Witness History: World War 2 Collection

Britain's secret propaganda war

Wed, 06 Nov 2019 08:40:00 GMT

How sex, jazz and 'fake news' were used to undermine the Nazis in World War Two. In 1941, the UK created a top secret propaganda department, the Political Warfare Executive to wage psychological warfare on the German war machine. It was responsible for spreading rumours, generating fake news, leaflet drops and creating fake clandestine German radio stations to spread misinformation and erode enemy morale. We hear archive recordings of those involved and speak to professor Jo Fox of the Institute of Historical Research about the secret history of British "black propaganda".(Photo: The actress and singer Agnes Bernelle, who was recruited to be a presenter on a fake German radio station during the war)

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Broadcasting D-Day

Thu, 06 Jun 2019 07:50:00 GMT

Hear how the BBC reported the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France on June 6th 1944. The operation was a crucial step in the liberation of western Europe. Using original BBC reports from the time - from Chester Wilmot, Richard Dimbleby, Robin Duff, Ward Smith and Alan Melville - we tell the story of D-Day.Photo: D-Day Landings: US troops in an LCVP landing craft approach Omaha Beach in Colleville Sur-Mer, France, on June 6th 1944 (US National Archives)

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D-Day

Tue, 04 Jun 2019 07:50:00 GMT

Eyewitness accounts of the Allied landings on the coast of Normandy during World War Two on 6 June 1944. The massive operation was a crucial step in the liberation of western Europe from years of Nazi rule and the defeat of Hitler's Germany. In this episode, we present the accounts of veterans held in the BBC archive. Photo: The photo titled "The Jaws of Death" shows a landing craft disembarking US troops on Omaha beach, 6th June 1944 ( Robert Sargent / US COAST GUARD)

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Berlin's Rubble Women

Mon, 03 Dec 2018 08:50:00 GMT

At the end of WW2 much of Germany's capital had been destroyed by bombing and artillery. Almost half of all houses and flats had been damaged and a million Berliners were homeless. Caroline Wyatt has been speaking to Helga Cent-Velden, one of the women tasked with helping clear the rubble to make the city habitable again.Photo: Women in post-war Berlin pass pails of rubble to clear bombed areas in the Russian sector of the city. (Photo by Fred Ramage/Keystone/Getty Images)

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The Arnhem Parachute Drop

Thu, 20 Sep 2018 10:38:00 GMT

Thousands of Allied troops parachuted into the Nazi-occupied Netherlands in September 1944. At that point, it was the most ambitious Allied airborne offensive of World War Two. British, American and Polish troops were dropped behind German lines in an attempt to capture a series of bridges on the Dutch/German border.Mike Lanchin has spoken to Hetty Bischoff van Heemskerck who, as a young woman, watched the Allied paratroopers come down close to her home in the city of Arnhem.(Photo: Allied planes and parachutists over Arnhem, Getty Images)

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The Climbers of Leningrad

Thu, 28 Dec 2017 08:50:00 GMT

Mountaineers risked their lives to camouflage churches and palaces in the great Russian city during World War Two. The city was besieged by the Germans and under bombardment. The climbers used paint and canvas to conceal the landmarks from enemy attack. Mikhail Bobrov was just 18 years old when first got sent up the city's spires. He's been speaking to Monica Whitlock about his wartime experiences.Photo: A climber suspended from a spire in Leningrad. Credit: Tass/PA.

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The Fake IDs That Saved Jewish Lives

Wed, 25 Oct 2017 07:58:00 GMT

Soon after Hitler ordered the invasion of Hungary in March 1944, the Nazis began rounding up hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews. Most were immediately sent to their deaths in the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. David Gur was a member of the Jewish Hungarian underground, who helped produce tens of thousands of forged identification documents. These allowed Jews to hide their true identities and escape deportation to the death camps. Now 91 years old, David has been telling Mike Lanchin about his part in one of the largest rescue operations organised by Jews during the Holocaust.Photo: False Hungarian ID document (BBC)

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Saving Italy's Art During WW2

Wed, 11 Oct 2017 07:50:00 GMT

Italy's great works of art were threatened by bombing and looting during World War Two. But a plan known as 'Operation Rescue' was devised to keep the paintings and sculptures safe. Some were hidden in remote spots, others were moved to the Vatican. Pasquale Rotondi was a leading figure in the operation, his daughter Giovanna Rotondi spoke to Alice Gioia about his wartime work.Photo: St George by Andrea Mantegna, circa 1460.(Credit DeAgostini/Getty Images)

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Britain's Land Girls

Tue, 26 Sep 2017 07:50:00 GMT

Around 80 thousand women and girls volunteered to join the Women's Land Army during the Second World War. They helped provide vital food supplies to a country under siege. Kirsty Reid has spoken to Mona McLeod who was just 17 years old when she started working 6 days a week on a farm in Scotland. Mona has written a book about her experiences: 'A Land Girl's Tale'.Photo: Land girls carrying bundles of straw in 1941. (Credit: Maeers/Fox Photos/Getty Images)

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The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials

Mon, 21 Aug 2017 07:50:00 GMT

Hear from one of the German prosecution lawyers who helped put Nazi war criminals on trial 20 years after World War Two had ended. Gerhard Wiese has been speaking to Lucy Burns about the trial, and about visiting the Auschwitz death camp with other members of the court.Photo: Members of the Frankfurt court and several journalists pass through the Auschwitz camp gate with the words "Arbeit macht frei" (work brings freedom) above them. December 14,1964. Credit: Press Association.

