Many reviewers and people making comments seem to disparage Nixon for never having fired his weapon. Nixon never fired his weapon, because he was assigned at 2nd Battalion/506th Regiment as a staff officer. Hence, he was never in a rifle company, such as E Company, where the actual firing took place.
@@jonc7739 Correct you are. But Nixon was pulled up to battalion staff prior to the jump into Normandy when the opportunity to fire his weapon in combat actually began.
That all makes perfect sense. To me, the strange thing is that Winters seems surprised to learn it. Surely he would have already known all the same things you just said.
@@DudeLongcouch but Winters did see Nixon at the front in Belgium, and he was part of 4 jumps. I was also surprised he never ended up in a situation requiring he fire a gun.
No matter how many times I see this episode I always break when the prisoner who has been treated as sub human for many years salutes and gets saluted right back.
Capt. Nixon didn't get personally demoted, he stayed a Captain (Same pay grade). It was his job that got demoted. Col. Sink sent him down to a lower echelon job. He was working at a job, higher than Battalion level, but got sent back down to his original job as S3 at Battalion. Think of it like, being a manager who worked their way up to a position at Walmart Corporate, and then getting sent back down to work as a manager at a Walmart store in some "podunk" town. You're still a manager, but your job is now just one of thousands at a menial level.
The extras who acted has the prisoners where actual Cancer Patients getting or awaiting treatment. When making the concentration camp scene, behind the scenes people asked many of the actors if they want to see a memorial in order to get ready for it, all of them said no because they wanted to see the concentration camp with virgin eyes like the real E Company did over 80 years ago. (Babe Heffron said that the depiction in BoB wasn't accurate - in reality it was 1000 times worse.) The shock and awe from the actors are raw and real. I cry every time when I reach to Episode 9 because has someone who has a degree in history, we can never forget the atrocities of the Holocaust. Many people of today especially the young who are forgetting that the Jewish people have lost so much because of one man and many of his followers did to them. That is why Mossad was created in Israel "Central Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations," because when Nazi Germany was losing many high level Nazis escaped to other countries especially to Buenos Aires, Argentina. When Mossad agents get information on a Nazi escapee they go and get them, send them back to Israel, put them on trial, and finally hanged. Mossad even today are still looking for any Nazis from WWII, even though many are old men and women, Mossad still will hang them for murdering their people.
Nixon was an intelligence officer, so he was not always on the front line. He worked with strategy, which is why he helped explain D-Day to the group, was always involved with maps, reports, sharing information, etc.
The last month of the war in Europe was very strange. When the Soviets had conquered Berlin and the German government ceased to exist, everyone knew that the war was over. For the last few weeks, the goal of the Germans was to get as many people West to be taken prisoner by the Americans or the British. The Soviets were just as brutal when they invaded Germany as the Germans had been when they invaded the Soviet Union, and there were millions of Germans trying to flee, and German soldiers in Soviet prison camps had pretty bad chances to survive. In my state, half the population after the war was refugees who had fled from the Soviets.
As much as you think you can prepare for this episode, you simply can't. That said , I was a US Navy Hospital Corpsman, my first duty station was Naval Hospital Bethesda near Washington DC. One patient I cared for was a US Navy Captain (Retired). He had end stage cancer of the throat. I admitted him to my ward, did all of the assessments, wrote up the paperwork. Eventually the cancer caused a blockage in his throat, necessitating a tracheostomy & his losing the ability to speak. He communicated with a pad of paper & pencil. I walked in and few days later & said Good Morning Sir! He angrily waved me off & wrote "Don't call me Sir, I don't deserve it!" As a newly minted Hm3 (E-4) I got a little Salty with him. I said as a retired US Navy Captain, Navy Policy requires it & the way I was raised- Anyone older than myself is addressed as Sir or Ma'am as appropriate. My 80 year grandmother would come down here and kick my a$$ if I called you anything else. I then took his arm, pulled his sleeve up pointed at the serial number burned into his arm by butchers, & said that damed tattoo means nobody calls you anything but SIR the rest of your days! Both he and his wife had those numbers. One at Auschwitz and the other at Treblinka. They didn't know each other then. They met after the war. Both teens at the time, both the sole survivor of their families. They came to America and by way of thanks, He joined the Navy and served 35 years. That said several things you need to watch after the series. We Stand Alone Together the documentary the interviews are taken from . Ron Livingston's (Nixon) behind the scenes home movies about the making of BoB. Officially endorsed by HBO The UA-cam channel- American Veteran's Center. They interview veterans including actual members of Easy Company as well as the actors who portrayed them. Well worth the time
A fantastic movie on this subject is "The Pianist". It starred Adrian Brody, and he won an academy award dor his unbelievable portrayal of Civilian in Poland trying to survive. A must watch!
Schindler's List was quite the viewing experience; it's something I will never forget. I also remember a miniseries from the 70's my mom watched called The Holocaust, which was about a Jewish family in Nazi Germany. That is also something that has stayed with me all these years later.
I watched the Holocaust when it aired on TV back in the late 70s when I was about 10. It was a rough watch for a kid my age, but my parents didn’t censor anything we watched back then.
I just found out today that Lt. Henry Jones the the role of the young officer Colin Hanks played last episode never came home. He had been transferred to several places in Germany after the war. And one day was in a jeep wreck. He was in surgery and passed away 😢
To see the actual men of Easy Company. You need to watch "We stand Alone, together " a documentary on the men of Easy The song being sung is called Blood on the Risers. It is still sung to day by those who are Airborne. It tells of a paratrooper that did follow procedures and plummets to his death. It's not that they didn't have an idea of what the Nazis were doing.the US government had heard about the camps. But concerned it to be more propaganda than fact.
My Grandfather's unit was one of those that liberated the horror that was Bergen-Belsen. We only found out after he passed and my Dad (who was also military) started doing some research...it explains why, when I was a kid with heroic ideas about war and soldiers, I'd ask him stuff about what he did during WWII he'd just go quiet. I dread to think what he saw in that camp, even though I've read up on it since and wish I hadn't.
The intro/outro is pretty neat. The guys wonder if the music is Mozart, who just like Hitler is Austrian. Nixon corrects them and explains it’s actually Beethoven, who is a true German. It’s a symbol of Germany returning to its true values. A neat little touch.
The concentration camp Nixon said the Russians liberated around the same time that was 10 times bigger and had execution chambers and ovens for burning the bodies, was most likely Auschwitz, in Poland. The size, description and time frame would concur with Auschwitz being the extermination camp liberated by the Russian army in the same time frame.
This episode always hits me hard. Mostly due to what my grandfather experienced when he served in WWII. His platoon was scouting ahead for their battalion when they came across a concentration camp. The camp was in the midst of "liquidation", where they were lining up survivors in front of a mass grave and gunning them down with a machine gun. They had no idea what the place was, or how many Germans were there. So they radioed back to their battalion for orders and were told the rest of the battalion was a day behind and to wait. My grandfather and the rest of his platoon were local French and Basque, many of them poor farmers. My grandfather was 15 or 16 when the Nazis invaded, and not long after they tried to draft him into their military. He made a run for Spain, was caught by Spanish police, and was in a prison camp for a few years. When they could no longer afford to feed the prisoners, they gave them the option of German army, Allied army, or a bullet. He chose the allies because he knew it was his best chance of getting back home to his family that needed him. During his service, his baby brother got sick and died. My grandfather and the rest of his platoon all had families that needed them to return home. That's why they chose to follow their orders to wait for the rest of their battalion. They sat there all night, listening to that machine gun go off like clockwork. When their battalion finally caught up and they went in, they discovered that the whole time there had only been 3 Germans at the camp, with a couple rifles, a pistol, and the machine gun. My grandfather died not long after I was born and my mom had passed on to me what he experienced. I can only imagine the pain and regret he and his platoon felt for not going in sooner for the rest of their lives.
