World War Two (WW2) - The Second World War: Library videos

This educational/advocacy documentary follows Isaac Gotfried, a 95-year-old Holocaust survivor who has dedicated his life to sharing his story with students of all ages. A hopeful message informs Isaac’s unfolding story of pain, trauma, and loss. He urges students to perform Tikkun Olam – a Hebrew phrase that calls upon us to repair the world – in response to all forms of injustice, prejudice, and hatred they encounter. The film examines the effects Isaac’s testimony has on students, revealing how to inspired them to prosocial action.

After Auschwitz is a “Post-Holocaust” documentary that follows six extraordinary women, capturing what it means to move from tragedy and trauma towards life. These women all moved to Los Angeles, married, raised children and became “Americans” but they never truly found a place to call home. What makes the story so much more fascinating is how these women saw, interpreted and interacted with the changing face of America in the second half of the 20th century. In watching the struggles of survival, the audience feels a searing connection to our current political climate, as history teaches us the vital role humanity plays in our hopes for greater understanding and compassion. These powerful women serve as our guides on an unbelievable journey, sometimes celebratory, sometimes heart breaking but always inspiring.

Canada's Nursing Sisters were the first women to be fully accepted into a military force in Word Wars I and II, and in doing so they advanced the cause of women. "Angels of Mercy" tells the story of these brave women and pays homage to their actions. Featuring interviews with several Nursing Sisters from the two wars, this program documents the hardship, sacrifice, and terror these women faced in caring for the soldiers and serving their country, as well as the camaraderie and relationships they developed.

CANADIAN DIRECTOR CHRISTIAN DUGUAY EXPLORES THE HOLOCAUST from the perspective of two young boys living in Nazi-occupied France. Based on the acclaimed memoirs of the same name by Joseph Joffo, A Bag of Marbles is a lavishly shot production that is brilliantly acted when brothers are forced to leave their close knit family behind for the free-zone along the French Riviera. The two young boys' chemistry is incredibly realistic. Duguay beautifully balances the high stake tension with some sweet and endearing moments between the two brothers and celebrates their innocence. While the film is a dark reminder of a horrible page in our history, its heart-warming story reminds us that there are still good people in our darkest moments. *French with English subtitles.*

The RAF's Wooden Mosquito was the queen of the skies in 1943 – 1944. The Germans had nothing to match this beautiful aircraft, manufactured by de Haviland in England and Toronto. The Mosquito turned the tables on the Luftwaffer, and the hunter became the hunted, as the plywood wonder stalked the skies over occupied Europe.

The siege of Malta was the most important battle in 1941 – 1942. The courage of the Maltese civilians in the face of indescribable bombing and the amazing Spitfire pilots, such as Canadian "Buzz Beurling", helped turn the tide in this critical, but little appreciated campaign.

Normandy, August 1944. The highest scoring German Panzer Ace, Michael Wittmann, was killed during a counter-attack against British and Canadian tanks. Wittmann’s death went unexamined until his remains were found in 1983. Norm Christie now examines the evidence to determine who killed the Black Baron.

Visit a long-abandoned POW camp where one of the strangest tales of the Second World War played out in quiet, rural Ontario. The story involves Nazis, thrown jars of jam, and a very Canadian way of treating prisoners of war. While the war raged in Europe, find out why some German soldiers fell in love with the land of their captors.

Every May, people visit Ottawa during the annual tulip festival to admire the blooms from the bulbs donated each fall by the Netherlands. The gift is an annual thank you to Canada for providing a haven in Ottawa for the Dutch royal family exiled when the Nazis invaded and occupied their neutral country during World War II. Queen Juliana’s third child, Princess Margriet Francisca was born in Ottawa in 1943. The Canadian army helped to liberate the Netherlands in 1944 and air-dropped food to its starving, grateful citizens. The tulip is now the official flower of Ottawa, and the two countries have a friendship that has endured.

Every spring, parks across Toronto turn white and pink with cherry blossoms. The Sakura trees are a gift from Japan — and a reminder of one of the most disturbing chapters in Canadian history. Many Japanese Canadians on the west coast had been forced into internment camps or deported back to Japan during WWII. Those who weren’t deported were forced to flee the west coast and many ended up in Toronto. They encountered racism here too but also found allies in their fight for their rights. The Cooperative Committee on Japanese-Canadians lobbied for their rights and on April 1, 1959, the Japanese ambassador to Canada presented 2000 Japanese Somei-Yoshino Sakurathe on behalf of the citizens of Tokyo, Japan as a gift to the citizens of Toronto for their support of Japanese-Canadian refugees after the Second World War.

Combining archival photographs and film footage with first hand accounts of people and events, A CANADIAN WAR STORY, pays tribute to the Ukrainian Canadian military personnel who contributed to the Allied victory in World War II. Ukrainians enlisted in great numbers to fight for Canada. The Ukrainian enlistment percentage was the highest of any ethnic group outside of the British.
According to Royal Canadian Airforce pilot, Joe Romanow, the Ukrainians’ sacrifice in the War garnered them respect and prestige and “finally gave them the prerogative of being recognized as real Canadians”. Joe continued his military service after the war and became the first person of Ukrainian descent to achieve the rank of Brigadier-General.
Spanning continents and generations, the film recounts the remarkable Ukrainian Canadian coming of age journey from Eastern Europe to Canada to the battlefields of Europe and Asia.

This is the story of World War Two as seen through the eyes of Canadian war artists such as Alex Colville, Lawren Harris, Charles Comfort as they painted the face of war. It includes rare interviews with Canada's few living war artists, their personal recollections, diaries and letters. And all their stories are set against the stunning visual backdrop of their war art. Historians Maria Tippett and Hugh Halliday provide the political and social context for the war artists' work, and WWII film footage sets the scene. Canvas of War is conflict as you've never seen it.... terrifying, whimsical, evocative, and beautiful.

In the run-up to the Second World War, Churchill, now in his sixties, is out of touch on many key issues. When he warns people about Nazi Germany, they say he is wrong about that too. But Churchill is proved right, and when the British government collapses, Churchill is asked to be Prime Minister. His bulldog spirit is just what the country needs.

To win the Second World War, Churchill must build a difficult alliance with the superpowers of America and Russia. This requires all his skills as a communicator and negotiator. The supreme effort that he puts into keeping his Allies on side almost kills him, but it gives him the chance to lead his country to victory.

Codebreaker tells the remarkable and tragic story of one of the 20th century's most important people. Alan Turing set in motion the computer age and his World War II codebreaking helped turn the tide of the Second World War. Instead of receiving accolades, Turing faced terrible persecution. In 1952, the British Government forced him to undergo chemical castration as punishment for his homosexuality. In despair, Turing committed suicide. He was only 41 years old. Documentary elements seamlessly interconnect with drama scenes in Codebreaker to offer a three dimensional picture of Turing, his accomplishments, his tragic end, and his lasting legacy.

Raymond "Jerry" Roberts and Bill Tutte were members of a top World War Two codebreaking team at Bletchley Park. They were part of a group that cracked the German High Command's Tunny code at the British codebreaking centre. Their decrypts made it possible to read Hitler's own messages during the war. The team is credited with helping to shorten the war by at least two years.

Veterans and world leaders gathered on the south coast of England to honour the troops who risked and sacrificed their lives 75 years ago on D-Day, a bloody but ultimately triumphant turning point in the Second World War.