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The Sinking of the Lancastria

Fri, 16 Jun 2017 07:50:00 GMT

On 17 June 1940, a packed British troopship was sunk off the coast of France by German bombers. The ship had just picked up thousands of British military personnel left behind in France after the evacuation of the army at Dunkirk. It's believed around 5,000 people lost their lives. It was one of the worst maritime disasters in British history and news of the sinking was initially supressed in Britain. Alex Last spoke to 99-year-old Ernest Beesley, a sapper in the Royal Engineers, who is among the last survivors of the Lancastria. Photo: The Lancastria after being hit by German bombers off the coast of France in 1940 (Lancastria Association of Scotland)

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The Roma Victims of the Holocaust

Tue, 23 May 2017 07:50:00 GMT

In 1942, the fascist government of Romania deported 25,000 of its Roma citizens to the former Soviet territory of Transdniestria. Half of them died of hunger and disease. Dina Newman spoke to one Roma Gypsy man who was five years old when he was sent to Transdniestria with his family. Photo: Nomadic Roma in Bucharest, Romania, outside their tent. Circa 1930. (General Photographic Agency/Getty Images)

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The Katyn Massacre

Tue, 11 Apr 2017 07:50:00 GMT

Tens of thousands of Polish officers were secretly executed in the USSR during World War 2. The German occupying forces reported the first mass grave, in the village of Katyn in 1943, but Moscow only admitted to the killings in 1990. Dina Newman speaks to the son of one of the murdered officers, Waclaw Gasiorowski. Photo: Gasiorowski family in Warsaw in 1936. Credit: family archive.

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The Germans Occupy Prague

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 09:06:00 GMT

On March 15th 1939, the German army occupied Czechoslovakia. Witness hears the story of one young boy who watched the German troops march into Prague and who later escaped on the Kindertransport. These were trains that brought thousands of mostly Jewish children out of Austria, Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia, without their parents, to safety in Britain. That young boy went on to become a British MP and today sits in Britain's House of Lords; Alf Dubs tells Louise Hidalgo his story.Picture: German troops enter the centre of Prague on 15th March 1939; the German leader Adolf Hitler visited the city the next day. (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

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Sara Ginaite Lithuanian Jewish Partisan

Tue, 13 Dec 2016 08:50:00 GMT

During World War Two, a young Jewish woman, Sara Ginaite, escaped from the Kaunas Ghetto in Lithuania to fight the Nazis, With her husband Misha, she joined a detachment of communist-led partisans in the Rudnicki forest . They took part in the liberation of Vilnius, where she was famously photographed by a Soviet officer. Now in her 90s, Sara speaks to Witness.Photo: Sara Ginaite, a Jewish Lithuanian partisan , during the liberation of Vilnius, 1944. (USHMM)

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Soviet Woman Bomber Pilot

Tue, 06 Dec 2016 09:00:00 GMT

Yelena Malyutina was a Soviet female bomber pilot who fought in WW2 and was wounded in action in 1944. She was in one of the three Soviet women's flying regiments which fought on the front line. Before her death in 2014, she was interviewed by Lyuba Vinogradova, author of 'Defending the Motherland: Soviet Women' who fought Hitler's Aces. Dina Newman reports. Photo:Yelena Malyutina and Lyuba Vinogradova (credit: private archive)

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Italy's Partisan Fighters

Mon, 05 Sep 2016 08:00:00 GMT

In September 1943, Partisan fighters in Italy began organising in large numbers to help the Allies defeat Nazi Germany and rid their country of the remnants of Benito Mussolini's fascist state. As World War Two drew to a close, there was vicious fighting in many villages between the Partisans and Italians still loyal to the dictator. Alice Gioia speaks to a brother and sister who both took part in the Partisan struggle.PHOTO: Italian Partisans celebrating victory, May 1945 (personal collection)

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The Fall of Paris

Fri, 17 Jun 2016 12:49:00 GMT

In June 1940, German forces, having swept across Belgium and Holland, and into France, were closing in on Paris. In the face of the German army, millions of French, Dutch and Belgians had taken to the roads in one of the biggest exoduses of people the world had ever seen. Witness talks to Daphne Wall, who lived in Paris in 1940 as a young English girl and whose family joined the exodus south as Paris fell.Photograph: the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler visits the Eiffel Tower following the occupation of Paris by the German army on the 14th June 1940 (Credit: Harwood/Keystone/Getty Images)

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The Imaginary War Heroes

Mon, 09 May 2016 08:00:00 GMT

During World War Two, Soviet propaganda promoted a heroic feat that never happened. It was the story of a small ill-equipped unit who destroyed over a dozen German tanks, delaying the German advance on Moscow. But it's unlikely that they destroyed a single tank, despite being widely promoted as heroes, during and after the war.Photo: Russian President Dmitry Medvedev walks near World War Two veterans at a wreath-laying ceremony in Dubosekovo on May 7, 2010 during a visit to a memorial to the 28 Panfilov heroes. Credit: Dmitry Astakhov/AFP/Getty Images.

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The Death of General Patton

Mon, 21 Dec 2015 09:33:00 GMT

In December 1945, one of America's most famous miltary commanders, General George S Patton, died from injuries sustained in a car crash, just months after the end of the Second World War. Witness talks to his grandson, George Patton Waters, about his memories of this colourful and often unorthodox man.Photo: General George Patton in Paris in August 1945 to celebrate the first anniversary of the city's liberation. (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

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Surviving Pearl Harbor

Wed, 02 Dec 2015 09:00:00 GMT

On 7 December 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbour, Hawaii. Thousands of American servicemen died in a raid which brought their country into World War Two. Former Navy mechanic, Adolph Kuhn, tells Witness how he survived.(Photo: The USS Arizona sinking at Pearl Harbor. Credit: Getty Images)

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The Bari Raid 1943

Tue, 01 Dec 2015 08:51:00 GMT

How a devastating air raid on the Italian port of Bari during World War Two led to the deadly release of mustard gas. Winston Churchill ordered the incident to be kept secret for years. We hear from Peter Bickmore BEM, who was injured during the raid.(Photo: Seventeen Allied ships go up in flames in Bari, Italy, after a raid by German bombers on 2 December 1943. Credit: Keystone/Getty Images)