This is a representation of a relatively small concentration camp. The much larger camps included: Auschwitz and Majdanek (liberated by Soviet troops); Bergen-Belsen (where Anne Frank died) (liberated by the British); and Dachau and Buchenwald (liberated by the US.) Beginning in the 1930’s, there were about a thousand different main and sub-camps, over all Nazi-occupied territories in Europe but mostly inside Germany which is why information about them was less widely known, as well as forced labor and munitions work camps, death camps mainly for immediate exterminations, Prisoner-of-War camps, transportation hub camps for shipping thousands in rail cattle cars, camps just for children, camps focusing on medical experiments and even a few camps maintained as “show camps” for publicity. The film “Schindler’s List” gives a vivid look into aspects of the camp system. Other films include: Life is Beautiful; Sophie’s Choice; The Boy in Striped Pajamas; The Pianist; The Devil’s Arithmetic and many more (plus there are numerous films about the camps run by the Japanese.)
My father-in-law was a top turret gunner/flight engineer on B-17's during WWII, served in England on missions to the continent. Near the end of the war he told me that he was surplussed from aerial duties because "they were running out of targets" to bomb and went to the continent with a team to recently captured German airfields to evaluate aircraft and make sure none were flyable. During the team's travels, they can across a newly captured "camp" or facility and not knowing where they were precisely or what the camp was, they went in to investigate. At this point in the telling, he got up and retrieved his wartime photo album. He had a camera with him that day and took photographs. What his photos showed could have been used as set design for this episode of BoB - stacks of bodies, pits full of bodies, a few remaining emaciated survivors. I remarked that at that point he must have known what he was fighting for - hes answer was a simple, "yes". The camp here and the one that my FIL found were not extermination facilities, they were work camps where prisoners worked in factories or hard labor in mines or farms. Little care was given and many people died from overwork, lack of food and disease. The point was to drain the last bit of energy and work from humans, with the least inputs for their care, before they died. Many of the true extermination camps were in Poland farther to the East where the Russians discovered them. Some of the worst camps were destroyed by the Germans before their discovery.
The German officer in the photograph in the woman's house is dressed in the uniform of a colonel in the Heer (army). The black sash on the picture frame would signify that the officer was deceased. The camps were run by the SS, a paramilitary organization under the direct control of the Nazi party outside of the regular armed forces (Wehrmacht).
Yun both kept your composure better than most watching this most difficult episode Nixon was have a crisis of faith wondering why the war was necessary. This episode showed him finding out it was. It should be required watched for everyone, so we never forget what ideologies can bring about. Good reaction.
Four of the veterans were represented in primary roles in the series. If you have watched the series multiple times you can see where the other were represented. "We stand alone together" is the documentary where they vets tell their tale. I recommend it.
About all those German civilians who said they had no idea the camps were there - the troops found filing cabinets in the administrative offices full of letters from local civilians asking for clothing, shoes, etc. from the murdered prisoners - a lot of the letters specified sizes and colors for what they wanted. Didn't know, my ass. My grandfather was in the Army and was a war crimes investigator. Mom said that to the day he died he refused to talk about what he had seen, but she could see how it had made him more withdrawn and guarded.
I have commented before and if you don't mind I would suggest when your done with episode 10 watch ( We Stand Alone Together ) It's with all the actual guys. Wonderful work God bless
Definitely watch the documentary “We Stand Alone Together” which covers the history of the Airborne, plus the lives of the actual men afterward. Also, there is a “video diary” by Ron Livingston (Nixon) about the training the cast had before filming. All are highly recommended.
There was a U.S. government film titled "Why We Fight," made in 1942, directed by Frank Capra (look him up), that showed who the enemies of the Allies were and why they must be defeated.
That is why we Americans fight. That is why America is called upon when people need help. It my not look like we should be there but when all is said and done more then likely this is what you find and that's why we do what we do. God Bless America.
At the end of the season you should react/watch the documentary "We Stand Alone Together", it's a companion documentary about Easy company/Band Of Brothers
Easy did not "find" the camp. They did pass, and spend two nights, Apr 29-30 1945. near the already liberated minor work camp at Buchloe - which was their first horrific experience of the holocaust. General Taylor had the nearby town of Landsberg turned out to clean up and bury the dead. BoB understandably dramaticized to make it more meaningful. US forces liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany, on April 11, 1945 while the British liberated Neuengamme and Bergen-Belsen, mid April. But it was Russia who liberated the first large concentration camp - Majdanek, located in Lublin, Poland in the summer of 1944, and then in Jan 45 Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz - the largest Nazi killing center and concentration camp complex of all.
@@alundavies1016 The Soviets lied about having executed thousands of Polish prisoners in Katyn Forest, and when the Germans unearthed the bodies, the other Allies didn't believe them either.
You just have to watch the un-official 11th episode to Band of Brothers, the Documentary "We stand alone Together". It tells and explains so much you would be mad to miss it.
Those are the people--and the descendents of them--who either were at Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939 or would've been if they could make it.
And people who believe the moon landing was fake. And people who believe the Earth is flat. And people who believe vaccines cause autism. And people who believe ghosts are real. And... Etc. In the age of information, it seems about half of us make an effort to learn true information and half of us make the opposite effort: to fall for as much disinformation as possible while denying real science and proper education.
That's why Eisenhower wanted it filmed and why the Germans were made to bury the bodies. He knew someday people would say it didn't happen. Japanese war crimes were on par with those of the Germans, but were directed more towards China and other Asian countries so you don't hear as much about them. The German people had likely heard rumors at least, but were to afraid to say anything for fear of ending up in a camp themselves.
What is often forgotten is that in addition to all the Jews, there was systematic elimiation of 6 million other Poles and Soviet civilians, homosexuals, disabled people and "undesireables" and another 3.3 million Soviet POW's. Current estimates of a total of 17 million are documented. What humans are capable of is pretty horrific.
To your point why did he go back to the camp, it took me watching this another time to understand the whole pretense of the episode is why we fight and obviously Nixon was having a real tough time. When he came across the camp, somewhat justified why he and his brothers were there in the first place. Notice he didn't accept the handkerchief to cover his mouth when the guard offered it to him. It's cuz he wanted to take it all in, it just mentally reinforced that the years he was away from home were not just for nothing. It's because this had to be stopped.
So the Allies had some awareness of the concentration camps but it was limited and it wasn't really at the forefront of the people's minds as they were more focused on the war in general. The Nazis also did everything they could to hid the true nature of the camps. When the Allied started liberating the camps and General Eisenhower saw them himself he ordered that the camps be thoroughly recorded and documented so that "no one will ever doubt what had happened here". Regarding Nixon's wife divorcing him, it was not an uncommon thing to happen to soldiers during the war. Most of these men were recently married just before getting called up and then spending 2+ years away with letters being the only way to communicate with their loved ones. Because communication was so limited rumors started flying that the men were having affairs overseas or visiting brothels (and many were). This along with that fact that many of these women had to take on full time jobs to provide for their young families and that they might one day receive a letter that their husband was killed, possibly months ago, lead many women to either have affairs themselves or look for new partners outright. This lead to what were known as "Dear John Letters" basically code for I'm leaving you or I'm getting a divorce. These letters were dreaded by soldiers and whenever one was received it caused the soldier to lose morale and become much less effective. It got so bad at one point the US government forbade the wives of soldiers to file for divorce until after the war ended. This is a problem even to this day. Now Nixon was one of the cases where he absolutely deserved it as he actually was having an affair with a woman in England.
