etc!" To be honest! If the film or series is very well made and believable, then I think it's important, because such a crime must not be forgotten. 11 million people murdered is extreme and understandably difficult to understand and cope with.
I’m British in my late 60’s and a forces family in army and Royal Navy. Our country still carries the scars of war, on our buildings, shows in every memorial in every city, town and village and does still in Germany. As we approach our Remembrance Day we should remember those we all lost, civilians also, and the price that was paid in other countries on both sides of the war. Wearing my poppy with pride and sadness❤️
Sir, Anyone who says or thinks that this kind of horror can only be done by Germans, is a fool! The same kinds of feelings against the Jewish people are seen today and on a level that I never though I’d see in my lifetime. The amount of outright hatred being expressed towards Jews in the cities of Australia where I live, right now, is unbelievable. My parents were RAF medical personnel who met in Germany after the war and I grew up learning from them that this kind of horror can become a reality in any nation, if people are fooled into believing propaganda. There are and were any number of evil men and women in any of the ‘Allied nations’, and no nation can honestly look down on the German people, even for the Holocaust. I wish you well sir.
@@sandraback7809 I don't really know how to respond to the comment. Everything that needs to be said has been said and I agree with you. I didn't want to portray Germany as innocent either. My ancestors started the war and my homeland paid for it. I am grateful that the USA eventually refused to allow Germany to cease to exist and that the other allied states were also convinced to rebuild Germany and give people the opportunity to prove themselves again. The war should not be forgotten and I am happy about the cooperation and solidarity of some European countries. Whether it is the UK or France and many other great nations.
As a Swede I'm glad we are all united now. And especially with the war in Europe, you Germans are very respectable and I've never met one who wasn't ashamed.
Nixon was feeling low and really sorry for himself. Then came the camp, and perspective took hold.
The situation of Nix in this episode was totally “I wept because I had no shoes, until I saw a man who had no feet.”
@@6totoro6what is that quote from please? That quote has such power for the scenes. I love that now we can translate philosophy or writings to visuals for others to understand perceptions from others.
These words are generally attributed to Helen Keller, others sources say was a Persian proverb that William Shakespeare or Mahatma Gandhi were the first to coin this phrase.
Imagine seeing all of the horrors of War that these people have witnessed...Then being speechless seeing this. "Why We Fight" is a nod to the epic Frank Capra WW2 series that was being shown during the War back home. I believe Spielberg intentionally has the Nazi woman in the vivid red coat as a reference and connection to the little Jewish girl in Schindler's List. I don't think there are coincidences in his films...The actors weren't even allowed to see the set until the day of shooting, they wanted to get a genuine reaction from them. While the prisoners were some actual cancer patients who wanted to be a part of this. What shocks me is how surprised most people are reacting to this, having no idea what they were about to see...I think we get so immersed in the characters and immediacy we lose track of the big picture. I implore you to see "The Fallen of WW2" for perspective of this whole tragedy. Never forget.
Tom Hanks French soldier alert! 🚨15:02
I agree.
I know that lads only react to movies, but if they were to make an exception the 20-30 min documentary „The Fallen of WW2“ should be it.
It adds a perspective to all war movies.
Best episode of the series. Last episode is close second
I think Curahee, Bastogne, and Breaking Points are all better episodes than Points. But Points is just an exemplary payoff/finale to a flawless series.
I just want to give The Oak a hug 🥺🥺🥺
Big time. I was hoping one of the guys would put a hand on his shoulder at least.
It just goes to show how a big strong guy like The Oak, who doesn't really show a lot of emotion during the series, can be affected by the scenes in this episode. I was watching him from the moment he realised what the men were looking at just before Perconte ran back to tell Winters what they'd found and could see him getting more and more choked up.
Perhaps one of the most shocking chapters in the history of modern television.
I mean, seeing a man as tough and seasoned as Liebgott break down like that is impressive.