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Surviving Ravensbruck

Thu, 26 Nov 2015 22:13:00 GMT

In November 1938, the SS commander Heinrich Himmler ordered the construction in Nazi Germany of the only concentration camp built specifically for women. It would be called Ravensbruck. Selma van der Perre tells Witness about the horrors of life in Ravensbruck, including experiments on women and children, and how she survived.Photograph: women at Ravensbruck concentration camp (Credit: Das Bundesarchiv)

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The Battle of El Alamein

Thu, 05 Nov 2015 08:50:00 GMT

In October and November 1942, the Allies fought a famous battle against German and Italian troops close to the small Egyptian village of El Alamein.General Bernard Montgomery, the British commander, knew that victory was crucial. But his offensive was in danger of stalling almost as soon as it began. Witness speaks to Len Burritt who was then a 24 year old wireless operator with the British Seventh Armoured Division.(Photo: A German tank is knocked out and British troops rush up with fixed bayonets to capture the German crew at the Battle of El Alamein. Credit: Getty Images)

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The Leningrad Symphony

Fri, 18 Sep 2015 07:50:00 GMT

In an act of defiance during World War Two, starving musicians in the besieged city of Leningrad performed Shostakovich's new Seventh Symphony. The piece was composed especially for the city, which had been cut off and surrounded by invading Nazi troops. During the siege an estimated one million civilians died from starvation, exposure, and the bombardment by German forces. Hear archive recordings of Ksenia Matus who played the oboe in the orchestra, and hear from Sarah Quigley, the author of a novel about Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony. Dina Newman reports.(Photo: Official Soviet picture of Dmitri Shostakovich working on his famous Seventh ("Leningrad") Symphony. AFP/Getty Images)

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The Auschwitz Cellist

Sat, 29 Aug 2015 08:00:00 GMT

In 1943, the cellist, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. She expected to be killed in the gas chambers, but survived because she was recruited to play in an orchestra set up by the women prisoners. Anita Lasker-Wallfisch talks to Witness about her experience and the power of music in the darkest moments in history.PICTURE: Anita Lasker-Wallfisch in 1938 (Private Collection).

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The Dieppe Raid

Tue, 18 Aug 2015 06:50:00 GMT

In the early hours of 19th August 1942, a convoy of Allied ships approached the port of Dieppe carrying more than 6,000 troops. The mainly Canadian force was supposed to carry out a hit and run raid that would help the Allies learn and plan for the real invasion of occupied France later in the war. But almost immediately things started to go wrong. Ronald Miles, then aged 20, was a crew member on a landing craft.(Photo: Two German prisoners brought back from the Allied raid on Dieppe, blindfolded after landing. Credit: Keystone/Getty Images)

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Scouts in the Warsaw Uprising

Tue, 28 Jul 2015 07:50:00 GMT

On 1 August 1944, the Warsaw Uprising against the Nazi occupation of Poland began. Hundreds of thousands of people died during the fighting and Poland's capital was almost completely destroyed. Among the underground fighters were children, many of them members of the Scout movement. Andrzej Slawinsky was one of them.(Photo: Insurgents on the streets of Warsaw, 1944. Credit: HO/AFP/Getty Images)

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German Re-Armament

Fri, 03 Jul 2015 08:00:00 GMT

In the 1930s Hitler began to rebuild Germany's armed forces. When WW1 ended Germany had been banned from having an air force under the Treaty of Versailles. Hear from Eric 'Winkle' Brown who as a very young man was invited to see the new planes and helicopters that had been developed for the Luftwaffe. He later went on to become a flying ace in Britain's RAF.Photo: September 1938: Giant bombers of the Luftwaffe leave a smoke trail as they fly over a Nuremberg rally in a show of German military might. (Photo by Max Schirner/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)

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Red Cross Visits Nazi Concentration Camp

Thu, 02 Jul 2015 08:06:00 GMT

In June 1944 the International Red Cross was allowed by the Nazis into the Theresienstadt concentration camp. The Nazis tried to use the visit to project a positive image of their treatment of the Jews. Hear from Ela Weissberger, who was an 11-year-old prisoner in the camp.(Audio archive courtesy of The National Centre for Jewish Film at Brandeis University)(Photo: Children in Theresienstadt, taken by International Red Cross delegates, June 1944; ICRC archives (ARR)/ Rossel, Maurice)

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The Eichmann Tapes

Thu, 04 Jun 2015 12:28:00 GMT

The Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann recorded hours of interview about his involvement in the Holocaust, before his capture in 1960 by Israeli agents. Witness talks to the daughter of the Dutch journalist, Willem Sassen, who recorded the Eichmann interviews in Argentina. Saskia Sassen talks about the tapes, her memories of their secret visitor and the night the Israelis snatched Eichmann off the streets of Buenos Aires.(Photo: Adolf Eichmann stands in a protective glass booth flanked by Israeli police during his trial in 1961 in Jerusalem. Credit: Central Press/Getty Images)

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VE Day

Fri, 08 May 2015 08:00:00 GMT

On 8 May 1945, hundreds of thousands of Londoners took to the streets to celebrate the end of World War II in Europe. BBC correspondents captured the scenes of joy across the city - from the East End to Piccadilly Circus. This special programme is a compilation of BBC reports from VE Day.PHOTO: Londoners dancing on VE Day (Getty Images)

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Stalin's Interpreter

Thu, 05 Mar 2015 08:50:00 GMT

Josef Stalin died on 5 March 1953. Valentin Berezhkov was his translator - at the Russian leader's side for negotiations with Hitler, Roosevelt and Churchill during the World War Two.