Hi! I know everyone will make sure to let you know about the unofficial 11th episode of Band of Brothers, but if I may I'd like to campaign for you to react to the bootcamp video diary! Basically one of the main actors was given a camera by HBO to film the preparation for the series. 40 something actors were sent to spend around 10 days in a bootcamp, were they had to go by their character's name and assume their rank within the group, while being taught military stuff by Captain Dale Dye and Sargents. Reactors don't usually do this, but it's a beloved video within the fans of the show and it shows the lengths the actors went through to honor the heroes of Easy Company. So I hope you'll consider doing it!
You shoul watch We Stand Alone Together an unofficial episode eleven and your questions will be answered. The Germans wern't into whiskey, they drank cognac, wine and beer. I have looked at your video list and I recommend the following movies to consider, "Conspiracy" this is a HBO made movie, "Schindlers List", Valkyrie", "The Monuments Men" "Woman in Gold". I have studied WW II, not an expert just a nerd for history. Eastern Poland is where the Germans had their extermination camps, Russians were the first to liberate them.
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 really believe Spielberg intentionally has the Nazi woman in the vivid red coat as a direct 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 react or see "The Fallen of WW2" to see the extent of this tragedy. Never forget.
The prisoner says Jews, Gypsies and Poles (by Poles German meant all Slavic nations). The guy carrying that remnants of a human being was speaking Croatian (probably Croatian Jew or member of antifascist movement in Croatia). Any Slavic soldier that fought against Germans was sent to concentration camps instead of PoW camps. Some PoW camps actually had a part for western prisoners (American, British, Canadian or French) and a concentration camp style part for Poles, Belarussians, Russians, etc (depicted in Escape into Victory or Victory! movie) as the German ideology treated Slavs the same as Jews and Gypsies - as subhuman without any human rights. And they now (in modern times) dare to bring up criminal charges against French resistance movement for murder and terrorism!!!
Actually there is SO much down time you have PLENTY of time to talk about your selves. When I was in the Navy, I got to know my fellow shipmates FAR better than anybody I ever met afterwards. Military friendships are the tightest you will ever experience and the most most transient. But the thrust of this episode is how petty some personal issues become in the face of mass-organized genocide and how unprepared the men were for it. There was general knowledge of concentration camps but the extent of the mass murder was not known by the general population. And yes, the smell is overpowering. If you've ever smelled the dirt under your fingernails, magnify that smell 100,000,000 times and that's it. I've had the unfortunate experience of that, being around a dozen dead men. It's astounding.
A pity you hadn’t seen Schindler’s List prior to this episode as it gives more meaning to the camp “the Russians liberated that was ten times as big”, this is assuming you don’t know to what it refers of course. This is one of those episodes of TV that will stay with me forever.
The title of the episode is a little misleading. The camps and the murder of millions weren't really the reason for the war. Even the higher commands really didn't know about the camps. There were rumors and stories but no real proof had been available. There were surveillance photos of the camps but it couldn't be determined what they really were. Finding the hundreds of camps throughout Germany and Poland was a shock to many in the Allied Forces. They made sure there was photo evidence of the atrocities as camps were liberated because the allies weren't sure anybody would believe what had happened.
The main cast was kept away from the concentration camp set so their on camera reactions would be more genuine. Many of the concentration camp prisoners were cancer patients from local hospitals. During the war most all of the allied soldiers truly didn’t know about the concentration and extermination camps until they came upon them.
Guys, PLEASE do not do as so many do when reacting to this miniseries, AFTER the last episode, "POINTS", there is another one, It DOES NOT have to do with WWII and the fighting, but it is more of a documentary about Easy company, MOST do not watch or react to this, I am asking you NOT TO DENY yourselves of it, a LOT of the questions that you are asking yourselves in the opening of this video are answered in that one, PLEASE watch and react to it. It is called, "We Stand Alone together, The Men Of Easy Company"
You aren't wrong, but everyone processes things differently. Maybe we just have two individuals that view things from a logical perspective rather than emotional. Lack of empathy doesn't mean a lack of sympathy.
@@feralvulcan7955 Also, it sometimes just takes a little bit of time. My mom, my little sister and I were at home and surprised by a couple cops at the door who spoke to my mom to tell her that her husband had just died of a heart attack a the gym. She took it just as informational and thanked them for letting her know, I (who overheard it) didn't react at all until I had to call my older brother to tell him, and my little sister who didn't even hear the news at first and only feared the worst snuck off into the backyard somewhere and was sobbing. Even in that little time we had drastically different ways of dealing with it. For all we know right now those darned Maplenuts are going tissue nuts right now as they scream uncontrollably about what their brains are processing. Sad to see some people (not you) get upset at others for not grieving the way that they do and thus, somehow, don't mean it?
The people in the village knew exactly what was going on. They were denying it for any number of reasons from shame to fear of persecution. They chose to ignore it because they were able to. Lot's of willful ignoring goes on today too.
There were rumors of concentration camps that made it out to the Allies but the top brass seemed to decide that the only solution they had was to win the war. The rumors were downplayed so that the troops concentrated on the job at hand. It was also embarrassing to the allied countries, including the USA, who had refused entry to Eastern European Jews who were trying to flee into their countries before and early in the war (1939 SS Saint Louis).
One of the reasons that the post-war Refugee Conventions were written into international law, so nations couldn’t wash their hands of refugees so easily. Worth remembering that.
@@alundavies1016 The USA was just one of three countries in the Americas that refused them entry. It was thought that their fears were very exaggerated. In 1939 Hitler just said he didn't like Jews and no one expected the extermination camps. Several prominent Americans (Cordell Hull) and Canadians pressured Cuba snd America to take them, but failed on both counts. The German captain of the ship contemplated running the ship aground in England so that they would be forced to accept them. Britian took some of them voluntarily as did France and either Holland or Belgum. Most taken in by France and the Holland(?) were taken by the Germans during the war and died in the camps. Not trying to lay blame for a lack of imagination considering the horrendous outcome just stating why the GIs had no idea.
Such an important episode. Impossible to watch, impossible to look away. So much of what is happening now in the Middle East can be traced to American GI's seeing these things. Why has America given so much support to Israel in the past 80 years? This is why. Why do so many people get so offended when pro-Palestine college students throw words like "genocide" around so casually? This is why. The Jewish population of central and Eastern Europe endured a real and systematic attempt at genocide. It also explains why Israel doesn't care what the UN thinks when it comes to their own security. The Jews endured 2000 years of oppression within the very nations that make up the UN. Since they were allowed to create their own state in 1948, they have very much been of the opinion that they will look after themselves and do what THEY think is necessary for their survival.
"Look after themselves"? They rely entirely on US aid, which has never stopped. Many of your points are technically valid, but behind them is the subtext that everything Netanyahu does is fair game since Jews, like some of my ancestors, were oppressed for all those centuries. Well, for starters, it wasn't the Palestinians or Gazan/Samaritans who oppressed them. Then there is a very fundamental flaw: all the killing going on in Gaza is only going to create thousands of suicidal Palestinians set upon revenge because they saw their children, brothers, sisters and family die right in front of them through bombing, injury, starvation and disease. "Allowed to create their own state in 1948" Ok, and who in the UN stopped them from joining? Nobody-- they were welcomed in as a sovereign nation. "The Jews endured 2000 years of oppression within the very nations of the UN---so they don't care what the UN says" There would have been no Israel without the help of the UN. Read a book, please.