On 25 February 1942, a mere 12 weeks after the 7 December 1941 attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor and Hong Kong, the federal Cabinet, at the instigation of racist BC politicians, used the War Measures Act to order the removal of all Japanese Canadians residing within 160 km of the Pacific coast. At the time the government claimed that Japanese Canadians were being removed for reasons of "national security." Over 20,000 men, women and children of Japanese ancestry, 75% of whom were Canadian citizens, were removed from their homes, farms and businesses. Many were sent to work on sugar beet farms in Manitoba. Living conditions were often poor, with no electricity or running water. In 1949, they were finally given back their full citizenship rights including voting rights and being allowed to move back to the BC coast, although their property was gone. In 1988, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney formally apologized to Japanese Canadian survivors and their families.

Even today, his name inspires horror and hatred. Josef Mengele, the twisted doctor infamous for torturing the prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp with his deadly human experiments. After WWII, he was hunted down by the Allies in a 34-year-long manhunt criss-crossing the globe. To no avail…
The story of this manhunt begins in 1945, when the Allies take Berlin. An extensive list of wanted Nazi dignitaries and other torturers is being circled around all of the international intelligence and police services, with the goal of bringing them to court for their crimes.

The Last Objectors is a documentary about Canada’s conscientious objectors in the Second World War – those who chose to perform alternative service instead of going to fight. The tenets of their faith led thousands of Mennonite, Quaker, Hutterite and other CO’s to opt for work in forestry camps, hospitals, asylums and other positions around the country with little pay and no benefits. Some needed only to prove that they were members of peace churches in good standing, while others had to convince a judge that their objections to serving in war were based on true beliefs. First person stories and archival footage bring this story to life, and today these men are satisfied that they served their country in their own way.

On January 27, 1945, Auschwitz was liberated by Soviet soldiers.
Auschwitz was a network of concentration camps built and operated in occupied Poland by Nazi Germany during the Second World War. Auschwitz I and nearby Auschwitz II-Birkenau were the extermination camps where an estimated 1.1 million people—mostly Jews from across Europe, but also political opponents, prisoners of war, homosexuals, and Roma—were killed in gas chambers or by systematic starvation, forced labor, disease, or medical experiments.
Combining historic footage and interviews with Auschwitz survivors, this Canadian production examines the events that led to the creation of extermination camps across Europe. Survivors speak of the horrors they endured and the need for the modern-day world to prevent similar events from re-occurring.

Cinematographer Dave Gaudet learns about Navajo code talkers and also travels to Petawawa, Ontario to visit with a modern-day Canadian war hero.
Heroes are people who sacrifice to keep us safe. Real-life heroes in Navajo country include the WWII Code Talkers. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Teddy Draper, Sr. was one of 400 enlisted Navajos who used their previously suppressed language as a successful secret code in the war against the Japanese. Their accomplishments remained a highly protected secret until the late 1969’s. Subsequently the Navajo Nation took a new pride in their language and its rejuvenation. At Window Rock, Dave visits the Navajo Nation fair at the National Code Talker Monument.

In 1941, when the Third Reich was at the height of his power, British intelligence recruited a French-speaking housewife named Odette Samon. She was trained as a spy and sent into Nazi-occupied France to assist the French resistance. A traitor betrayed her to the Gestapo. She was captured and tortured. The Gestapo wanted the names of every freedom fighter she knew. But she never cracked. And the reason why has something to do with two cloth dolls she made while in captivity. These dolls are now in a place of honor in the Imperial War Museum, in a hall dedicated to medals of valor.

During World War Two, Britain's best asset was her Prime Minister: Winston Churchill. And Hitler knew it. He ordered spies to discover Churchill's movements, so he could be targeted by bombs and assassins. In this story, we enter the secret underground bunker where Churchill lived and worked during the Blitz. And here we discover that reinforced concrete was not enough to protect him. His faithful bodyguard couldn't always protect him either. In fact, sometimes Churchill gave his bodyguard the slip.

In the darkest days of World War Two, British High Command formed a top secret unit to infiltrate Nazi-occupied Europe. This Special Operations Executive (SOE) was tasked to outfit spies and resistance fighters with innovative weapons, concealable explosives, and other tools of the trade. Once this spy stuff was constructed, the SOE needed a place where they could show spies and resistance fighters how to use it. They chose a suite of rooms in the Natural History Museum as their secret demonstration facility. One SOE spy - the author Ian Fleming - used this spy emporium's supremo as the inspiration for gadget-master "Q" in his James Bond adventures.

The Smithsonian Institution celebrates many of Americas greatest heroes, so it might be surprising to some that its Air & Space Museum houses a fighter plane that was one of America's greatest villains. Squadrons of Japanese Zero fighter planes were responsible for the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor that left thousands of Americans dead. The Zero was legendary for its speed and agility, which were the reasons they were so vastly superior to American flyers during WWII.

For several centuries, The Vasari Corridor has been an extension of the Uffizi Gallery. It contains more than 1000 self portraits of great artists like Rubens, Bernini and Chagall. The Corridor is built atop one of the few original bridges left in Florence, the Ponte Vecchio. During the Second World War, the bridges of Florence were blown up by the retreating Germans - all, but the Ponte Vecchio. For decades, tour guides have been telling tourists that Hitler was the one who made the decision to spare the bridge.

Nuremberg, November 20, 1945 – In a city still in ruins, almost 6 months after the defeat of Nazi Germany, the first court for crimes against humanity opened under the auspices of United States, France, Great Britain and the Soviet Union.
Twenty two of the most important Nazi officers, from Hermann Goring, Rudolph Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Wilhelm Keitel, sat as the accused. Film crews directed by legendary John Ford, captured these 300 crucial days of relentless proof of Nazis crimes.
Narrated by Christopher Plummer, these riveting archives bear witness to the birth of International Justice. See the trial from inside, as no one before.

Faye Schulman returns to her home town of Lenin; at the time, part of Poland, now in Belarus. It’s where Mrs. Schulman was living when Germany invaded and where, in 1942, she barely escaped death at the hands of the Nazis because of her talent with a camera.
The Nazis felt they could make use of her skills. Faye’s family were killed by the Nazis in a mass execution. Faye herself was imprisoned with the few other Jews who were spared in the local synagogue, but allowed out from time to time because there was a dark-room in the family home.
Ultimately she escaped – with her camera – and joined and fought with a group of Partisans in the nearby forests. She is now returning 55 years later to pray on-site for her lost family and to meet again her few surviving Partisan comrades.

Pictures from a Hiroshima Schoolyard presents the aftermath of the first atomic bomb through the remarkable drawings and stories of surviving Japanese school children who were part of an extraordinary, compassionate exchange with their American counterparts after the war.
The Honkawa school was just 1100 feet from ground zero on August 6, 1945. Nearly 400 children died in the schoolyard that fateful morning. Surviving students and teachers describe the horror of that day and reflect on their difficult lives amidst the rubble of their decimated city, as well as the hope they shared through their art.

Narrator Ross Mihara discusses the radiation damage caused by atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima in WWII. The Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Japan began a check-up program in 1958. They have collected research from over 93,000 victims that were exposed to radiation. They investigate the health effects of A-bomb survivors in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The story of Japanese-Canadians interned and relocated during WW2 as told through the eyes of one family, spanning four generations, who persevered and came home after more than 70 years to reclaim what was taken from them. During the Second World War, the Canadian government detained and relocated more than 22,000 Japanese-Canadians in the name of national security. After the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese-Canadians were stripped of their homes, businesses and livelihood and sent to internment and work camps across the BC interior and Canada. The majority of these “enemy aliens” were Canadian citizens by birth. This program tells the story of those who were relocated through the eyes of one family, spanning four generations, who persevered and came home after more than 70 years to reclaim what was taken from them during this dark chapter of our Canadian history.

This programme looks at Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon's inspirational efforts to improve the morale of the British people during the Second World War. With air raids a constant threat, her insistence that the Royal family remain in London was a reassuring move for the public and this documentary examines how her personality and determination contributed to the strength of the monarchy after the war was won.