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The Battle of Iwo Jima

Thu, 26 Feb 2015 09:00:00 GMT

In February 1945 US Marines fought the Japanese in one of the fiercest battles of WW2. Thousands of lives were lost in almost five weeks of fighting for control of the Pacific island. Witness speaks to 91-year-old former Marine, John Lauriello.(Photo: John Lauriello. Credit: John Lauriello)

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The Bombing of Dresden

Thu, 12 Feb 2015 08:50:00 GMT

On February 13th 1945 the Allies began a series of air raids against the German city of Dresden. The bombing started a firestorm in which tens of thousands of civilians were killed, and the cultural and architectural centre of Dresden was completely destroyed.(Photo: Dresden in the aftermath of the bombardment. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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Finland’s Winter War

Tue, 10 Feb 2015 08:50:00 GMT

In the early months of 1940, Finland was in a desperate fight for survival against the might of the Soviet Union. Hear from Finnish veteran, Antti Henttonen, who was 17 when he joined up. He survived the war but lost his family home.(Photo: Finnish troops on skis on the Russo-Finnish border in 1939. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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Auschwitz Train Escape

Tue, 27 Jan 2015 08:50:00 GMT

In 1943, a group of Belgian Jews escaped from a train bound for the gas chambers at Auschwitz. In the only incident of its kind, they were helped by members of the Belgian resistance. Simon Gronowski was just 11 years old when he jumped from the train to safety.(Photo: Simon Gronowski with his parents. Credit: Private collection)

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The Mystery of Raoul Wallenberg

Fri, 16 Jan 2015 08:50:00 GMT

The Swedish diplomat, Raoul Wallenberg, saved tens of thousands of Jews from the Nazis in Hungary, but he was taken into Soviet custody in January 1945 and disappeared. His fate remains a mystery.(Photo: An undated file photo of Swedish diplomat and World War II hero Raoul Wallenberg who disappeared in 1945. Credit: Staff/AFP/Getty Images.)

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The Battle of the Bulge

Fri, 26 Dec 2014 08:50:00 GMT

Fought during the winter months of 1944, it was the last major German attack on the Western Allies in World War II. Witness speaks to Keith Davis, an American survivor of the Battle of the Bulge. Photo: American tanks in Belgium in January 1945. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

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Sabotage of Nazi Nuclear Programme

Mon, 06 Oct 2014 07:00:00 GMT

In October 1942 Norwegian commandos began a series of raids on a heavy water plant in German-occupied Norway. They had to destroy it in order to stop the Nazis from developing an atomic weapon. Joachim Ronneberg is the last surviving member of the Norwegian team.(Photo: The hydro-electric power station where the heavy water plant was situated. Credit: Hulton Archives/Getty Images)

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Surviving Auschwitz

Wed, 03 Sep 2014 08:00:00 GMT

Kitty Hart-Moxon and her mother were sent to the Nazis' most notorious death camp in April 1943. More than a million people died in Auschwitz. Kitty tells Witness how she and others survived.Photo: Family at the raiway terminal of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, probably taken May-June 1944 (AFP/Getty Images)

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Freckleton Air Disaster

Fri, 22 Aug 2014 08:00:00 GMT

In August 1944, a US Air Force plane crashed into a village, Freckleton, in northwest England, killing 61 people. More than half the victims were children attending the local primary school. Survivor Ruby Currell speaks to Witness.PHOTO: Ruby Currell in the nurse's uniform she was given after recovering in hospital. (Private Collection).

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The Liberation of Paris

Tue, 19 Aug 2014 08:00:00 GMT

In August 1944, French and US forces freed Paris from German occupation. The liberators were met by crowds of celebrating Parisians. Listen to reports of some of the war correspondents who arrived first in the liberated city.Photo: A Parisian offering a glass of wine to a French soldier, August 1944 (STF/AFP/Getty Images)

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Marooned in Stalin's Russia

Mon, 11 Aug 2014 08:00:00 GMT

At the start of the Second World War hundreds of thousands of Polish civilians were imprisoned in the Soviet Union following the occupation of their country by the USSR. But in August 1941, after Nazi Germany invaded Russia, many of the Poles were suddenly set free. We hear from one former prisoner who found himself stranded in Soviet Central Asia for the rest of the Second World War.Photo: Nazi troops order Soviet women to leave their homes, summer 1941 (Keystone/Getty Images)

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Japanese Prisoner Breakout

Tue, 05 Aug 2014 06:50:00 GMT

In the early hours of 5 August 1944, hundreds of Japanese prisoners of war being held near the Australian town of Cowra staged the largest breakout of World War Two. Hear oral history accounts of that night from the archives of the Australian War Memorial's Australia–Japan Research Project.Photo: The No. 12 Australian Prisoner of War Camp near Cowra, Australia. Credit: The Australian War Memorial.

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The Warsaw Uprising

Fri, 01 Aug 2014 08:00:00 GMT

On 1 August 1944, resistance fighters in the Polish capital rose up against German occupying forces. The uprising lasted for 63 days and some 200,000 people were killed - the city itself was largely destroyed. Zbigniew Pelczynski was one of the young Poles fighting to free Warsaw from the Nazis.(Photo: Zbigniew Pelczynski in 1946)

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The Plot to Kill Hitler

Fri, 18 Jul 2014 06:50:00 GMT

German army officer, Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg attempted to kill Adolf Hitler by planting a briefcase bomb in a meeting at Hitler's headquarters on 20 July, 1944. The attack was supposed to be the trigger for a coup against the Nazi regime. We hear from von Stuaffenberg's son, General Berthold Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg.Photo: Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (AFP/Getty images)

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'Lidice Shall Die'

Wed, 25 Jun 2014 07:50:00 GMT

In June 1942 the village of Lidice in German-occupied Czechoslovakia was completely destroyed in retaliation for the assassination of a top ranking Nazi. Adolf Hitler was so outraged by the murder of Reinhard Heydrich that he ordered that all the men from the village be shot, the women sent to concentration camps and the children 'placed in suitable educational establishments'. In the end most of the children were gassed and the women sent to a concentration camp.(Photo: The Skleničková family in 1931. Credit: Courtesy of Jaroslava Skleničková)

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Fleeing Hitler on the St Louis

Tue, 13 May 2014 08:00:00 GMT

In May 1939 more than 900 Jews, many of them young children, fled Nazi Germany aboard a luxury cruise liner. They were trying to get to Cuba and the USA, but the ship was turned away in Havana and its passengers sent back to Europe. Witness speaks to two people who survived the journey.