Tom Hanks was one of the 2 French soldiers that shot the German prisoner. I would expect the wife of a Nazi officer knew. And it is unlikely people in the town didn't know, with supplies being delivered to the Germans stationed there. They chose to ignore it. Blood on the Risers (Gory Gory What a Helluva Way to Die) Lyrics [Verse 1] He was just a rookie trooper and he surely shook with fright He checked off his equipment and made sure his pack was tight He had to sit and listen to those awful engines roar You ain't gonna jump no more [Chorus] Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die He ain't gonna jump no more [Verse 2] "Is everybody happy?" Cried the Sergeant looking up Our hero feebly answered, "Yes" and then they stood him up He jumped into the icy blast, his static line unhooked And he ain't gonna jump no more [Chorus] Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die He ain't gonna jump no more [Verse 3] He counted long, he counted loud, he waited for the shock He felt the wind, he felt the cold, he felt the awful drop The silk from his reserves spilled out and wrapped around his legs And he ain't gonna jump no more [Chorus] Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die He ain't gonna jump no more [Verse 4] The risers swung around his neck, connectors cracked his dome Suspension lines were tied in knots around his skinny bones The canopy became his shroud, he hurtled to the ground And he ain't gonna jump no more [Chorus] Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die He ain't gonna jump no more [Verse 5] The days he'd lived and loved and laughed kept running through his mind He thought about the girl back home, the one he'd left behind He thought about the medic corps and wondered what they'd find And he ain't gonna jump no more [Chorus] Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die He ain't gonna jump no more [Verse 6] The ambulance was on the spot, the Jeeps were running wild The medics jumped and screamed with glee, rolled their sleeves and smiled For it had been a week or more since last a 'chute had failed And he ain't gonna jump no more [Chorus] Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die, Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die, Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die, He ain't gonna jump no more [Verse 7] He hit the ground, the sound was "splat," his blood went spurting high His comrades, they were heard to say, "A hell of a way to die" He lay there, rolling 'round in the welter of his gore And he ain't gonna jump no more [Chorus] Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die He ain't gonna jump no more [Verse 8] There was blood upon the risers, there were brains upon the 'chute Intestines were a-dangling from his paratroopers suit He was a mess, they picked him up and poured him from his boots And he ain't gonna jump no more [Chorus] Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die He ain't gonna jump no more
How do you know he was a Nazi officer? Do you realize that the Nazis were a political party? The SS were their military arm, and her deceased husband (see black ribbon on the picture frame) wore the uniform of a Wehrmacht officer.
People absolutely knew it was going on. They wouldn't have known the extend of the genocide in the East (though this was public knowledge by 1942/3, though many people wouldn't have known this as it would depend on your access to news) but they knew people were being deported and disappeared. The concentration camps themselves were well known since their beginning in 1933, though they did not look like the above until towards the end of the war. Fiction film is not necessarily the best place to learn about Nazi atrocities and the holocaust, as much of it is simply unrepresentable (the closest may be something like The Grey Zone (2001), but that's probably too heavy for the channel). Aside from Shoah, which is a documentary and not reaction material, I'd recommend Schindler's List, Escape from Sobibor (1987) and Conspiracy (2001) as some good films on the subject.
You seem to contradict yourself a bit. "People" is not a useful term in this context. Most people likely didn't know, as access to news was far more limited, as you indicated. Combat soldiers were highly unlikely to have known about it, until they encountered it. Incidentally, Band of Brothers isn't a documentary, but neither is it fiction.
@@Educated2Extinction You can call it "narrative film" if you want, all of which has some degree of fictionalization. Even this show, which is kind of as good as you'll get in terms of accuracy, is quite romantized and it has loads of issues (a lot of which comes from the book).
@@Educated2ExtinctionI agree with (American, British) combat soldiers - by people I meant regular Germans. And the majority did know - not specifics of gas chambers in Treblinka, for example, no, that was largely secret - but the general genocide. There's a wealth of research on this subject.
@@TheDemonicPenguin I suspect almost everything has a degree of fictionalization, unless it's direct, comprehensive video of an event. People introduce inaccuracies.
Nixon wasnt completely innocent when it came to the divorce. He had an affair with a woman in England during the war. Also I still don’t understand why they decided to make Leibgot Jewish when in reality he wasn’t.
The Soviet army was brutal for a reason. The siege of Leningrad caused 1.3-2 million deaths. The Germans bombed them, starved them, and froze them to death. Educate yourself on this siege and the one in Stalingrad. The Russian people were brave and resilient.
This is probably the weakest of the BoB episodes. And, it's understandable...how little they spent on the camps, as there are hundreds of movies detailing them - Hanks and Spielberg didn't feel the need. By the time E Company found their first camp, they all knew about the camps and extermination of the Jews...it was widely publicized throughout the U.S. and free Europe. Furthermore, the German public was well aware of what went on in the camps as well.
Actually Liebgot was raised a Catholic in real life and was not jewish as it is told in the series! That was some liberties the writers did to make certant point more effective in the show!
Everyone misses it - myself included - The old lady in red was married to a SS officer who lived near the concentration camp - like the commandant. When Winters wonders who from town warned them, it was her. BTW, the soldiers shooting prisoners were French. You can tell by the helmet. If the unit surrenders any found trying to hide are treated as if they wanted to be snipers.
No, it wasn't her. She was married to an Army officer (as can be seen from the uniform on the man in the picture), not an SS officer. Her husband had nothing to do with the camp, and she did not give them notice. What she did do is provide is a dramatic contrast between her outrage and Nixon's shame when he was caught looting her house compared to his disgust and her shame when they both found what her nation had been doing.
Many reviewers and people making comments seem to disparage Nixon for never having fired his weapon. Nixon never fired his weapon, because he was assigned at 2nd Battalion/506th Regiment as a staff officer. Hence, he was never in a rifle company, such as E Company, where the actual firing took place.
We do see him in a rifle company, briefly, at the beginning of episode one.
He's also an intelligence officer - they usually don't see combat.
@@jonc7739 Correct you are. But Nixon was pulled up to battalion staff prior to the jump into Normandy when the opportunity to fire his weapon in combat actually began.
That all makes perfect sense. To me, the strange thing is that Winters seems surprised to learn it. Surely he would have already known all the same things you just said.
@@DudeLongcouch but Winters did see Nixon at the front in Belgium, and he was part of 4 jumps. I was also surprised he never ended up in a situation requiring he fire a gun.
No matter how many times I see this episode I always break when the prisoner who has been treated as sub human for many years salutes and gets saluted right back.
Capt. Nixon didn't get personally demoted, he stayed a Captain (Same pay grade). It was his job that got demoted. Col. Sink sent him down to a lower echelon job. He was working at a job, higher than Battalion level, but got sent back down to his original job as S3 at Battalion. Think of it like, being a manager who worked their way up to a position at Walmart Corporate, and then getting sent back down to work as a manager at a Walmart store in some "podunk" town. You're still a manager, but your job is now just one of thousands at a menial level.
Sooo helpful, thx!
I read that Babe Heffron almost got into a fight with a Holocaust denier. Babe was 80
The extras who acted has the prisoners where actual Cancer Patients getting or awaiting treatment. When making the concentration camp scene, behind the scenes people asked many of the actors if they want to see a memorial in order to get ready for it, all of them said no because they wanted to see the concentration camp with virgin eyes like the real E Company did over 80 years ago. (Babe Heffron said that the depiction in BoB wasn't accurate - in reality it was 1000 times worse.) The shock and awe from the actors are raw and real. I cry every time when I reach to Episode 9 because has someone who has a degree in history, we can never forget the atrocities of the Holocaust.
Many people of today especially the young who are forgetting that the Jewish people have lost so much because of one man and many of his followers did to them. That is why Mossad was created in Israel "Central Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations," because when Nazi Germany was losing many high level Nazis escaped to other countries especially to Buenos Aires, Argentina. When Mossad agents get information on a Nazi escapee they go and get them, send them back to Israel, put them on trial, and finally hanged. Mossad even today are still looking for any Nazis from WWII, even though many are old men and women, Mossad still will hang them for murdering their people.