I've never been to the Holocaust Museum in DC, but I have been to a few places like this in my travels. I've been to Dachau, Auschwitz, Sobibor, The Killing Fields memorial in Cambodia, the site of the Hanoi Hilton (Hỏa Lò Prison) in Vietnam, and they were all incredibly sobering but so worth the visits. I have even been to a couple of the internment camp sites in the USA (yes, nothing like the others, but still a dark side of US history that everyone should know about).
This is the most powerful, significant, important and best hour of television ever committed to film. They didn't sugarcoat anything. The scenes that get me every time are the ones that show the inmates, reaching out touch the sleeves of their liberators, the long embrace, and the salute. Stunning. This is what you get when Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks put their heads together. The discovery of the camp was portended by Janovec reading the article in the troop transport and saying "it seems the Germans are bad, very bad." They make fun of him until they see why what he's reading is true.
20 + years later I'm still amazed at how they were able to film THAT scene.
Dwight D. Eisenhower reaction to the Concentration Camps.
"Get it all on the record now get the films, get the witnesses because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened.".
So sad that more and more maniacs are claiming it didn't happen these days, makes me lose faith in humanity..
Respect to oak for sharing his experience with his dad. It's very touching
Of the larger camps, the Soviets liberated Auschwitz (the largest of all camps), the British liberated Bergen-Belsen and camps in the north, and the US liberated Dachau, Buchenwald and Mauthausen.
I heard or read that most of the vets did not want to be interviewed for this project initially. But Spielberg called Dick Winters and the major then called and spoke to his guys. They all then agreed to be interviewed....both Winters and Spielberg knew how important it was to share this story with the world.
Man I want to give The Oak hug... what a big hearted man 🥲
Apparent facts about camp scene: * camp actors were cancer patients, * actors got to see camp scene and prisoners live when filmung to capture real reactions from soldiers.
It may be that the lines at the beginning about Mozart and Beethoven reveal more than musical knowledge; Mozart was from Austria, and altho it is and has been linked with Germany over the centuries in numerous eras and in numerous ways, with changing borders and leadership, people often consider themselves as Austrian and not German. Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany so he is definitely considered as German. Beethoven is usually regarded as the greatest composer in the Western tradition and a source of pride for Germans. It isn’t clear if the statement is included to indicate the historical significance of the German contributions to art, literature, philosophy, etc or to contrast the situation in the 1940’s with the Germany of the past. Or maybe the intent was to remind the viewers that one of the Hitler’s first acts was to take over Austria, and make it one of many German “possessions.” Or it could be to remind viewers that art (in this case music) transcends politics and outlasts war, or leaders, and is what humanizes us. An interesting amount of analysis from Nixon’s short comment.
Thank you for your reaction and sharing your responses and experiences. Thank you.
Another great reaction as always guys. I was watching "The Oak's" reaction as he was watching the episode unfold and could see him getting choked up and then to listen to him talking about it at the end choked me too. I visited Auschwitz a few years ago with my wife and it gives a strange feeling standing in the footsteps of all those people who perished and you do get an eerie feeling about the place. I also saw lots of children's shoes on show in a glass cabinet and others with clothes and spectacles in and it does make you feel sad for the victims. All the best guys.
As always, thank you for a great reaction.
My grandfather survived Dachau`s Concentration Camp, the camp portrayed in this episode.
When he returned home to my grandmother, he weighed 45 kilos and as much as my grandma wanted to cook all the best food for him, she had to feed him like a little bird for a long while.
One of my neighbours, who was over 100 years old, died a month ago. She too was a Holocaust survivor. She never spoke about what happened to her in Auschwitz. The only thing she shared was that they ran cruel tests on her, and she never could bear children because of that.
i saw Band of brothers with my grandmother. She was 7 during WWII.(we're from denmark) She cried during this episode..the horror stories they heard from all over.
I really hope you guys also check out The Pacific, Masters of the Air and Generation Kill.
Sadly, this episode and how much of what's happened back there was forgotten are incredibly relevant today.