This one-hour documentary examines the vital role Canadian women played in putting an end to WW2 by working with "the man they called Intrepid", spymaster William Stephenson. The documentary features unique archival footage and compelling interviews with some of Canada's last living "secretaries".

Starting from a simple photograph showing four women and a young girl before execution by the Nazis, this exceptional documentary traces in detail a little-known episode of the Holocaust in Latvia. It is on a beautiful white sandy beach on the Baltic Sea that 2772 Jews, including many women and children were executed by bullets and dumped in mass graves in December 1941.

Ninety-year-old Louis Bannet lives with the unspeakable horror of his years in Nazi prison camps. A child violin prodigy, Louis was a trumpeter and popular jazz bandleader in Europe prior to WWII. Forced into hiding by Nazi persecution, he was captured by the Gestapo in 1942 and transported to the death camp, Birkenau. Spared, because of his musical gifts, he played in the camp orchestra, which played marches as prisoners marched to work or to their deaths. After the war, in Montreal, Louis became the main attraction at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, and had his own TV show. Today, his wartime trumpet is on display in the museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City.

VOICES OF COURAGE, a CTV Remembrance Day special featuring four veterans and their personal experiences of war, carnage and courage, and the toll it has taken on their lives as survivors. The special features Pat Stogran, Canada's Veterans' Ombudsman, who talks passionately about his time in the forces and issues facing vets today.The short vignettes, tell stories of World War II Veterans Ed Carter-Edwards, Bernard Finestone, Corinne Kernan-vigny, Cyril Roach. A riveting and touching portrayal of the men and women who have served Canada and fought for our freedom.

A feature documentary examining the story of the Russian Mennonite refugees who fled west with the retreating German Army during World War Two, desperate to escape the horror of Stalin’s Soviet Union.
The Mennonites, with nowhere to go, would end up stranded in refugee camps throughout Holland and Germany in an unfolding two-year saga. Eventually a risky plan, involving the American Military, multiple governments, aid organizations and the Queen of the Netherlands would come together. It all would hinge on an old transport ship called Volendam…
Told through personal interviews, reenactments and never before seen archival footage.

W5's Sandie Rinaldo joins a group of Canadian high school students, chaperones, and Holocaust survivors on a journey from Toronto to Poland as they embark on an annual pilgrimage known as the March of the Living, an emotionally grueling tour of Nazi concentration camps. The tranquility of the notorious concentration camps Auschwitz, Birkenau, Treblinka, and Majdanek mask the terror that occurred in these vast, menacing places, synonymous with atrocities committed by the Nazis.

WWII Trailblazers. Meet the Canadian women pilots who ferried war planes to the front lines. The ATA was created on the eve of the war to ferry war planes all over the United Kingdom. It used civilian pilots to get the planes into position. Often the ATA pilots flew planes straight from the factories to the operational fields. The ATA freed up the Royal Air Force pilots to do battle in the skies over Britain and Europe against the German Luftwaffe. Finding enough civilian pilots was a challenge for the ATA. Through the war years, more than 1,300 pilots ferried planes in Britain. The need for more and more pilots led the ATA to what was then considered a revolutionary solution. It turned to women pilots from around the world and 166 women were hired and trained to fly the planes of war. The women flew everything from training planes like the Tiger Moth to fighter planes, including the Hurricane and the Spitfire.

For two days in the fall of 1942, German Forces attacked Canada in the Battle of Bell Island. Beneath the water of Conception Bay, lie the war dead -- the sacrifices mostly forgotten and their graves unprotected. The wrecks off Bell Island are not sacred for those who visit them and surprisingly, not sacred for our government. That is why Rick Stanley is on a mission to protect the watery graves.

The Black Devils were an elite unit of Canadian and American commandos who never lost a battle during WWII. They have been awarded the highest civilian honour of the U.S., but never in Canada. In this program, W5 gathered together a group of these veterans. To hear their stories you'd think liberating Rome, taking out bridges or overtaking the Nazis on a mountain top in Italy was no big deal. Truth is, these men took on some of the most dangerous and difficult missions you could imagine. They lost many men, but in five campaigns in three theatres of war, they fought in 22 battles and never did they lose a single one. And in doing so, this band of brothers formed lifelong friendships.

W5's special Remembrance Day report, The Liberators, details the heroic efforts of Canadian troops who brought freedom and dignity to the people of the Netherlands in the Second World War. It’s a story of liberation, told through the voices of Canadian veterans who fought there, and from Dutch people who honour the Canadians’ sacrifices. Peter Akman recalls a special time spent with Don White who returns to the Netherlands for the 75th Anniversary.
The Battle of the Scheldt was a brutal battle during the Second World War that saw Canadians fighting through Belgium and the Netherlands. Peter Akman visits a famous hotel in the Netherlands where the surrender of the Germans in Holland took place on May 5, 1945.

A US Army sergeant who participated in the First World War now leads a rifle squad in the same division in which he's served, the First Infantry. The squad participates in combat action from storming Vichy French Africa into the long seige of Sicily and Italy, into D-Day at Omaha Beach, and onward through the push to Germany. Along the way the squad gets involved in several incidents with civilians, such as a French woman about to give birth and also in a firefight in an insane asylum. Throughout the war the Sergeant has engaged in a mini-battle of wills with Pvt. Griff, a semi-pacifist whose convictions are destroyed in a horrific scene amid the human genocide of a concentration camp in 1945.

When the hiding place of the beautiful Jewish singer Rachel Steinn is destroyed by a stray bomb, she decides with a group of other Jews to cross the Biesbosch to the already liberated south of the Netherlands. However, their boat is intercepted by a German patrol and all the refugees are massacred. Only Rachel survives. She joins the resistance, and under the alias Ellis de Vries manages to get friendly with the German SD officer Müntze. He is very taken with her and offers her a job. Meanwhile, the resistance devise a plan to free a group of imprisoned resistance fighters with Ellis' help. The plan is betrayed and fails miserably. Both the Resistance and the Germans blame her. She goes into hiding once more, with Müntze in tow. Together they wait for the war to end. Liberation does not bring Ellis freedom; not even when she manages to expose the real traitor. Every survivor is guilty in some way.

In Blind Spot - Hitler's Secretary, Traudl Junge describes on camera for the first time her experience working as one of Adolf Hitler's private secretaries from 1942 until his suicide in 1945. After keeping quiet for nearly 60 years, Frau Junge tells the riveting story of working alongside Hitler until the final collapse of the Nazi regime. Frau Junge is one of only a handful of witnesses to Hitler's last days in his fortified bunker as the Third Reich was collapsing above them. In his final hours, he dictated his final will and testament to her. Frau Junge also worked with Hitler at Wolf s Lair (his field headquarters in East Prussia), at his Bavarian residence at Berchtesgaden and on the Führer s special train. In Spring 2001, André Heller met Traudl Junge and was able to persuade her that it would be fascinating as well as historically important to make a record of her unique experiences... and of her present attitudes to that time, after years of contemplation and self-analysis.