Nixon was an intelligence officer, so he was not always on the front line. He worked with strategy, which is why he helped explain D-Day to the group, was always involved with maps, reports, sharing information, etc.
The last month of the war in Europe was very strange. When the Soviets had conquered Berlin and the German government ceased to exist, everyone knew that the war was over. For the last few weeks, the goal of the Germans was to get as many people West to be taken prisoner by the Americans or the British. The Soviets were just as brutal when they invaded Germany as the Germans had been when they invaded the Soviet Union, and there were millions of Germans trying to flee, and German soldiers in Soviet prison camps had pretty bad chances to survive.
In my state, half the population after the war was refugees who had fled from the Soviets.
As much as you think you can prepare for this episode, you simply can't.
That said , I was a US Navy Hospital Corpsman, my first duty station was Naval Hospital Bethesda near Washington DC. One patient I cared for was a US Navy Captain (Retired). He had end stage cancer of the throat. I admitted him to my ward, did all of the assessments, wrote up the paperwork. Eventually the cancer caused a blockage in his throat, necessitating a tracheostomy & his losing the ability to speak. He communicated with a pad of paper & pencil. I walked in and few days later & said Good Morning Sir! He angrily waved me off & wrote "Don't call me Sir, I don't deserve it!"
As a newly minted Hm3 (E-4) I got a little Salty with him. I said as a retired US Navy Captain, Navy Policy requires it & the way I was raised- Anyone older than myself is addressed as Sir or Ma'am as appropriate. My 80 year grandmother would come down here and kick my a$$ if I called you anything else. I then took his arm, pulled his sleeve up pointed at the serial number burned into his arm by butchers, & said that damed tattoo means nobody calls you anything but SIR the rest of your days!
Both he and his wife had those numbers. One at Auschwitz and the other at Treblinka. They didn't know each other then. They met after the war. Both teens at the time, both the sole survivor of their families. They came to America and by way of thanks, He joined the Navy and served 35 years.
That said several things you need to watch after the series.
We Stand Alone Together the documentary the interviews are taken from .
Ron Livingston's (Nixon) behind the scenes home movies about the making of BoB. Officially endorsed by HBO
The UA-cam channel- American Veteran's Center. They interview veterans including actual members of Easy Company as well as the actors who portrayed them. Well worth the time
The interviews you see at the beginning of every episode by the veterans of easy company is part of a documentary called we stand alone together
They know that already ! .
A fantastic movie on this subject is "The Pianist". It starred Adrian Brody, and he won an academy award dor his unbelievable portrayal of Civilian in Poland trying to survive. A must watch!
Schindler's List was quite the viewing experience; it's something I will never forget. I also remember a miniseries from the 70's my mom watched called The Holocaust, which was about a Jewish family in Nazi Germany. That is also something that has stayed with me all these years later.
I watched the Holocaust when it aired on TV back in the late 70s when I was about 10. It was a rough watch for a kid my age, but my parents didn’t censor anything we watched back then.
I just found out today that Lt. Henry Jones the the role of the young officer Colin Hanks played last episode never came home. He had been transferred to several places in Germany after the war. And one day was in a jeep wreck. He was in surgery and passed away 😢
To see the actual men of Easy Company. You need to watch "We stand Alone, together " a documentary on the men of Easy
The song being sung is called Blood on the Risers. It is still sung to day by those who are Airborne. It tells of a paratrooper that did follow procedures and plummets to his death.
It's not that they didn't have an idea of what the Nazis were doing.the US government had heard about the camps. But concerned it to be more propaganda than fact.
IMO "We Stand Alone Together" should be the mandatory 11th episode of this experience.
My Grandfather's unit was one of those that liberated the horror that was Bergen-Belsen. We only found out after he passed and my Dad (who was also military) started doing some research...it explains why, when I was a kid with heroic ideas about war and soldiers, I'd ask him stuff about what he did during WWII he'd just go quiet. I dread to think what he saw in that camp, even though I've read up on it since and wish I hadn't.
I have a suitcase full of photos my grandfather took. There is a batch of photos from the camps. So unspeakable.
I love Nixon going(edited: missed the 'i') to the camp to return that stare. She sure as hell knew.
Aaaaaand now we come to "that episode".
.............lemme grab the tissues.
The intro/outro is pretty neat. The guys wonder if the music is Mozart, who just like Hitler is Austrian. Nixon corrects them and explains it’s actually Beethoven, who is a true German. It’s a symbol of Germany returning to its true values. A neat little touch.
The only time Perconte gets O’Keefe’s name correctly is in the camps. What an amazing little detail.
The concentration camp Nixon said the Russians liberated around the same time that was 10 times bigger and had execution chambers and ovens for burning the bodies, was most likely Auschwitz, in Poland. The size, description and time frame would concur with Auschwitz being the extermination camp liberated by the Russian army in the same time frame.
This episode always hits me hard. Mostly due to what my grandfather experienced when he served in WWII.
His platoon was scouting ahead for their battalion when they came across a concentration camp. The camp was in the midst of "liquidation", where they were lining up survivors in front of a mass grave and gunning them down with a machine gun. They had no idea what the place was, or how many Germans were there. So they radioed back to their battalion for orders and were told the rest of the battalion was a day behind and to wait. My grandfather and the rest of his platoon were local French and Basque, many of them poor farmers. My grandfather was 15 or 16 when the Nazis invaded, and not long after they tried to draft him into their military. He made a run for Spain, was caught by Spanish police, and was in a prison camp for a few years. When they could no longer afford to feed the prisoners, they gave them the option of German army, Allied army, or a bullet. He chose the allies because he knew it was his best chance of getting back home to his family that needed him. During his service, his baby brother got sick and died. My grandfather and the rest of his platoon all had families that needed them to return home. That's why they chose to follow their orders to wait for the rest of their battalion. They sat there all night, listening to that machine gun go off like clockwork. When their battalion finally caught up and they went in, they discovered that the whole time there had only been 3 Germans at the camp, with a couple rifles, a pistol, and the machine gun. My grandfather died not long after I was born and my mom had passed on to me what he experienced. I can only imagine the pain and regret he and his platoon felt for not going in sooner for the rest of their lives.
This is a representation of a relatively small concentration camp. The much larger camps included:
Auschwitz and Majdanek (liberated by Soviet troops); Bergen-Belsen (where Anne Frank died) (liberated by the British); and Dachau and Buchenwald (liberated by the US.) Beginning in the 1930’s, there were about a thousand different main and sub-camps, over all Nazi-occupied territories in Europe but mostly inside Germany which is why information about them was less widely known, as well as forced labor and munitions work camps, death camps mainly for immediate exterminations, Prisoner-of-War camps, transportation hub camps for shipping thousands in rail cattle cars, camps just for children, camps focusing on medical experiments and even a few camps maintained as “show camps” for publicity.
The film “Schindler’s List” gives a vivid look into aspects of the camp system. Other films include:
Life is Beautiful; Sophie’s Choice; The Boy in Striped Pajamas; The Pianist; The Devil’s Arithmetic and many more (plus there are numerous films about the camps run by the Japanese.)