Dont try to even compare
"I didn't know '
"I was just following orders"
"I never saw it so That didn't really happen"
I pray we LEARN from...and do not repeat history
This is the best, most important, but also the hardest episode to watch. The creators have done an excellent job capturing the confusion, shock, disbelief in the face of unspeakable atrocities, and the resulting anger of the soldiers. This episode, along with the Normandy landing in Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List, is the closest portrayal of this terrible subject. Even though it cannot fully capture the horror, as it's simply unimaginable what a nightmare it must have been. At this point, a big thank you to you. You are one of the few channels that can correctly and effectively put such scenes into context.
My grandfather himself was interned in Dachau from 1941 until the end of the war and barely survived. Luckily, he was relatively open about it and passed on a lot of his experiences to our father, who then shared them with us as children. Remembering is especially important in this case, so that something like this never happens again.
The music during the work camp scene is really what pushes it above and beyond. It's so poignant, tugs right at your heart. Watching the scene without sound just doesn't hit the same.
This is the one we've all been waiting for. Extremely impactful episode. I really enjoy the insight by the older men of E-company looking back at how young they all were. Also interesting to see a young Tom Hardy in there
I wish i could thank my history teacher for showing us this episode in class. Think we were about 13/14 at the time in 2003/04. I watched the rest of the show at home soon afterwards & I've watched the show every Christmas since. I hope history teachers are still showing kids things like this, if they're even allowed to these days. I think it's important to do so & I'd also be showing them things like 'They Shall Not Grow Old'. If you guys haven't seen it, i recommend it.
Hearing the story about the Holocaust Museum brought back so many memories for me as well. As someone who specializes in Holocaust & Comparative Genocide Studies in my teaching, I have been there several times and it is moving every time.
I’ve had the ability to travel a fair bit whilst pursuing my studies and have been to two of the camps: Theresienstadt in the Czech Republic outside of Prague, and also to Auschwitz. Nothing can prepare you for those places and what you see there, but they are necessary to happen so that people can learn about the Holocaust and how to stop it from happening again. I’m taking students to Europe this coming summer and it will cover the beginning to the end of the Nazi regime and the Holocaust and it will include a trip to Auschwitz so my students can see firsthand what happened there and how many innocent people were murdered just for being who they were.
In your speaking of Eisenhower, he ordered the German public to go to all the camps and witness any and all bodies there, including helping to bury them. He ordered every encounter by the military at a camp to be filmed and recorded because, as he said, “I don’t want some son of a bitch to ever say this didn’t happen!”
THIS was the episode that we were all waiting for. Probably one of the most powerful ever filmed.
The Oak - there is a series of interviews that Black Sky Radio did with all the actors on the show to mark the 10 year anniversary of the show. It is fascinating to listen to, it is on UA-cam. The interviews particularly with the actors who played Winters, Sobel, Luz, Perconte, Compton and Randleman were outstanding. Went into detail about how it affected them personally, the honour it was playing then men, the friendships. Absolutely worth it to seek out and listen too of you can x
Black Sky Radio, The Ross Owen Show .
Lipton's honourable discharge was from his role as a non-commissioned officer. He is then reinstated as a commissioned officer after his battlefield promotion to Lieutenant. So it was just a formality so his commission could go through.
I also went to visit the Holocaust museum in the 8th grade,, I will never forget the case of shoes or the hair that was shaved off the victims' heads. May God have mercy on their souls!! 😞🙏
The one thing that always surprises me is the effect this episode has on reactors. We watch it with the unconscious thought in the back of our mind that it is a TV show. Those are actors and sceneries made by prop departments and yet it effects us deeply. And then try to imagine how it was in real life. The men entering, seeing actual human beings, the smell, the unthinkable images. It was so much worse than what we see on screen. And it always makes me melancholic. Humanity is capable of so much beauty. Poetry, paintings, just the power of our imagination. But we are also capable of so much horror, such cruelty on unthinkable scales
David and Mason are the only reviewers to call out the master class of acting between Ron Livingstone and the older actress playing the German's wife. They said a thousand words without speaking. The attention to detail in the sets, especially here when they created the camp and provided the depth of size.
I also like the comparison between the two scenes. In the house, she stares him down until he leaves. At the camp, he stares her down until she looks away. That shift in dynamic is so powerful.