The true story of Salomon Sorowitsch, counterfeiter extraordinaire and bohemian. After getting arrested in a German concentration camp in 1944, he agrees to help the Nazis in an organized counterfeit operation set up to help finance the war effort. It was the biggest counterfeit money scam of all times. Over 130 million pound sterling were printed, under conditions that couldn t have been more tragic or spectacular. During the last years of the war, as the German Reich saw that the end was near, the authorities decided to produce their own banknotes in the currencies of their major war enemies. They hoped to use the duds to flood the enemy economy and fill the empty war coffers. At the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, two barracks were separated from the rest of the camp and the outside world, and transformed into a fully equipped counterfeiters workshop. Operation Bernhard was born. Prisoners were brought to Sachsenhausen from other camps to implement the plan: professional printers, fastidious bank officials and simple craftsmen all became members of the top-secret counterfeiter commando. They had the choice: if they cooperated with the enemy, they had a chance to survive, as first-class prisoners in a golden cage with enough to eat and a bed to sleep in. If they sabotaged the operation, a sure death awaited them. For THE COUNTERFEITERS, it was not only a question of saving their own lives, but also about saving their conscience as well

Sonya is a German high school student who decides to write an essay about her town's history during the Third Reich and its resistance to it. To her dismay, and more so the town's, she uncovers instead definite collaboration during the period. As she digs deeper, she must struggle against the town's vocal and violent opposition to her search for the truth.

In WWII Russia, Jewish refugees band together into a brigade that hides in the forest, ambushes Germans and survives until war s end, eventually 1200 strong.

In April of 1945, Germany stands at the brink of defeat with the Soviet Armies closing in from the west and south. In Berlin, capital of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler proclaims that Germany will still achieve victory and orders his Generals and advisers to fight to the last man. Downfall explores these final days of the Reich, where senior German leaders (such as Himmler and Goring) began defecting from their beloved Fuhrer, in an effort to save their own lives, while still others (Joseph Goebbels) pledge to die with Hitler. Hitler, himself, degenerates into a paranoid shell of a man, full of optimism one moment and suicidal depression the next. When the end finally does comes, and Hitler lies dead by his own hand, what is left of his military must find a way to end the killing that is the Battle of Berlin, and lay down their arms in surrender.

Miraculous evacuation of Allied soldiers from Belgium, Britain and France, who were cut off and surrounded by the German army from the beaches and harbor of Dunkirk, France, between May 27- June 04, 1940, during Battle of France in World War II.

An epic drama of World War II as seen through the eyes of a young boy interned in a prison camp for three years.

Based on the novel by Michael Ondaatje. An epic of romance, mystery and adventure, intricately weaving the histories of five stray souls into one powerful story of the triumphs and failures of the human spirit, The heart of this tale lies with the English Patient , a mysterious and unrecognizable stranger whose very presence will forever change the destinies of those around him.

In 1945, the Marines attack twelve thousand Japaneses protecting the twenty square kilometers of the sacred Iwo Jima island in a very violent battle. When they reach the Mount Suribachi and six Marines raise their flag on the top, the picture becomes a symbol in a post Great Depression America. The government brings the three survivors to America to raise funds for war, bringing hope to desolate people, and making the three men heroes of the war. However, the traumatized trio has difficulty dealing with the image built by their superiors, sharing the heroism with their mates.

Based on the real life story of legendary cryptanalyst Alan Turing, the film portrays the nail-biting race against time by Turing and his brilliant team of code-breakers at Britain s top-secret Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, during the darkest days of World War II.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS begins in German-occupied France, where Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) witnesses the execution of her family at the hand of Nazi Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). Shosanna narrowly escapes and flees to Paris, where she forges a new identity as the owner and operator of a cinema. Elsewhere in Europe, Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) organizes a group of Jewish soldiers to engage in targeted acts of retribution. Known to their enemy as The Basterds, Raine s squad joins German actress and undercover agent Bridget Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) on a mission to take down the leaders of The Third Reich. Fates converge under a cinema marquee, where Shosanna is poised to carry out a revenge plan of her own...

A World War II satire following an awkward young German boy (Roman Griffin Davis) raised by a single mother (Scarlett Johansson), and whose only ally is his imaginary friend Hitler (Waititi). His naïve patriotism is tested when he meets a young girl (Thomasin McKenzie) who upends his world views, forcing him to face his biggest fears.

The story of the battle of Iwo Jima between the United States and Imperial Japan during World War II, as told from the perspective of the Japanese who fought it.

England in June 1944. Unseasonal storms. Allied troops are massed ready for the invasion of France, some already on the boats. The Normandy beaches will be their destination while paratroopers are dropped inland to take key towns and bridges. On the other side of the Channel the Germans still expect the invasion at Calais, and anyway the weather makes them think nothing is likely to be imminent. Eisenhower decides to go. Hitler sleeps on.

In 1910, young Adolf Hitler migrates to the cultural beacon of Vienna, determined to conquer the world as a famous painter. Upon his arrival, he moves into a hostel occupied by Schlomo, an elderly Jewish Bible salesman who takes the brash and arrogant artist under his wing. But when Hitler is callously rejected by the Academy of Fine Arts, Schlomo attempts to save his increasingly radical and suicidal disciple by pushing him towards a career in politics a fateful and ironic decision that will forever impact the course of human history.

This panoramic portrait of General Patton — a magnificent anachronism, deeply pious and extremely profane-offers shrewd insight into the brilliant, unstable WW II tactician.

In World War II, it is found that 3 soldiers who have been killed are brothers. The mother will be receiving three death notices on the same day. The army discovers that there were actually four brothers. A mission is deployed to find Private James Ryan and send him home.

October 1944, Auschwitz-Birkenau. Saul Ausländer is a Hungarian member of the Sonderkommando, the group of Jewish prisoners isolated from the camp and forced to assist the Nazis in the machinery of large-scale extermination. While working in one of the crematoriums, Saul discovers the corpse of a boy he takes for his son. As the Sonderkommando plans a rebellion, Saul decides to carry out an impossible task: save the child s body from the flames, find a rabbi to recite the mourner's Kaddish and offer the boy a proper burial.

The true story of Germany's most famous anti-Nazi heroine is brought to thrilling life in the multi-award winning drama SOPHIE SCHOLL-THE FINAL DAYS. Academy Award Nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, SOPHIE SCHOLL stars Julia Jentsch in a luminous performance as the young coed-turned-fearless activist. In 1943, as Hitler continues to wage war across Europe, a group of college students mount an underground resistance movement in Munich. Dedicated expressly to the downfall of the monolithic Third Reich war machine, they call themselves the White Rose. One of its few female members, Sophie Scholl is captured during a dangerous mission to distribute pamphlets on campus. Unwavering in her convictions and loyalty to the White Rose, her cross-examination by the Gestapo quickly escalates into a searing test of wills as Scholl delivers a passionate call to freedom and personal responsibility that is both haunting and timeless.

In June 1944, the Western Allies invaded the Third Reich in Operation Overlord, and Canada was a participant with its area of operations in Normandy, France designated Juno Beach. This film depicts the true stories of several Canadian soldiers in the invasion in its various aspects like the paratroopers, tank crews and regular infantry. Braving misfortune and ferocious German resistance, these Canadians fought to bring the fight to the Nazis in Western Europe at last.

Set during World War II, the story follows an Army rifle company during several months of one of the fiercest struggles of the twentieth century — the battle of Guadalcanal Island. "The Thin Red Line" marks a much-anticipated return to the director's chair by Malick, whose two previous efforts, "Badlands" and "Days of Heaven" were hailed by critics worldwide.

A perceptive, psychological drama that deals with the problems of an Air Force commander who must rebuild a bomber group whose shattered morale threatens the effectiveness of daylight bombing raids. Gregory Peck plays the commander, and Dean Jagger won an Oscar for his supporting role. Exciting air combat footage intensifies the deeply moving drama.