Yeah but they still managed to be just about as impactful and shocking as Schindler’s List in a shorter span of scenes
My father-in-law was a top turret gunner/flight engineer on B-17's during WWII, served in England on missions to the continent. Near the end of the war he told me that he was surplussed from aerial duties because "they were running out of targets" to bomb and went to the continent with a team to recently captured German airfields to evaluate aircraft and make sure none were flyable. During the team's travels, they can across a newly captured "camp" or facility and not knowing where they were precisely or what the camp was, they went in to investigate. At this point in the telling, he got up and retrieved his wartime photo album. He had a camera with him that day and took photographs. What his photos showed could have been used as set design for this episode of BoB - stacks of bodies, pits full of bodies, a few remaining emaciated survivors. I remarked that at that point he must have known what he was fighting for - hes answer was a simple, "yes". The camp here and the one that my FIL found were not extermination facilities, they were work camps where prisoners worked in factories or hard labor in mines or farms. Little care was given and many people died from overwork, lack of food and disease. The point was to drain the last bit of energy and work from humans, with the least inputs for their care, before they died. Many of the true extermination camps were in Poland farther to the East where the Russians discovered them. Some of the worst camps were destroyed by the Germans before their discovery.
The German officer in the photograph in the woman's house is dressed in the uniform of a colonel in the Heer (army). The black sash on the picture frame would signify that the officer was deceased. The camps were run by the SS, a paramilitary organization under the direct control of the Nazi party outside of the regular armed forces (Wehrmacht).
Yun both kept your composure better than most watching this most difficult episode Nixon was have a crisis of faith wondering why the war was necessary. This episode showed him finding out it was. It should be required watched for everyone, so we never forget what ideologies can bring about.
Good reaction.
Four of the veterans were represented in primary roles in the series. If you have watched the series multiple times you can see where the other were represented.
"We stand alone together" is the documentary where they vets tell their tale. I recommend it.
About all those German civilians who said they had no idea the camps were there - the troops found filing cabinets in the administrative offices full of letters from local civilians asking for clothing, shoes, etc. from the murdered prisoners - a lot of the letters specified sizes and colors for what they wanted. Didn't know, my ass.
My grandfather was in the Army and was a war crimes investigator. Mom said that to the day he died he refused to talk about what he had seen, but she could see how it had made him more withdrawn and guarded.
The episode never gets any easier to watch.
Ther is an episode 11 called we stand alone together that shows them all after the war.
I have commented before and if you don't mind I would suggest when your done with episode 10 watch ( We Stand Alone Together ) It's with all the actual guys. Wonderful work God bless
Definitely watch the documentary “We Stand Alone Together” which covers the history of the Airborne, plus the lives of the actual men afterward. Also, there is a “video diary” by Ron Livingston (Nixon) about the training the cast had before filming. All are highly recommended.
Going t have to watch the Doc. "We stand alone Together" has all the interviews plus more
There was a U.S. government film titled "Why We Fight," made in 1942, directed by Frank Capra (look him up), that showed who the enemies of the Allies were and why they must be defeated.
Luz & Perconte weren’t stealing eggs; they were liberating them.
Thank y'all for reacting to this series
This episode tears me apart every time.
That is why we Americans fight. That is why America is called upon when people need help. It my not look like we should be there but when all is said and done more then likely this is what you find and that's why we do what we do. God Bless America.
At the end of the season you should react/watch the documentary "We Stand Alone Together", it's a companion documentary about Easy company/Band Of Brothers
Easy did not "find" the camp. They did pass, and spend two nights, Apr 29-30 1945. near the already liberated minor work camp at Buchloe - which was their first horrific experience of the holocaust. General Taylor had the nearby town of Landsberg turned out to clean up and bury the dead. BoB understandably dramaticized to make it more meaningful. US forces liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany, on April 11, 1945 while the British liberated Neuengamme and Bergen-Belsen, mid April. But it was Russia who liberated the first large concentration camp - Majdanek, located in Lublin, Poland in the summer of 1944, and then in Jan 45 Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz - the largest Nazi killing center and concentration camp complex of all.
most of the actors in the internment camp were hospice patients. It's still isn't as bad as the real photos.
The Russians had found camps early on... but the other allies thought Stalin was exaggerating to downplay Russian atrocities.
It would be difficult to believe, and Stalin wasn’t the most trustworthy man.
@@alundavies1016 The Soviets lied about having executed thousands of Polish prisoners in Katyn Forest, and when the Germans unearthed the bodies, the other Allies didn't believe them either.
Not that "early on": Auschwitz wasn't discovered by the Soviets until the end of January 1945, and this was just March '45.
@ as I say, trust was an issue. To be fair to Britain and the US, Stalin had been on Germany’s side until Operation Barbarossa started!
You just have to watch the un-official 11th episode to Band of Brothers, the Documentary "We stand alone Together". It tells and explains so much you would be mad to miss it.
There are people in the world that truely believe this didn't happen!
That's the world we live in today..... far more terrifying!!!
Those are the people--and the descendents of them--who either were at Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939 or would've been if they could make it.
And people who believe the moon landing was fake.
And people who believe the Earth is flat.
And people who believe vaccines cause autism.
And people who believe ghosts are real.
And...
Etc.
In the age of information, it seems about half of us make an effort to learn true information and half of us make the opposite effort: to fall for as much disinformation as possible while denying real science and proper education.
That's why Eisenhower wanted it filmed and why the Germans were made to bury the bodies. He knew someday people would say it didn't happen. Japanese war crimes were on par with those of the Germans, but were directed more towards China and other Asian countries so you don't hear as much about them. The German people had likely heard rumors at least, but were to afraid to say anything for fear of ending up in a camp themselves.
Besides the Pacific you should consider HACKSAW RIDGE as the movie to accompany the series.
What is often forgotten is that in addition to all the Jews, there was systematic elimiation of 6 million other Poles and Soviet civilians, homosexuals, disabled people and "undesireables" and another 3.3 million Soviet POW's. Current estimates of a total of 17 million are documented. What humans are capable of is pretty horrific.
and the 20-30 million killed by the Japanese in Asia.
There are 11 episodes all together .... There's an hour long documentary with the full interviews.
They didn’t cry?
To your point why did he go back to the camp, it took me watching this another time to understand the whole pretense of the episode is why we fight and obviously Nixon was having a real tough time. When he came across the camp, somewhat justified why he and his brothers were there in the first place. Notice he didn't accept the handkerchief to cover his mouth when the guard offered it to him. It's cuz he wanted to take it all in, it just mentally reinforced that the years he was away from home were not just for nothing. It's because this had to be stopped.
One of the best movies about concentration camps is La Vita e Bella (Life is beautiful) with one of the best comedians ever - Roberto Benigni.
I hope your next series is the Pacific.
Watch, “We Stand Alone Together,” to see the real-life men.
I've been waiting for this.
This one is heavy af, I almost couldn’t make it though
So the Allies had some awareness of the concentration camps but it was limited and it wasn't really at the forefront of the people's minds as they were more focused on the war in general.
The Nazis also did everything they could to hid the true nature of the camps.
When the Allied started liberating the camps and General Eisenhower saw them himself he ordered that the camps be thoroughly recorded and documented so that "no one will ever doubt what had happened here".
Regarding Nixon's wife divorcing him, it was not an uncommon thing to happen to soldiers during the war. Most of these men were recently married just before getting called up and then spending 2+ years away with letters being the only way to communicate with their loved ones. Because communication was so limited rumors started flying that the men were having affairs overseas or visiting brothels (and many were). This along with that fact that many of these women had to take on full time jobs to provide for their young families and that they might one day receive a letter that their husband was killed, possibly months ago, lead many women to either have affairs themselves or look for new partners outright.
This lead to what were known as "Dear John Letters" basically code for I'm leaving you or I'm getting a divorce. These letters were dreaded by soldiers and whenever one was received it caused the soldier to lose morale and become much less effective. It got so bad at one point the US government forbade the wives of soldiers to file for divorce until after the war ended. This is a problem even to this day.