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The Death of Mussolini

Tue, 29 Apr 2014 16:37:00 GMT

In April 1945, thousands of Italians crowded into a Milan square to see the body of the wartime fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini. He, his mistress and his close associates had been shot by partisans, and their corpses strung up by their feet for all to see. We talk to the poet Franco Loi, who was in the crowd that day, and to an American journalist who has documented Mussolini's last days. (Photo: Benito Mussolini (right) and Adolf Hitler (left) give the fascist salute at the Tomb of the Fascist Martyrs, Florence, 1938. Credit: Getty Images)

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The True Story of "Whisky Galore"

Tue, 18 Feb 2014 18:20:00 GMT

In February 1941, a ship carrying nearly 30,000 cases of whisky was wrecked off the Scottish island of Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides. The islanders began to salvage the bottles from the wreck - and the incident later became the inspiration for the film "Whisky Galore".Photo: An assortment of bottled whisky is displayed at Glenkinchie distillery March 13, 2008 in Edinburgh, Scotland.

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The Buildup to World War Two

Mon, 10 Feb 2014 09:00:00 GMT

In 1939 tension was growing in Europe, over Nazi Germany's expansionist plans. One young British camerman headed to Danzig (now Gdansk) to film what happened next. His name was Douglas Slocombe and he is now 101 years old. Hear his story.(Photo: Hitler Youth marching over a bridge in Danzig in 1939. Copyright: Fox Photos/Getty Images)

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War Brides

Thu, 06 Feb 2014 09:00:00 GMT

In February 1946 the first 'war brides' ship sailed from the UK to Canada reuniting women with the foreign husbands they'd married while serving in the UK during World War Two. Witness speaks to two women who sailed on the Mauretania.(Photo: Arnie and Grace Shewan's wedding day 1944. Courtesy of Grace Shewan)

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Colossus: the World's First Electronic Computer

Wed, 05 Feb 2014 08:59:00 GMT

In February 1944, the world's first electronic computer began attacking encrypted Nazi messages, from the secret British codebreaking centre at Bletchley Park. Hear from one of the engineers tasked with building and maintaining Colossus during World War Two.

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WW2, the Holocaust and Rome

Mon, 27 Jan 2014 08:48:00 GMT

In 1943, Rome's Jewish citizens were promised that if they gave gold to the Nazis, they would escape deportation. Despite handing over 50kg of gold - more than 1,500 of the city's Jews were rounded up and sent to the death camps. Alan Johnston reports from Rome.Photo: Survivor Settimia Spizzichino (far right)

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The Minnesota Starvation Experiment

Mon, 20 Jan 2014 09:00:00 GMT

During World War Two conscientious objectors could volunteer for medical experiments. Hear the story of one young American who had refused to fight, but was prepared to starve for his country. Marshall Sutton is now 95 - he took part in the Minnesota Starvation Experiment in 1944 in an attempt to help scientists understand how best to look after starving civilians in war-torn Europe.(Photo: Marshall Sutton today)

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Lord Haw Haw - Britain's Most Hated WW2 Traitor

Fri, 03 Jan 2014 09:00:00 GMT

On the 3rd of January 1946 Britain's most famous wartime traitor was hanged. His name was William Joyce but he was better known as Lord Haw Haw. Throughout WW2 he broadcast Nazi propaganda from Germany to Britain. At the end of the war he was hated by much of Britain, but we hear from the son of one man who tried to save him from execution.

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Prison Camp in WW2 Manila, Philippines

Fri, 27 Dec 2013 08:50:00 GMT

Thousands of foreign civilians were interned in camps when Japanese troops occupied the Philippines in World War II. Many of the inmates suffered from acute malnutrition. We hear the story of one boy, Desmond Malone, who was interned at the Santo Tomas camp in Manila.Photo: American inmates of the Santo Tomas internment camp after liberation by US forces in February 1945 (AP Photo/Pool)

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The Tehran Conference of World War Two

Thu, 28 Nov 2013 09:00:00 GMT

In November 1943, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill all met together for the first time to discuss the progress of World War Two. The meeting was held in Tehran over four days.(Photo: Joseph Stalin (left), Franklin Roosevelt (centre), Winston Churchill (right). Credit: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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Degenerate Art and the Nazis

Mon, 04 Nov 2013 07:50:00 GMT

In 1937, Hitler and the Nazi party organised a huge exhibition of modern art in Munich. It was designed to ridicule works of art which they disapproved of - they called it Degenerate Art. It went on to be one of the best attended modern art exhibitions of all time.Picture: Two men prepare to hang German Expressionist painter Max Beckmann's triptych 'Temptation' at the 20th Century German Art Exhibition at the New Burlington Galleries, London. The exhibition includes work by all the German artists pilloried by Adolf Hitler in the 'Degenerate Art' exhibition in Munich of 1937. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)

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Tokyo Rose - The Most Hated Woman in America

Tue, 29 Oct 2013 10:50:00 GMT

In 1949, Iva Toguri, a Japanese-American woman, was wrongly convicted for making propaganda broadcasts on behalf of Japan during the Second World War. She was accused of being the infamous radio presenter known to American servicemen as "Tokyo Rose". Witness speaks to Ron Yates, a reporter whose investigation helped to clear Iva Toguri's name.PHOTO: Iva Toguri in the 1940s (US National Archives)

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Escape from Sobibor Death Camp

Mon, 14 Oct 2013 08:00:00 GMT

Hundreds of Jewish slave labourers in a Nazi death camp staged a revolt and escaped in October 1943. Many were caught and shot. Around 50 made it to the end of the war.Listen to the story of Thomas Blatt, one of the survivors.Photo: Sobibor Death Camp (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)