The 13th Mission tells the true wartime story of the Lancaster bomber, the women who built it, the men who flew it, and the heroism and personal sacrifice endured on both sides of the Atlantic. In the spring of 1944 all of Europe was at war, and one million Canadians worked day and night to supply guns, tanks, ships and planes. One warplane in particular — the four-engine Avro Lancaster bomber — became a legend. Three teenaged women from rural Ontario turned their hands from farm chores and housework to shooting the rivets that held the Lancaster together. One week after D-Day, a crew of young Canadians set out on a fateful mission, flying from a British airfield through a storm of flak and night fighters to destroy Nazi supply lines in northern France. The women who build the bomber never met the men who flew it. Dedication, and the airplane itself were what they had in common. The 13th Mission is their story.

A raw, unflinching look at the role of the war photojournalist. Told from their point-of-view and with their startling and graphic images, Beyond Words takes you into the world of the combat photojournalist. Often living like gypsies, constantly moving, frequently in danger, this profession attracts a unique kind of individual. We learn about what they see and how they are driven by the concept where there are no images, history is forgotten. The interviews, together with their dramatic and graphic war photographs covering WWII to the Iraq war, create a glimpse into the world of war photojournalism.

To mark the 70th anniversary of D-Day, The National follows a Montreal man to Poland for an emotional reunion. Holocaust survivor Sidney Zoltak reconnects with the Polish man who, as a teenage boy, saved 11-year-old Zoltak and his family from the Nazis.

In 1943, Hank Ernst and 177 other Canadian soldiers became members of The Guinea Pigs club, so called because of the experimental nature of their rehabilitation. Each soldier faced dozens of operations, the trauma of disfigurement and the emotional struggle to return to normal life. But the Allies' best surgeons employed groundbreaking medical and psychological techniques, literally rebuilding the soldiers' smashed and burned bodies and spirits. In Final Flight, Ernst and the remaining 33 members of the Canadian wing of The Guinea Pigs gather for the last time to disband an affiliation.

The story of Hana's suitcase, made into an award-winning radio documentary and children's book, tells the harrowing true tale of the owner of the suitcase, Hana Brady, who died at Auschwitz in 1944 at age 13. In 2000, the Tokyo Holocaust Education and Resource Center acquired the suitcase, but no information about Hana came with it. Its director, Fumiko Ishioka, made it her mission to scour the world trying to find out more of Hana's story. In the end, her search brought her to Toronto and George Brady, Hana's older brother and the only member of their immediate family to survive the Holocaust. For him, the reappearance of the suitcase in Japan 57 years after Hana's death was absolutely astonishing. The story transformed Hana's only surviving personal possession into a lesson of tolerance for children everywhere who today are drawn to the story of the suitcase and the tragedy it represents.

The first time Heinrich Hoffman tries to take a photograph of Adolf Hitler he is beaten to a pulp and his camera smashed. The Nazis change their minds and hire Hoffman as Hitler's official photographer. It is the beginning of a propaganda campaign carefully orchestrated by propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels that is built around the image of the "Führer”. A film called Triumph of the Will directed by Leni Riefenstahl shows the whole world how powerful Hitler has become. It is the most sophisticated piece of demagoguery anyone has ever seen in any medium. Throughout the 1930s, Hitler and Joseph Goebbels use propaganda to terrifying effect as they stoke German pride and spread hatred toward the Jews and other minorities. The Strongmen is the story of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin and Emperor Hirohito of Japan. Each employed propaganda in their own way to gain absolute control over their citizens. In Italy, the face of fascism is that of Benito Mussolini, a colourful performer and a brutal thug who counts Hitler as his friend and ally. In Russia, Joseph Stalin's insistence on total devotion would range from the horrific to the tragic-comic. And in Japan, Emperor Hirohito is seen as a demi-god, able to protect his people from all outside threats. The Spanish Civil War in 1936 is effectively a dress rehearsal for the real war that would soon erupt between the Axis and Allied powers, and communist and fascist ideologies. In the Pacific, Japan launches a brutal attack on Nanking, foreshadowing the barbarity that would soon engulf Europe.

When Adolf Hitler begins his campaign of conquest in 1939, most Germans actually don't want war. But Hitler and his propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels use every tool of propaganda to change their minds. German pride is invoked to justify the invasion of Poland and France — among other countries. Dark messages of hatred are used to persuade Germans that minorities should be stripped of their rights, deported or sent to "detention" camps. It is the beginning of the Nazi campaign of genocide. Hitler's despotism would have its admirers in France and even in far-away Japan. But in 1940 Hitler and Goebbels would also discover just how far they can push the German people before some begin to ask questions.

In 1941, Joseph Stalin thought he could count on his alliance with Germany to protect his Russia from the fires of war that are sweeping Europe. And then Adolf Hitler changes his mind and invades, sweeping through Russia with brutal efficiency. How would Communist dictator Joseph Stalin persuade his people to rise up when the Germans appear unbeatable? With a skillful appeal to Russian nationalism, Stalin convinces millions to take up arms. Among them a young woman named Lyudmilla Pavlichenko. Her deadly accuracy as a sniper would make her a useful tool of propaganda, inspiring others to fight and survive. In Canada another young woman named Veronica Foster does her part for Allied morale: she becomes known as Ronnie the Bren Gun Girl, a sexy poster girl who inspired women to enter the workforce. 1941 brings another shock: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor changes everything about the war. The Allies now have the mighty Americans on their side. For their part, the Germans, the Italians and the Japanese now have a formidable enemy to contend with. But for now the Japanese people continue to believe Emperor Hirohito when he tells them Japan is invincible.

Germany and Japan have mastery of the seas and control of the major theatres of war. But by 1943, the tide is changing and both countries will have to change their messaging accordingly to reflect a new emerging reality. Truth and Total War explores how "total war" proves to be a major turning point for all combatants and how the stories told on all sides have to be adjusted. For the British and Canadians, an attempt to create some good news for the Allies by raiding the French seaside town of Dieppe turns into a terrible failure. What is supposed to be a propaganda coup for the Allies turns into a victory for Joseph Goebbels and the Nazi propaganda machine. They parade captured Canadians on German newsreels. Meanwhile the Canadian high command is obliged to confirm that their losses are greater than they had initially admitted. In Nazi-occupied France, a brutal roundup of Jewish families sends a shiver through French society. Among them 10-year-old Marie-Jelène will become a symbol of the horrors of anti-semitism. How far will the French go in tolerating Nazi atrocities? On the Russian front, young German soldiers realize with growing horror that they may never see Germany again: their attack on Stalingrad has failed and for the first time in the war, the German army is forced to surrender. For propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels it's time for a new campaign : Germany is no longer winning and it is henceforth the duty of every German to fight to the death.

With the D-Day invasion in June 1944, the Allies finally establish a beachhead in France and begin to roll back the Nazi forces. In order not to dampen morale, the Allied High Command hides the true human cost of taking Normandy, both for the allied soldiers and for the unfortunate citizens of Northern France who will suffer enormous casualties as the Germans retreat and the Allies advance. Canada's master of propaganda, John Grierson, explains why "withholding the truth" is not the same as spreading lies — such as German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels has done throughout the war. As the war grinds on, more and more questions are being posed about what is happening to the Jews of Europe. There are rumours of mass extermination, but so far the Nazis have kept the truth about the ultimate fate of Jewish minorities and others hidden. Finally Germany invite members of the International Committee of the Red Cross to tour a detention camp near Prague called Theresienstadt. Conditions there don't seem so bad to the visiting observers. But Theresienstadt is a total lie and the International Committee of the Red Cross falls for it. Theresienstadt will be remembered as just one of many horrendous lies concocted by the German propaganda machine. Also in 1945, the Japanese are growing increasingly anxious about the expected showdown with the Americans. The two countries have been at war since December 1941, but so far there has been no invasion of Japan by U.S. forces. The firebombing of Tokyo in 1944 will shock the Japanese, who have been told by their Emperor that they are invincible. Koyo Ishikawa, a Japanese police photographer, will record the terrible events of that night in which 100,000 will die. But he discovers no one wants to see the pictures he has taken. The Emperor doesn't want to acknowledge loss and the Americans don't want the true brutality of the firebombing seen by outsiders. In the end, Ishikawa will choose to bury the pictures he has taken, rather than hand them over to authorities.