19:25 Even bull is visibly shaken and looks like he may have even thrown up
I visited a camp when I went to Europe about ten years ago. I sobbed with you Oak telling your story, as you do not forget what you see.
It still smells where the ovens are.
Its something you Never. Forget. 💔
Hello from Denmark, if you havent seen schindlers List and the pianist i can strongly recommend those, they are mainly about that specific subject The Holocaust. Then you have one of my personal favorites from the Germans side when they moved into Russia, an older but really well done and horrifying movie about the horrors the german soldiers faced. My honest opinion that many germans didnt have a clue about certain things happening in that horrible war.....Band of Brothers is amazing and i love your reactions to this series.
Guys we gotta try an mix the audio a bit better. The last month or so you can hear answer breathing HEAVY through reactions
37:41 I went to the Holocaust museum in 8th grade so I was the same age as you Oak, and the room with the shoes and the rail car are two of the things I’ve never ever forgotten. They remain clear in my mind. I also remember the glasses, and the suitcases, because the people going to the camps didn’t know what they were actually going to, and didn’t know that they’d be stripped of all those things when they got there. Like you said, it’s hard to say you “recommend” going there but it’s an incredibly important experience that ensures what happened isn’t forgotten.
I've visited one of the camps. So many people, tourists, and total silence everywhere, not one word said by anyone. Crazy walking around and seeing all these buildings, the execution buildings, the ovens, the small, small, small cottages they were stuffed into - 200-300 people in tiny spaces, the piles of clothes, teeths, shoes and all that...just crazy sad! A very important episode!
I like the juxtaposition of Nixon having a really bad day, having his wife leave him with his dog, losing a bunch of guys in a jump, and then jumping straight into the literal god damn Holocaust and suddenly Nixon's problems don't seem particularly important anymore.
This episode always gets me - my Grandad's unit was one that "liberated" the camp Bergen-Belsen. He never spoke very much about what he did in WWII, all I can recall him ever telling me as a kid that he took part in the D-Day landings. My Dad was also in the military and spent some time tracking down info on his Dad's regiment/unit. When we found out about Bergen-Belsen long after my Grandad passed, and I did some reading about the camp and wished I hadn't - made me respect the hell out of my Grandad even more for being the solid standup guy he was knowing what he witnessed.
I visited Auschwitz and Mauthausen concentration camps. Both was terrifying, both in different way.
Actually there is not much left from Auschwitz camp... so you have to imagine a lot of things. The hardest thing to watch was the museum part that is located in former baracks.
But Mauthausen is a former fort with a quarry next to it... and you do not need imagine anything. The stories we've read about that camp was just a nightmare stuff.
We had a visiting speaker, long time ago in my school, he told us he was liberated from a camp like this with his father. The soldiers didn't know what to do in a situation like this and gave out food.
His father died eating too much for his body to survive.
I have been to Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald, and the memorials for several other camps. During the tour of Buchenwald, they take you to the main guard station at the main gates. From there, you can see the modern Siemens plant on the same grounds that the plant was located on during WW2. They tell you the number of times that the plants surrounding the camp were bombed, but the camp and the railroad station were never bombed. They insinuate that the allies knew of the camps and never bombed them. The tours at Auschwitz will really mess you up, but if you are in Poland, you have to check it out. If you take the tour at Buchenwald when you are on the train platform, squat down and look closely at the concrete. You can see the groove worn in the concrete leading to the tree line where the large crematorium were.
Thank you so much for reacting to this. It is so important for people all over the world, regardless of nationality, religion or other differencies to never forget what hate can lead to...
It wasn’t the British who executed those Germans. Those helmets look nothing like what the British wore, frankly, it’s closer in design to American helmets. That said, it always appeared French to me but I have seen others who say they were Belgian.
The helmets of French and Belgian soldiers were indeed similar, only the chrest was different. But I think its way more likely that those are french soldiers, bcs they come across them after the scene with the castle in the background and the landscape implies that they are alrdy in the south (you wont find mountains like this in the Mosel-area), prolly in Baden-Wüttemberg - the part that would later become the french occupation zone.