Now Nixon was one of the cases where he absolutely deserved it as he actually was having an affair with a woman in England.
Hi! I know everyone will make sure to let you know about the unofficial 11th episode of Band of Brothers, but if I may I'd like to campaign for you to react to the bootcamp video diary! Basically one of the main actors was given a camera by HBO to film the preparation for the series. 40 something actors were sent to spend around 10 days in a bootcamp, were they had to go by their character's name and assume their rank within the group, while being taught military stuff by Captain Dale Dye and Sargents. Reactors don't usually do this, but it's a beloved video within the fans of the show and it shows the lengths the actors went through to honor the heroes of Easy Company. So I hope you'll consider doing it!
How does this chick not know about concentration camps and how bad they were? wtf is with young people anymore? They never know anything..
600 or six million, it's still a tragedy.
I believe they made some effort to get actors who were at least similar to the men they portrayed
I hope you react to the unofficial 11th episode "We stand alone - Band of Brothers Documentary"?
You shoul watch We Stand Alone Together an unofficial episode eleven and your questions will be answered. The Germans wern't into whiskey, they drank cognac, wine and beer. I have looked at your video list and I recommend the following movies to consider, "Conspiracy" this is a HBO made movie, "Schindlers List", Valkyrie", "The Monuments Men" "Woman in Gold". I have studied WW II, not an expert just a nerd for history. Eastern Poland is where the Germans had their extermination camps, Russians were the first to liberate them.
I think I read somewhere they got all the cancer patients from a near by hospital to play the camp prisoners for this episode
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 really believe Spielberg intentionally has the Nazi woman in the vivid red coat as a direct 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 react or see "The Fallen of WW2" to see the extent of this tragedy. Never forget.
Tom Hanks alert! 09:00 🚨
The prisoner says Jews, Gypsies and Poles (by Poles German meant all Slavic nations). The guy carrying that remnants of a human being was speaking Croatian (probably Croatian Jew or member of antifascist movement in Croatia). Any Slavic soldier that fought against Germans was sent to concentration camps instead of PoW camps. Some PoW camps actually had a part for western prisoners (American, British, Canadian or French) and a concentration camp style part for Poles, Belarussians, Russians, etc (depicted in Escape into Victory or Victory! movie) as the German ideology treated Slavs the same as Jews and Gypsies - as subhuman without any human rights. And they now (in modern times) dare to bring up criminal charges against French resistance movement for murder and terrorism!!!
Yeah, doesn't get any more rough than this episode.
Actually there is SO much down time you have PLENTY of time to talk about your selves. When I was in the Navy, I got to know my fellow shipmates FAR better than anybody I ever met afterwards. Military friendships are the tightest you will ever experience and the most most transient. But the thrust of this episode is how petty some personal issues become in the face of mass-organized genocide and how unprepared the men were for it. There was general knowledge of concentration camps but the extent of the mass murder was not known by the general population. And yes, the smell is overpowering. If you've ever smelled the dirt under your fingernails, magnify that smell 100,000,000 times and that's it. I've had the unfortunate experience of that, being around a dozen dead men. It's astounding.
16:35 Schindler's list please!
Heard it’s a good day in Canada today, lots of happy Canadians on social media anyway.
Before I watched this I thought we already knew about the camps that’s why we were going not that we went and found out
A pity you hadn’t seen Schindler’s List prior to this episode as it gives more meaning to the camp “the Russians liberated that was ten times as big”, this is assuming you don’t know to what it refers of course. This is one of those episodes of TV that will stay with me forever.
You'd heard about the Holocaust before you watched this episode, right?
The title of the episode is a little misleading. The camps and the murder of millions weren't really the reason for the war. Even the higher commands really didn't know about the camps. There were rumors and stories but no real proof had been available. There were surveillance photos of the camps but it couldn't be determined what they really were. Finding the hundreds of camps throughout Germany and Poland was a shock to many in the Allied Forces. They made sure there was photo evidence of the atrocities as camps were liberated because the allies weren't sure anybody would believe what had happened.
15:45 Shes not reacting like the other German people because she knew.
The main cast was kept away from the concentration camp set so their on camera reactions would be more genuine. Many of the concentration camp prisoners were cancer patients from local hospitals. During the war most all of the allied soldiers truly didn’t know about the concentration and extermination camps until they came upon them.
Guys, PLEASE do not do as so many do when reacting to this miniseries, AFTER the last episode, "POINTS", there is another one, It DOES NOT have to do with WWII and the fighting, but it is more of a documentary about Easy company, MOST do not watch or react to this, I am asking you NOT TO DENY yourselves of it, a LOT of the questions that you are asking yourselves in the opening of this video are answered in that one, PLEASE watch and react to it. It is called, "We Stand Alone together, The Men Of Easy Company"
Probably the first people I've seen react to this that didn't shed a tear.
You aren't wrong, but everyone processes things differently. Maybe we just have two individuals that view things from a logical perspective rather than emotional. Lack of empathy doesn't mean a lack of sympathy.
@@feralvulcan7955 Also, it sometimes just takes a little bit of time. My mom, my little sister and I were at home and surprised by a couple cops at the door who spoke to my mom to tell her that her husband had just died of a heart attack a the gym. She took it just as informational and thanked them for letting her know, I (who overheard it) didn't react at all until I had to call my older brother to tell him, and my little sister who didn't even hear the news at first and only feared the worst snuck off into the backyard somewhere and was sobbing. Even in that little time we had drastically different ways of dealing with it.
For all we know right now those darned Maplenuts are going tissue nuts right now as they scream uncontrollably about what their brains are processing. Sad to see some people (not you) get upset at others for not grieving the way that they do and thus, somehow, don't mean it?
At 9:05 it is Tom Hanks who is killing the POWs. This is one of the two cameos of Tom Hanks in the series.
Not accurate. The actor as the French officer resembles Hanks, but that isn't him.
The leader's of the allies talked and it would be decided the the Russian's would have the honor too taking Berlin.
The people in the village knew exactly what was going on. They were denying it for any number of reasons from shame to fear of persecution. They chose to ignore it because they were able to. Lot's of willful ignoring goes on today too.
There were rumors of concentration camps that made it out to the Allies but the top brass seemed to decide that the only solution they had was to win the war. The rumors were downplayed so that the troops concentrated on the job at hand. It was also embarrassing to the allied countries, including the USA, who had refused entry to Eastern European Jews who were trying to flee into their countries before and early in the war (1939 SS Saint Louis).
They were rejected first by Cuba. Do realize that this was still the Depression, with 24% unemployment.
One of the reasons that the post-war Refugee Conventions were written into international law, so nations couldn’t wash their hands of refugees so easily. Worth remembering that.
@@alundavies1016 The USA was just one of three countries in the Americas that refused them entry. It was thought that their fears were very exaggerated. In 1939 Hitler just said he didn't like Jews and no one expected the extermination camps. Several prominent Americans (Cordell Hull) and Canadians pressured Cuba snd America to take them, but failed on both counts. The German captain of the ship contemplated running the ship aground in England so that they would be forced to accept them. Britian took some of them voluntarily as did France and either Holland or Belgum. Most taken in by France and the Holland(?) were taken by the Germans during the war and died in the camps. Not trying to lay blame for a lack of imagination considering the horrendous outcome just stating why the GIs had no idea.
Such an important episode. Impossible to watch, impossible to look away. So much of what is happening now in the Middle East can be traced to American GI's seeing these things. Why has America given so much support to Israel in the past 80 years? This is why. Why do so many people get so offended when pro-Palestine college students throw words like "genocide" around so casually? This is why. The Jewish population of central and Eastern Europe endured a real and systematic attempt at genocide. It also explains why Israel doesn't care what the UN thinks when it comes to their own security. The Jews endured 2000 years of oppression within the very nations that make up the UN. Since they were allowed to create their own state in 1948, they have very much been of the opinion that they will look after themselves and do what THEY think is necessary for their survival.
