The Invasion: The Outbreak of World War II

On 1 September 1939, Hitler started the most fatal war in world history. With the invasion of Poland, he did not only aim at destroying the military force of the neighboring country but also at depriving its people of their livelihood. This episode reconstructs how the Führer triggered a chain of events sparking a global conflagration. It also includes selected interviews with Roman Polanski and Andrzej Wajda who witnessed the attack, when they were children.

Hitler’s Poland Campaign unleashed a “Blitzkrieg” lasting six weeks only. However, it was a war of unprecedented brutality resulting in a tremendous suffering of the Polish people in the long run. Jews were herded into Ghettos; other residents were imprisoned in camps for forced labor or displaced to make way for German settlers. Hundreds and thousands of them became victims of the Nazi murder machine. This episode sheds light on some of their lives, telling almost forgotten stories.