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Danish Jews Escape the Holocaust

Tue, 08 Oct 2013 09:28:00 GMT

In October 1943, at the height of the Second World War, most of the Jews in Denmark evaded Nazi plans to send them to death camps. They were warned about a planned roundup by a German diplomat. Hear the story of Bent Melchior who was 14 years old when his family made the journey to safety in neutral Sweden.(Photo: Bent, aged 15 and living in Sweden)

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African Troops During WWII

Tue, 01 Oct 2013 12:00:00 GMT

During World War II, African soldiers were a vital part of the Allied forces. Many of them were sent to Burma as reinforcements for the British troops there. Hear just some of their memories - recorded by the BBC in the 1990s.Find out more about African troops in Burma in Another Man's War: The Story of a Burma Boy in Britain's Forgotten Army, a book by former BBC correspondent Barnaby Phillips, published June 2015. (Photo: East African soldiers in Burma fighting for Britain in WW2, unknown date. Credit: Topham Picturepoint)

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Appeasement

Mon, 30 Sep 2013 06:50:00 GMT

On September 30th 1938, Neville Chamberlain returned from negotiations with Hitler promising "peace in our time". He had agreed for Hitler to take over the Sudetenland in western Czechoslovakia, as part of a policy known as appeasement.

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Special Operations Executive

Thu, 05 Sep 2013 09:05:00 GMT

In World War II , Britain set up a secret organisation which waged war in Nazi occupied Europe. Noreen Riols, a former member of SOE, who helped train the agents, recounts her experiences in Churchill' s secret army.(Photo: A group of SOE agents during training. BBC copyright)

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Scientists Flee Nazi Germany

Tue, 13 Aug 2013 08:00:00 GMT

The early 20th Century was a golden age for physics with pioneers such as Max Born, Robert Oppenheimer and Werner Heisenberg working together at Gottingen University in Germany. But the rise of Hitler forced Born and many other Jewish scientists to flee into exile. Max Born's son, Gustav, tells Louise Hidalgo about his memories of the period and his father's friendship with Albert Einstein.(Photo: A gathering of European scientists in 1927. Max Born is second from the right in the second row.)

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Bombing of Nagasaki

Fri, 09 Aug 2013 07:00:00 GMT

In 1945, the allies dropped an atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Nagasaki. The explosion was bigger than the blast at Hiroshima three days earlier and killed 70,000 people. Louise Hidalgo introduces BBC archive recordings of survivors of Nagasaki. (Photo: Mushroom cloud in the sky. Credit: US Air Force/Press Association)

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The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis

Tue, 30 Jul 2013 07:00:00 GMT

In the last days of World War II, an American warship, the USS Indianapolis, was torpedoed in the Pacific. For days, no one came to the survivors' rescue. Left adrift in shark-infested waters, hundreds of sailors died. We hear from Loel Dean Cox one of the few who survived.(Photo: Last rites for a crew member held by ship mates and men from the US base Peleliu)(Credit: TopFoto)

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The Death of Jean Moulin

Mon, 08 Jul 2013 07:50:00 GMT

On July 8 1943, at the height of World War Two, the leader of the French Resistance was killed by German forces. Hear from Daniel Cordier who worked alongside Jean Moulin as his radio operator and secretary in the year before his death.(Photo: Daniel Cordier today)

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Dambusters

Fri, 17 May 2013 08:00:00 GMT

In 1943, the Royal Air Force attacked a set of dams in Germany's Ruhr valley which were considered indestructible. Flying low and at night, the crews used special bouncing bombs to bring down two of their targets. The Dambusters mission was a huge propaganda success for Britain and later inspired a famous film.Simon Watts talks to Johnny Johnson, one of the few survivors of the raid.PHOTO: Johnny Johnson (far left) with the rest of 617 squadron (DAMBUSTERS) at RAF Scampton, Lincolnshire, 22 JULY 1943 (Imperial War Museum).

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The Arctic Convoys

Fri, 10 May 2013 06:50:00 GMT

The story of Jack Humble, whose ship was torpedoed while escorting a convoy inside the Arctic Circle. From 1941-45, Allied sailors and ships battled storms, bombers and U-boats to ferry war supplies to Russia in WW2.(Photo: Frozen deck of a British warship on Arctic Convoy, Feb 1943. Credit: AP)

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The death of Hitler

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 12:00:00 GMT

On April 30th 1945 as Red Army soldiers closed in on the German capital Berlin, Adolf Hitler killed himself. But first he married his lover Eva Braun, and dictated his will. Hear from one of the secretaries who was in the bunker when he died.Photo: Getty Images.

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The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 07:50:00 GMT

In 1943, a few hundred Jewish fighters rose up against the German army as it began its final push to erase all traces of Jewish life in the Polish capital. Krystyna Budnicka is one of the very few Jews who survived the Uprising. As her older brothers fought, she hid in a sewer beneath the ghetto.Photo: STF/AFP/Getty Images.

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The Guinea Pig Club

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 08:00:00 GMT

How severely burnt Second World War airmen learnt to overcome their terrible injuries.They were all patients of the revolutionary plastic surgeon, Sir Archibald McIndoe at a specialist burns unit.Two of the surviving "guinea pigs" tell their stories.Photo: Former airmen Jack Perry (left) and Sandy Saunders.

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The Bethnal Green tube disaster

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 09:00:00 GMT

It's 70 years since 173 people were crushed to death at an air-raid shelter in east London during World War II. They were killed as they sought refuge in an underground train station. Sixty-two children were among the dead. We hear from one of the children who survived.Photo: Londoners sheltering from an air-raid in an underground train station, during World War II (Getty Images).

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The fall of Singapore

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 09:38:00 GMT

In February 1942 Britain's stronghold in South East Asia fell to the Japanese. Tens of thousands of Commonwealth soldiers were taken prisoner. They were sent to prison camps across the region and set to work. Maurice Naylor worked on the Thai-Burma railway until World War Two ended.