"Look after themselves"? They rely entirely on US aid, which has never stopped. Many of your points are technically valid, but behind them is the subtext that everything Netanyahu does is fair game since Jews, like some of my ancestors, were oppressed for all those centuries. Well, for starters, it wasn't the Palestinians or Gazan/Samaritans who oppressed them. Then there is a very fundamental flaw: all the killing going on in Gaza is only going to create thousands of suicidal Palestinians set upon revenge because they saw their children, brothers, sisters and family die right in front of them through bombing, injury, starvation and disease. "Allowed to create their own state in 1948" Ok, and who in the UN stopped them from joining? Nobody-- they were welcomed in as a sovereign nation. "The Jews endured 2000 years of oppression within the very nations of the UN---so they don't care what the UN says" There would have been no Israel without the help of the UN. Read a book, please.
Tom Hanks was one of the 2 French soldiers that shot the German prisoner.
I would expect the wife of a Nazi officer knew. And it is unlikely people in the town didn't know, with supplies being delivered to the Germans stationed there. They chose to ignore it.
Blood on the Risers (Gory Gory What a Helluva Way to Die) Lyrics
[Verse 1]
He was just a rookie trooper and he surely shook with fright
He checked off his equipment and made sure his pack was tight
He had to sit and listen to those awful engines roar
You ain't gonna jump no more
[Chorus]
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die
He ain't gonna jump no more
[Verse 2]
"Is everybody happy?" Cried the Sergeant looking up
Our hero feebly answered, "Yes" and then they stood him up
He jumped into the icy blast, his static line unhooked
And he ain't gonna jump no more
[Chorus]
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die
He ain't gonna jump no more
[Verse 3]
He counted long, he counted loud, he waited for the shock
He felt the wind, he felt the cold, he felt the awful drop
The silk from his reserves spilled out and wrapped around his legs
And he ain't gonna jump no more
[Chorus]
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die
He ain't gonna jump no more
[Verse 4]
The risers swung around his neck, connectors cracked his dome
Suspension lines were tied in knots around his skinny bones
The canopy became his shroud, he hurtled to the ground
And he ain't gonna jump no more
[Chorus]
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die
He ain't gonna jump no more
[Verse 5]
The days he'd lived and loved and laughed kept running through his mind
He thought about the girl back home, the one he'd left behind
He thought about the medic corps and wondered what they'd find
And he ain't gonna jump no more
[Chorus]
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die
He ain't gonna jump no more
[Verse 6]
The ambulance was on the spot, the Jeeps were running wild
The medics jumped and screamed with glee, rolled their sleeves and smiled
For it had been a week or more since last a 'chute had failed
And he ain't gonna jump no more
[Chorus]
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die,
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die,
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die,
He ain't gonna jump no more
[Verse 7]
He hit the ground, the sound was "splat," his blood went spurting high
His comrades, they were heard to say, "A hell of a way to die"
He lay there, rolling 'round in the welter of his gore
And he ain't gonna jump no more
[Chorus]
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die
He ain't gonna jump no more
[Verse 8]
There was blood upon the risers, there were brains upon the 'chute
Intestines were a-dangling from his paratroopers suit
He was a mess, they picked him up and poured him from his boots
And he ain't gonna jump no more
[Chorus]
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die
He ain't gonna jump no more
How do you know he was a Nazi officer? Do you realize that the Nazis were a political party? The SS were their military arm, and her deceased husband (see black ribbon on the picture frame) wore the uniform of a Wehrmacht officer.
Giving Cigarettes means you may die as a POW. That's probably why he got slapped when she found out she wasn't going to be executed.
It's implied Luz is trying to bribe her to sleep with him.
He gave her cigarettes because he wanted sex. Cigarettes were a precious commodity.
People absolutely knew it was going on. They wouldn't have known the extend of the genocide in the East (though this was public knowledge by 1942/3, though many people wouldn't have known this as it would depend on your access to news) but they knew people were being deported and disappeared. The concentration camps themselves were well known since their beginning in 1933, though they did not look like the above until towards the end of the war. Fiction film is not necessarily the best place to learn about Nazi atrocities and the holocaust, as much of it is simply unrepresentable (the closest may be something like The Grey Zone (2001), but that's probably too heavy for the channel). Aside from Shoah, which is a documentary and not reaction material, I'd recommend Schindler's List, Escape from Sobibor (1987) and Conspiracy (2001) as some good films on the subject.
You seem to contradict yourself a bit. "People" is not a useful term in this context. Most people likely didn't know, as access to news was far more limited, as you indicated. Combat soldiers were highly unlikely to have known about it, until they encountered it. Incidentally, Band of Brothers isn't a documentary, but neither is it fiction.
@@Educated2Extinction You can call it "narrative film" if you want, all of which has some degree of fictionalization. Even this show, which is kind of as good as you'll get in terms of accuracy, is quite romantized and it has loads of issues (a lot of which comes from the book).
@@Educated2ExtinctionI agree with (American, British) combat soldiers - by people I meant regular Germans. And the majority did know - not specifics of gas chambers in Treblinka, for example, no, that was largely secret - but the general genocide. There's a wealth of research on this subject.
@@TheDemonicPenguin Oh yeah, most Germans had to have a pretty good idea of what was going on. I was thinking more of Allied civilians.
@@TheDemonicPenguin I suspect almost everything has a degree of fictionalization, unless it's direct, comprehensive video of an event. People introduce inaccuracies.
Never Again
Nixon wasnt completely innocent when it came to the divorce. He had an affair with a woman in England during the war.
Also I still don’t understand why they decided to make Leibgot Jewish when in reality he wasn’t.
His mother was Jewish. In Judaism, being a Jew is passed on by the mother. He was raised Catholic since his father was.
ya'll are kinda ignorant, I beg you to read up on some history for once
The Soviet army was brutal for a reason. The siege of Leningrad caused 1.3-2 million deaths. The Germans bombed them, starved them, and froze them to death. Educate yourself on this siege and the one in Stalingrad. The Russian people were brave and resilient.
This is probably the weakest of the BoB episodes. And, it's understandable...how little they spent on the camps, as there are hundreds of movies detailing them - Hanks and Spielberg didn't feel the need. By the time E Company found their first camp, they all knew about the camps and extermination of the Jews...it was widely publicized throughout the U.S. and free Europe. Furthermore, the German public was well aware of what went on in the camps as well.
Actually Liebgot was raised a Catholic in real life and was not jewish as it is told in the series!
That was some liberties the writers did to make certant point more effective in the show!
Liebgott’s mother was Jewish. In Judaism, you’re Jewish through matrilineal descent. But he was raised Catholic as his father was.
another BAND OF....is the movie BAND OF THE HAND,it has the typical MIAMI VICE vibe
Everyone misses it - myself included - The old lady in red was married to a SS officer who lived near the concentration camp - like the commandant. When Winters wonders who from town warned them, it was her.
BTW, the soldiers shooting prisoners were French. You can tell by the helmet. If the unit surrenders any found trying to hide are treated as if they wanted to be snipers.
No, it wasn't her. She was married to an Army officer (as can be seen from the uniform on the man in the picture), not an SS officer. Her husband had nothing to do with the camp, and she did not give them notice. What she did do is provide is a dramatic contrast between her outrage and Nixon's shame when he was caught looting her house compared to his disgust and her shame when they both found what her nation had been doing.
Wrong. Her husband is deceased and Wehrmacht, not SS.
Thank y'all for reacting to this series