I have seen this episode SO MANY times, and watching it NEVER gets any easier!!!
I always loved how in awe the Germans on the wagon are as they see the allies moving with nothing but trucks and motorized equipment while they're on wagons/horseback and foot. It's like they knew right there and then that they never stood a chance.
My uncle starved to death in a German POW camp he was captured early and spent 4 years. He weighed about 80 lbs when he died
Hey guys. The actor that played nix did a behind the scenes that you can find on UA-cam. There was also interviews of the cast a few years ago on UA-cam that talks about meeting the vets and the impact this had on their lives.
Episode 9 is my favorite of the whole series. It is so powerful and hits you in the feelings.
The actors get together every year just like the soldiers did after the war, they also have attended several conventions which are available on UA-cam where they share stories for the 20th anniversary of the show
My father-in-law was a top turret gunner/flight engineer flying from England to Germany on B17's in WWII. Near the end of the war, as he said, they were just running out of targets and didn't need all the personnel, so he was given a chance to go to the continent to travel around with a team to evaluate captured German aircraft. They were to make sure any that were flyable - weren't. (They'd tape 4 hand grenades together, hold the paddles down, pull the pins - then toss the bundle into a cockpit - and run - boom!) In their travels they cam across a newly liberated camp or facility of some type - they didn't know exactly where they were or what it was so they went in to see what it was. My FIL had a camera with him that day and in the telling of the story to me he paused and got out a photo album to show me the pictures he had taken. They could have been used as set design for this episode of BoB. Heaps of bodies, pits full of bodies, bodies stacked like cord wood. A few emaciated survivors were still there. It was a work camp, not a "death" camp (a lot of those were in Poland) but people were worked to death - in horrendous numbers. I asked my FIL if he then knew "what he had been fighting for" - his answer was a simple, "Yes".
I ran across a situation in Saudi Arabia where a contractor was whipping workers with a fly whisk. I had to watch it for hours. I didn’t understand how pissed off I could be, but found out when I got relieved on my post. My skinny self dumped all my gear and went to have a talk with someone who took one look in my eyes and immediately ran to his truck. That translates. One of my finest moments.
I saw one of the DoD films of the camps in my high school History class in the 70's. It is something I will never forget. The depiction of the camps in this episode was incredibly realistic. Like 9/11, we should never forget the Holocaust.
I think I read somewhere that some of the camp extras were actually cancer patients. They had the right look.
In Sweden after the war we had The White Buses. War prisoner bus. They came here to get better. Our prines Folke Bernadotte orginast it. 15 000 people was saved.
I'm 45 years old now, a Dutch citizen and as a kid back in the day our schools up North ( dunno if it was thru the rest of the country ) as a day trip they took us to Auschwitz, as Oak said kids shoes, clothing, teeth that were pulled, shaved hair, some barracks where those poor people had to sleep in, they even had a gas chamber left, you won't ever forget it. The moment you walk in there even as a kid when life is good and u have no worries and its all giggles and games, the air feels thick and it's hard to breathe there...
I've seen this series a million times and every times this episode I cry, it never fails. My God the horror!
At our school we had a holocaust survivor come and tell us the horrors of concentration camps. It was heartbreaking and just so mind blowing what kind of evil could actually happen in this world. This woman lost her entire family just at the entrance of the camp and the rules they had before you even entered the camp were insane. Also during this time at my church we had a former German officer who moved to America not long after the war and he shared his thoughts and knowledge of what happened on the German side. He said he had absolutely no idea this happened and he said to his knowledge he knew groups of people were being taken to work camps but everyone in Germany were being assured they were being taken care of. Hitler even had videos and messages of people in the camps pretending to be happy and lying that they were being taken care of. Disgusting. Now I have children and one day they’re going to have to learn of these horrors. Never forget and I hope everyone continues to share this knowledge to our children and children’s children.
Thanks for a very heartfelt reaction---it's so difficult to watch, but as you know, it's necessary.
First time you see Spiers shook.