By 1945, propaganda machines that had geared populations for war now have to prepare them for peace. With the end of the war and the beginning of the Cold War, enemies would become partners, and allies now foes. The Allies chase the Nazis out of France and close in from all sides on Berlin. The "free French" retake their beloved city of Paris under the leadership of Charles De Gaulle. Nazi collaborators in France are outed and publicly humiliated. Meanwhile American sleuths go searching for "evidence" to convict Germans — former propagandists are hoisted on the very images they created. The Allies will now begin a process of "de-Nazification," trying to persuade Germans that what they have believed for years under Hitler is all lies. Meanwhile as much of the West celebrates the "end of war," it is far from over in the Pacific. World War Two will finally end with the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the admission by Emperor Hirohito that Japan was surrendering for the first time in 2,600 years.

Ortona, Italy was the sight of one of the bloodiest battles of the Italian campaign of World War Two. The horrific carnage of that period is brought to viewers through archival film footage and the radio transmissions of the legendary Matthew Halton. Meeting the survivors decades later, the bitterness is still evident. This documentary joins Canadian and German war veterans as they meet face-to-face for the first time in an effort to promote understanding. Putting aside darker emotions, the veterans recognize each other's valiant struggle and eventually redeem the holy day in a symbolic and tearful service within the rebuilt cathedral.

By the fall of 1942, German U-boats had struck deep into the mighty St. Lawrence River, sinking 21 ships and killing more than 250 people. Germany had reached its goal. It had effectively shut down the St. Lawrence River to all Canadian convoys destined for Great Britain. People living along the St. Lawrence began fearing a German invasion. This is the untold story of the Germans who did land on our shores — spies secreted off U-boats in the dead of night.

WWII, a war even more terrible than the last, demands courage, commitment and ingenuity. Canada meets this challenge head on, giving everything we have at home and abroad. Canadians come together, working and fighting for a common cause. United – at war. Features stories/events include: building planes / Battle of Britain, women joining the workforce to support the war effort, building the Navy / U-Boat capture, Dumais and LaBrosse rescuing Allied fugitives, scientists decode the glide bomb, Juno Beach and liberating Holland.

America entered World War II on the side of the Allies after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. German soldiers were mostly defeated by Soviet forces and the elements in an attempt to capture Moscow. This program recounts the major event of the war from America’s entry in 1941 to Italy switching sides and joining the Allies in 1943.

“When the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor, they upset our thinking about a great many things—including Alaska.” Lacking an overland connection through Canada to the lower 48, Alaska would soon be overrun by enemy forces if Imperial Japan were to sever water and air routes of resupply. This documentary, filmed in 1944, illustrates the construction of a military highway stretching approximately 1,500 miles from Dawson Creek, British Columbia, to Fairbanks, Alaska. “The Alaska Highway is much more than a road, much more than a brilliant construction feat. It is the backbone of our position in the far northwest.” From the National Archives and Records Administration.

The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest continuous military campaign in World War II, running from 1939 to the defeat of Germany in 1945. At its core was the Allied naval blockade of Germany. This classic program incorporates authentic WWII archival film footage and accounts from soldiers on both sides of the battleline. Part of the series Battleline. Distributed by A&E Television Networks.

World War I altered the economic landscape of Europe and inadvertently contributed to World War II. In this program, we see how the interruption of American economic aid following the 1929 stock market crash caused havoc in the post-war European economy. The Treaty of Versailles, Germany’s inability to repay its war debt, and its chronic inflation problems are discussed. Germany’s problem with inflation is related to the rise of Fascism, to leaders including Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco, and to the infamous Munich Agreement.

Produced by the U.S. Army, this compelling film from The Big Picture television series chronicles the struggle of the U.S. 6th Corps, who fought their way up the “Italian boot” in World War II. Through the footage from the National Archives and Records Administration, we follow the courageous men who won the bloody battle of San Pietro and then took Casino by storm.

As a follow-up to CANVAS OF CONFLICT, this documentary examines the art of World War Two. A select group of artists went into combat to capture a permanent record of the battles, and managed to create thousands of pieces of art. For those that are still alive today, theirs is a harrowing tale to tell.

This award-winning 13-part series on the Second World War—a striking assemblage of color footage and photographs from national archives and private collections in combination with letters and diaries, battlefield communiqués, and songs of the era—offers fresh perspectives on how the war was fought on its many far-flung fronts. Distributed by A&E Television Networks.

This program looks at the world prior to World War I, the rise of Hitler, and the tensions leading to World War II to shed light on how major international conflicts begin. Students are provided with a historical outline of the powers of this time, the countries and key people involved, and an unfolding of events as they happened around the world.

D-DAY 360 strips D-Day back to its raw data to reveal how the odds of victory, in the greatest gamble of World War II, swung on what happened over a five-hour period on a five mile stretch of French coastline. Data gathered though forensic laser scanning, 3D computer modeling, and eye-witness accounts bring the battlefield to life as never before.

This documentary contains extensive film footage of African-Americans fighting in World War II in D-Day invasion of Europe, the Battle of the Bulge, Italy, and the Pacific. It features numerous interviews with veterans including Congressional Medal of Honor winners.

This program from the Combat Studies Institute examines the strategic debates between the U.S. and British in WWII, and the decisions that resulted. Broadly, the British favored taking advantage of sea power to land and win peripheral victories, which, along with strategic bombing and the Russian front, would wear down the Germans, while the U.S. wanted a decisive cross-Chanel invasion as soon as possible. It considers key decisions throughout the European war, primarily 1942 though and including D-Day, with a discussion of the Allies' failure to focus on planning beyond the initial invasion. It considers the role of Stalin and the air and sea wars in Allied plans.

This program from the Combat Studies Institute considers broad U.S. and Japanese strategy in the Pacific. Panelists consider the reasons for America's "Europe First" strategy, and the reasons it moved away from that strategy to go on offense in the Pacific. They consider why deterrence of Japan failed, and the reasons Japan sought strategic depth against America with vast Pacific conquests, and the way they overstretched themselves. It considers the choice between allowing MacArthur to return to the Philippines and pushing through the Central Pacific, looking at the military and political calculations involved from many perspectives. It shows how the Japanese still hoped to wear down the U.S. in 1945, and indications it might have done so had it not been for the nuclear bomb.

Five-star General Omar Bradley was one of the main American field commanders in Europe and North Africa during World War II. This episode of Biography follows his distinguished military career from West Point, to the invasion of Normandy, to the Battle of the Bulge, and on to victory.

GI Jews: Jewish Americans in World War II tells the story of the 550,000 Jewish Americans who fought in World War II. In their own words, veterans both famous and unknown bring their war experiences to life.

Human conflict's most devastating fighting forces contained men and women whose achievements can only now be revealed. In this series, each program examines the relative strength of each of the world's most deadly units, from inception to the end of the war. Among the revelations are Germany's secret weapons, the failure of Japan's most closely guarded technological secrets and how the German Navy never officially conceded in any of its post-war diaries that its codes had been broken by the Allies. Each program contains brand new explanatory 3D graphics, portraying sabotage demolitions, the Battle of Britain, the destruction of Axis desert airfields, tank warfare and more.

Join archaeologists and divers recovering remains of ships and planes lost during World War II’s epic Dunkirk operation. Discover new evidence of the ingenious technology that helped save Allied forces from defeat by the encircling Germans.