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The battle of Stalingrad

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 09:00:00 GMT

It is 70 years since German troops lost their battle to take the Soviet industrial city. They had spent a harsh Russian winter fighting from house to house on starvation rations. Eventually they were cut off from their supply lines and forced to surrender.Photo: Red Army troops in Stalingrad, January 1943. Keystone/Getty Images.

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Hitler's will

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 10:19:00 GMT

In January 1946 a young woman was given Hitler's will to translate into English. She had been sent to post-war Germany as part of the occupying forces. It was the culmination of her work for the British Army intelligence corps. Her name was Rena Stewart.Photo: Rena, front row, second from the left, in Germany in 1946.

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The Hunger Winter

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 09:00:00 GMT

At the end of World War Two, millions of people in the west of Nazi-occupied Netherlands faced starvation.The lucky ones survived on watery bread, potato peel or tulip bulbs.Witness speaks to one Dutchman who lived through what became known as the Hunger Winter.PHOTO: Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

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Tito on Vis

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 09:50:00 GMT

In 1944, in the middle of World War Two, the Yugoslav partisan leader found sanctuary on a tiny island in the Adriatic Sea. His resistance to German occupation had made him a target and he was taken there for his own safety by the British. After the war he went on to lead Communist Yugoslavia until his death.Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

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The M Room

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 09:00:00 GMT

How exiles from the Nazis helped British intelligence listen in on German prisoners-of-war.Ninety-three-year-old Fritz Lustig, a refugee from Nazi Germany, is one of the last surviving members of the secret "M Room".He helped glean vital information from German POWs about Hitler's war machine. Photo: Sgt Fritz Lustig, circa 1942 (courtesy of Lustig family)

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Edgar Feuchtwanger: Adolf Hitler's Neighbour

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 09:00:00 GMT

The memories of a German Jew who grew up across the street from Adolf Hitler. As a young boy, Edgar Feuchtwanger watched the comings and goings at the Nazi leader's luxury flat.Edgar's family were forced to flee Germany after the Nazis attacked Jewish homes and properties on Kristallnacht in November 1938. Photo: Edgar aged 12, courtesy of Feuchtwanger family.

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German refugees in post-war Europe

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 09:00:00 GMT

At the end of World War Two, many ethnic Germans in Central Europe were forced to leave their homes.No longer welcome outside Germany they ended up in internment camps, sometimes for years at a time.Hear from one woman who lived through that time.(Photo: Martha Kent and her siblings after their release from Potulice concentration camp)

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A Polish odyssey

Mon, 17 Sep 2012 07:31:00 GMT

One girl's story of exile and soldiering during World War II.Danuta Maczka was just 14 when her family was sent to Siberia in 1940.By the time she was 16 she had been recruited into a Polish army in the Middle East and was fighting the Nazis.

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US Occupation of Japan

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 08:00:00 GMT

For six years following the end of World War II in August 1945, Japan was occupied by the US. Akira Iriye was ten years old at the time and vividly remembers the surrender of his country to the Allied forces and the arrival of the first American GIs in Tokyo.(Photo: US President Harry S Truman holds up the official Japanese document of surrender with Emperor Hirohito's signature - Sept 1945. Getty Images)

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Bomber Command

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 14:07:00 GMT

During World War II, Allied bombing raids brought death and destruction to German cities.A controversial memorial to the British aircrew who flew on bombing missions is being unveiled in London.Douglas Hudson is one of the airmen who took part - many of his fellow fighters were shot down.(Image: British Airforce AVRO Lancaster Bomber of the 50 Squadron in flight during World War II. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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Anne Frank's Diary

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 07:41:00 GMT

In June 1947 the diary of Anne Frank was published for the very first time.Witness has been speaking to her first cousin and closest surviving relative, 87-year-old Buddy Elias.(Photo: Anne Frank/Press Association)

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France under Nazi occupation

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 07:00:00 GMT

In June 1940, France surrendered to Nazi Germany, leading to four years of occupation and the rule of a puppet government led by Marshal Petain.Henriette Dodd lived through the occupation and shares her memories with Witness.PHOTO: Marshal Petain (second left) with the Nazi leader Hermann Goering. (AFP)

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The Psychiatrist and Rudolf Hess

Wed, 09 May 2012 09:00:00 GMT

In 1941, the deputy fuhrer, Rudolf Hess, flew out of Nazi Germany and landed in Scotland.Keen to study the psychology of the Nazi leadership, the British government sent a psychiatrist called Henry Dicks to examine Hess at a safe house in Surrey.Professor Daniel Pick, author of "The Pursuit of the Nazi Mind", retraces the encounter using BBC archive recordings and Dr Dicks' personal papers.The programme is adapted from "The Psychiatrist and the Deputy Fuhrer", first broadcast on BBC Radio 4.(Photo: Rudolf Hess, German politician and wartime deputy of Adolf Hitler, during a public speech in 1937)(Credit: Central Press/Getty Images)

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World War II concerts

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 09:08:00 GMT

Throughout World War II, Myra Hess organised concerts in London's National Gallery.The lunchtime performances were intended to raise morale in the capital.Many other concert venues had been shut because of the Blitz.Photo: Myra Hess at the piano in 1944.

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Japanese internment

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 11:30:00 GMT

In February 1942 all Japanese Americans were ordered to internment camps.They were viewed as a threat to US security during World War II.Photo: A Japanese American family preparing to go to an internment camp. (Credit: Dorothea Lange/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.)

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The rise of Hitler

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:09:00 GMT

On January 25 1933 the last legal communist march was held in Berlin.Just a few days later Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany.Soon the Communist Party was banned and the Nazi grip on power was complete.Eric Hobsbawm was a schoolboy communist.Photo: Communist rally 1932. Hulton Archive/Getty Images

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The Wannsee conference

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 09:00:00 GMT

It is 70 years since senior Nazi officials met to plan the killing of European Jews.The meeting was organised by Reinhardt Heydrich.It took place in a villa in a prosperous suburb of Berlin.Photo: Getty Images News.