How individuals from all walks of life and various nationalities emerged as unlikely heroes from the devastation, tragedy and destruction of WWII. With state-of-the-art computer graphics, the story of each individual's contribution will be examined in terms of its far-reaching impact on the course of the war in this poignant documentary.

Adolf Hitler's self-belief and outward confidence were legendary and not without cause. His blitzkriegs were very much built on components that were the Fuhrer's own brand of advanced modern warfare. Even in 1944, with the Allies poised to take the Fatherland, he still believed he alone could win the war. Military planning remained his sole responsibility and those on the General Staff were merely his "messenger boys." This video traces the Fuhrer's always-stormy relationship with the German High Command, his commanders, political colleagues, and even his own troops during their last battles.

By late 1944, the situation in Europe was perilous for Adolf Hitler's dream of his Thousand Year Reich. This video traces the events of the Fuhrer's last great offensive, the Battle of the Bulge, and his desperate attempts to rally his people before the subsequent annihilation of Germany's forces in the west.

For the USA, World War 2 was an all-out war – to mobilize the masses, the US government launched a huge propaganda campaign and cinema, the medium of the masses, was quite simply their most important weapon. Government authorities monitored the production of feature films and the military itself produced documentaries aimed at rallying the American people to support the troops. This film tells the story of four Hollywood directors of European origin, who returned to the "Old Continent" during the Second World War to make propaganda documentaries for the US Army at the front: William Wyler from Alsace, Frank Capra from Italy, Anatole Litvak from Ukraine and – in post-war Germany – Billy Wilder from Austria. The four men – three of whom came from Jewish families – risked their lives at times for their new homeland and returned to the USA with serious physical and psychological injuries. Their films are unique, long-forgotten documentaries dealing with the front line in Italy and the bombardment of Germany through to the liberation of Dachau.

In the spring of 1943, after the successive failures of Moscow and Stalingrad, the armies of the Reich go on the offensive again. Launched on July 5th, Operation Citadel plans on circling and eliminating, around Kursk, the forces of the Red Army, which have moved forward too much. But, after only eight days of fighting, Hitler, confronted to a heroic resistance, must resolve to stop the offensive. Considered the greatest tank battle in History, this event represents a real turning point of World War II on the Eastern Front.

We follow 94 year old 82nd Airborne veteran James “Maggie” Megellas from Wisconsin to Europe where he fought in some of the most savage battles of World War II. “Maggie” is the most decorated officer in the history of the famed 82nd Airborne Division.

The Registry profiles veterans of World War II who served in the Military Intelligence Service –a secret unit of mostly Japanese Americans – U.S. citizens who went into combat with the U.S. Army against the Japanese enemy in the Pacific. These veterans want to make sure their legacy lives on through the M.I.S. registry where all of their names have been recorded.

When did World War II begin? Americans might say December 7, 1941. For Europeans, it was September 1, 1939. In China, people will tell you August 13, 1937. That day, after a century of humiliation and six years of repeated “Incidents” initiated by the Japanese military, China finally “stood up.” This act of defiance took place in Shanghai, the most international city in Asia. The Battle of Shanghai has been described as the last battle of World War I and the first of World War II. At its heart, this is a story of shattered lives and enduring dreams.

Decades after the end of World War II, the name Adolf Hitler continues to produce intense feelings of hatred—and loyalty. Tracing Hitler’s life from his formative years in Vienna and his service in World War I, to a political career that nearly made him the master of the world, to his suicide in a Berlin bunker, this program seeks to understand the dark fascination with and enduring loathing toward one of history’s towering villains.

Flight was born in America at the turn of the 20th century. But WWII saw more planes built in a single year—300,000—than had been built in the previous 40. This documentary profiles the key military airplanes of the Second World War, the men who designed them, and the men and women who built them in the race to defeat Hitler’s war machine. They include Bill Boeing’s 247, the first modern airliner; Donald Douglas’ DC-3, adapted for military use as the C-47; Boeing’s B-17 and B-24 bombers; Dutch Kindelberger and Lee Atwood’s P-51 Mustang fighter; and Roy Grumman’s Wildcat and Hellcat Navy fighter.

This fascinating documentary introduces the previously untold story of the forgotten fliers of the Second World War: women pilots from Britain, the United States, Russia, and Germany. These pilots risked everything for their countries and pioneered the way for others at a time when flying was the sole prerogative of men. Because of widespread skepticism, they had to prove their worth and their ability to do a “man’s” job. With unique archival footage and present-day interviews with the pilots themselves, this inspiring film offers unique insight into the experiences of the thousands of courageous women who have been “written out” of the history books.

In an era of dirty bombs and nuke-hungry rogue nations, images of the horror visited upon Japanese cities at the end of World War II serve as reminders of humanity’s ongoing gamble. This program presents numerous eyewitness accounts from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks, creating an on-the-ground picture of the world’s first—and hopefully last—instance of nuclear warfare. Interviewees include Kiyoko Imori, the only survivor from her obliterated elementary school, and Sakue Shimohira, who recalls choosing at age ten between “the courage to die and the courage to live.” U.S. servicemen who carried out the bombing missions, such as Enola Gay navigator Theodore Van Kirk and weapons test officer Morris Jeppson, are also featured. An HBO Production.

This program covers World War II from the invasion of Poland, soon after dawn on September 1, 1939, to the Nuremberg war trials and the hanging of the convicted Nazi war criminals. It covers the rise of Hitler and Mussolini, the beginning of the war, the Battle of Britain with the Blitz at its height, the occupation of Paris and the evacuation of Dunkirk, the attack on Pearl Harbor, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the campaigns in North Africa and Sicily, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, D-Day, the liberation of Paris, the Battle of the Bulge, the Yalta Conference, the Dresden air raids, the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, the Battle of Berlin, the surrender of the Germans, the war in the Pacific, the dropping of the A-bomb on Hiroshima, and the surrender of the Japanese.

This ABC News program anchored by Peter Jennings plots out Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, in which he used charisma, guile, and aggression to forge an iron-clad dictatorship from the economic chaos of the 1930s. The Spanish Civil War—proving ground for the inevitable war to come—is addressed, and World War II in Europe is surveyed, spanning events from the blitzkrieg against Poland to the invasion of the Soviet Union. The war against the Jews is also featured, as the Nuremberg laws and Kristallnacht foreshadowed the Führer’s "final solution."

As Hitler’s armies reached their high-water mark in the Soviet Union, Japanese expansion spelled trouble for an isolationist America. This ABC News program anchored by Peter Jennings describes Japan’s bid for Asian dominance, starting with the Rape of Nanking, and subsequent defeat by the Allies. Highlights of America’s involvement in the war against the Axis nations include the Pearl Harbor attack, mobilization and the war effort on the homefront, the push from Normandy to the Rhine, island-hopping in the Pacific, dropping the A-bombs, and the prosecution of war criminals.

A rare look at how a nation of men and women mobilized to convert the U.S. economy into a war machine, emerging as the most powerful country in the world.

America is enveloped in total war, from mobilization on the home front to a scorching air war in Europe. Professor Miller's view of World War II is a personal essay on the morality of total war, and its effects on those who fought, died, and survived it, including members of his own family.

The outbreak of World War II saw two motion picture experts from Germany and the United States battle each other with as much ferocity as any army or navy. Their respective missions: to ignite a public desire to wage and win a global conflict. This Bill Moyers program contains an interview with Fritz Hippler, chief filmmaker for the Nazi Party. Hippler unrepentantly claims to have spoken to the “soul of the masses” through films like The Eternal Jew, which asserted a righteous justification for genocide. Moyers also discusses America’s response, which put a renowned filmmaker to work for the Allied cause—director Frank Capra, noted for his gentle, humane films about ordinary folk standing up to oppression.