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The sinking of the Scharnhorst

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 09:10:00 GMT

She was one of Germany's greatest battleships during World War II.But on Boxing Day 1943 she was sunk in the freezing waters of the Arctic. Norman Scarth is a Witness listener who was on board a British ship and watched her go down.Photo: Norman Scarth the young sailor.

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The Manhattan Project

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 08:00:00 GMT

Seventy years ago the American president Franklin Roosevelt gave the go-ahead to the project to develop the world's first atomic bomb. Young scientist Bill Wilcox helped make the bomb.

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Babi Yar

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 08:06:00 GMT

On 29 September 1941, the organised massacre of Ukrainian Jews began. In the capital Kiev, most of them were taken to a place called Babi Yar, and shot.Raissa Maistrenko escaped the shooting as a three-year-old girl. Rabbi Alexander, Dukhovny's mother survived the Holocaust outside the city. Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

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Translator at Nuremberg

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 08:07:00 GMT

The trials of senior Nazis began in the autumn of 1945.Howard Triest was a German Jew who acted as a translator during their questioning.Photo: Getty Images

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The Scoop of the Century

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 09:00:00 GMT

The scoop of the century on the eve of World War II. How a young British reporter witnessed the German military build-up just days before the invasion of Poland in 1939. We hear Clare Hollingworth's own account of a daring trip across the border.Photo: Clare Hollingworth in 1978. Credit: BBC

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Battle of Britain

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 09:30:00 GMT

Through the BBC's Archive footage Alan Johnston pieces together the story of a Battle of Britain fighter pilot who was shot down during a dogfight and badly burnt before parachuting from his stricken aircraft.We hear how Richard Hillary then had to prepare to die as he drifted for hours in the North Sea.Photo: Press Association

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Operation Barbarossa

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 09:30:00 GMT

A frontline Soviet officer tells of what he saw the night that Hitler ordered Operation Barbarossa - Germany's invasion of the USSR.

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Australian evacuee

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 08:20:00 GMT

During World War II, many British children were sent away from the cities to escape German bombs.Most went to the countryside but some went as far away as Australia.Helen Cuthbert (right) and her sister were sent to live with their aunt there.

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Italian internees

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 08:14:00 GMT

When Italy joined World War II in June 1940, British-Italian men were rounded up and interned.Joe Pieri was just 21 years old and living in Glasgow when he was arrested and sent to a prison camp in Canada.Photo: Joe Pieri today.

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Retreat from Dunkirk

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 09:30:00 GMT

A British soldier tells us of one extraordinary day on the beaches of 1940 Dunkirk during World War II. We hear of how he managed to work his way through the chaos and constant danger, and escape to England.Photo: Soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force lie on their backs on the beach at Dunkirk to shoot with their rifles at enemy aircraft, which are bombing the transport ships that have arrived to evacuate them, 20th June 1940:)(Credit: Fox Photos/Getty Images)

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The fall of Berlin

Mon, 16 May 2011 08:15:00 GMT

The Red Army took control of the German capital Berlin, in May 1945.The Soviet soldiers had a terrifying reputation and civilians in their path feared looting and violence.One German woman who survived that time tells her story.Photo: Associated PressThis programme was scheduled for broadcast on May 2nd but postponed due to the death of Osama bin Laden.

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Victory in Europe Day

Fri, 06 May 2011 08:29:00 GMT

On May 8 1945, Winston Churchill announced the end of the war in Europe.It meant defeat for Germany, but great rejoicing in Britain.One man whose joy was captured on camera that day speaks to Witness about the celebrations in London's Trafalgar Square.Photo: Getty Images

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The Krakow Ghetto

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 09:33:00 GMT

The city of Krakow in Poland was home to a large Jewish community before World War II. But with the arrival of the Nazis many of its Jews were deported, or fled. Then in 1941 a Jewish ghetto was built.This programme begins with a deeply disturbing recollection.Photo: Dr Ludwik Zurowski

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The siege of Leningrad

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 09:23:00 GMT

When Leningrad was cut off from the rest of Russia by German troops during World War Two, one third of its population died.Some were killed in the fighting, but most died of hunger.(Photo: Two women collect remains of a dead horse for food, during the siege of Leningrad) (Credit: World History Archive/TopFoto)

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Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 09:19:00 GMT

Horst Woit was just 10 years old when he and his mother boarded a ship in the hope of escaping Russian forces towards the end of World War II. He recalls the night that ship - the Wilhelm Gustloff - went down with huge loss of life.

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Kindertransport - Oliver's story

Mon, 17 Jan 2011 09:36:00 GMT

Over 10,000 Jewish children were brought to Britain from Nazi Europe in the months leading up to World War II. They travelled on trains which became known as the kindertransports.Listen to one little boy's story. His name is Oliver Gebhardt.

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The Great Escape

Tue, 28 Dec 2010 09:07:00 GMT

The film, The Great Escape, has become an all-time favourite. It is about a mass breakout from a German prison camp during World War 2. Flight Lieutenant Ken Rees, who died in August 2014, took part in the real-life escape effort, and talked to us about the escape.

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Pearl Harbour

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 09:19:00 GMT

When Japanese bombers and fighter planes attacked the US fleet in the Pacific it came as a huge surprise to many. Listen to some archive recordings from the time.

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Kindertransports

Fri, 03 Dec 2010 09:30:00 GMT

The first trains full of Jewish children left Berlin in early December - heading for sanctuary in Britain. The Kindertransports only stopped with the outbreak of war in September 1939. They helped thousands of children from all over Nazi occupied Europe to escape the Holocaust.Children arriving at Liverpool Street station. Getty images.

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