A part of the series America in the 20th Century. This program chronicles the global events that ultimately led to U.S. action in World War II. Discussion points include Hitler and the Nazi Party, fascism in Italy, and Communism under Stalin; British appeasement and American isolationism; blitzkrieg; the Lend-Lease Plan; and the Holocaust. The program ends with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor—“a date which will live in infamy”—and America’s declaration of war.

A part of the series America in the 20th Century. Starting with Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, this program follows the United States through its mobilization for war and into battle in North Africa, Europe, and the Pacific. It also explains the dramatic domestic changes that total war made necessary—from rationing and recycling, to war bonds and government economic controls, to new roles for women in society—and the dawning of the Atomic Age, with its perilous implications for the postwar world.

This feature-length documentary reveals the unspoken truth about war - it never really ends. Archival images and personal stories portray the lingering devastation of war. Filmed on location in Russia, France, Bosnia and Vietnam, the film features individuals involved in the cleanup of war: de-miners who risk their lives on a daily basis, psychologists working with distraught soldiers, and scientists and doctors who struggle with the contamination of dioxin used during Vietnam. Based on the Gelber Award-winning book by Donovan Webster, this film conveys the fact that war doesn't end when the fighting stops.

The Apology follows the personal journeys of three former “comfort women” who were among the 200,000 girls and young women kidnapped and forced into military sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. Some 70 years after their imprisonment in so-called “comfort stations', the three “grandmothers”– Grandma Gil in South Korea, Grandma Cao in China, and Grandma Adela in the Philippines – face their twilight years in fading health. After decades of living in silence and shame about their past, they know that time is running out to give a first-hand account of the truth and ensure that this horrific chapter of history is not forgotten. Whether they are seeking a formal apology from the Japanese government or summoning the courage to finally share their secret with loved ones, their resolve moves them forward as they seize this last chance to set future generations on a course for reconciliation, healing, and justice.

This short documentary focuses on Newfoundland's role in WWII. Due to its geographical position, Newfoundland became a central point of activity during the war, housing military air bases and becoming the link between the Allied forces and Europe. In stark contrast with the Depression in the 1930s, this film highlights Newfoundland's opportunities for economic growth during, and after, the war.

This newsreel documentary made during WWII was used to illustrate Britain's preparations for an air attack. Scenes depict destruction wrought by enemy planes, the efficiency of retaliation by the Royal Air Force and the precautions taken in Canada against possible air attack.

This documentary introduces us to Italian-Canadians whose lives were disrupted and uprooted by seclusion in internment camps during the Second World War. On June 10, 1940, Italy entered WWII. Overnight, the Canadian government came to see the country's 112,000 Italian-Canadians as a threat to its national security. The RCMP rounded up thousands of people it considered fascist sympathizers. Seven hundred of them were held for up to three years in internment camps, most of them at Petawawa, Ontario. None were ever charged with a criminal offence. Remarkably, the former internees are not bitter as they look back on the way their own country treated them.

1936 - March 1940. In Europe war clouds gather as Germany re-arms and Hitler propounds his 'master race' doctrine. Chamberlain's appeasement fails. Germany overruns Czechoslovakia. Britain declares war; Canada makes an independent decision to join. The first Canadian troopship sails from Halifax.

April - November 1940. With devastating speed Germany takes Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg. Italy declares war. The British withdraw from Dunkirk. Mackenzie King feels the Canadian pulse on conscription. England is strafed by the Luftwaffe, and Britons accept Churchill's challenge of 'blood, sweat and tears.'

September 1940 - October 1941. The Battle of the Atlantic begins. German U-boats take their toll of Canadian convoys. The purge of Jews begins. German armies march into Russia. Mackenzie King is booed at Aldershot. Men of the Winnipeg Grenadiers and Royal Rifles leave for a fateful mission in Hong Kong.

December 1941 - June 1942. The war is now global and pressures on Canada mount. Without warning Japan strikes at Pearl Harbor. Canadians adjust to food rationing, salvage drives. The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan is inaugurated in Canada. In Ottawa, Winston Churchill makes his 'some chicken, some neck' speech.

July - September 1942. A time of defeat and disaster. Hitler is at the apex of his power. A Canadian division probes at Dieppe and is repulsed with heavy casualties. Canadian factories take over production of the fabled Lancaster night bomber; Canadian bush pilots ferry the big planes across the Atlantic. German U-boats penetrate the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

October 1942 - July 1943. The inherent strength of the Allies begins to be felt. Canadian munitions factories operate at peak capacity. U.S. Marines land on Guadalcanal and the Solomons. Montgomery's 8th Army strikes Rommel at Alamein; the R.C.A.F. joins in air strikes against Germany.

July 1943 - January l944. The objective at last--Fortress Europe. The Canadian 1st Division, flanked by the British and Americans, pushes into Italy. Italians surrender but the Germans resist. Ortona, a 15th-century town, riddled with bullets and grenades, is taken by Canadians in fierce and costly street fighting.

December 1943 - June 1944. Canada, war-seasoned, girds for the final assault. In London, Commonwealth prime ministers meet and Mackenzie King holds out for Canadian independence in foreign policy. In the Arctic, Canadian ships sail the Murmansk run with supplies for beleaguered Russia. The Italian campaign intensifies. In the south of England the Allies poise for attack.

June - September 1944. D-Day, June 6, 1944. In early morning hours, infantry carriers, including one hundred and ten ships of the Royal Canadian Navy, cross a seething, pitching sea to the coast of France while Allied air forces pound enemy positions from the air. Cherbourg, Caen, Carpiquet, Falaise, Paris are liberated. Canadians return, this time victorious, to the beaches of Dieppe.

June - December 1944. V-1 rockets, and later V-2s, rain death and destruction on Britain; their launching sites are mopped up by Canadians advancing on Pas de Calais. The Third Division spearheads the attack on the Scheldt estuary. Germans make a last-ditch stand in the Battle of the Bulge. In the English Channel, Canadian sailors man swift motor torpedo boats against German E-boats.

September 1944 - March 1945. On the eve of victory Canada faces an internal crisis: an acute shortage of men for overseas service precipitates the conscription issue, threatens national unity and the King government. In Europe, Canadian divisions fight their way to the top of the Italian boot, then regroup for the final onslaught on Germany. They fight in the battles of the Reichswald and Hochwald forests, and finally cross the Siegfried Line.

April-August 1945. Hitler had said: 'Whoever lights the torch of war in Europe can wish for nothing but chaos.' By 1945, Germany is beaten. V-Day celebrations verge on the hysterical, but occupying armies uncover the staggering atrocities of Belsen, Auschwitz, and Buchenwald. Franklin D. Roosevelt dies. The world's first atomic bomb is dropped on Japan.

August 1945 - 1946. Japan surrenders. World War II is over, but the scars are deep. Canadian prisoners are released from Japanese war camps. In Canada, as elsewhere, the monumental task of rehabilitation begins. In Ottawa the Gouzenko case shocks the nation. The trials at Nürenberg begin. The United Nations is formed. Canada, now a much stronger, independent nation, enters the Cold War.

Part one of a 3-part series, Canada Remembers, Turning the Tide documents the years between the outbreak of WWII in September 1939 and June 1944. A compilation of modern day interviews interspersed with photographs and footage from the war, this documentary covers landmark events such as the Battle of Britain, the raid on Dieppe, the landing in Sicily and the battle for Ortona. It focuses on both the Canadian soldiers, sailors and airmen who fought in the war and the women who became part of the war effort, either by enlisting or by going to work in the factories and shipyards.

Part two of a 3-part series, Canada Remembers, The Liberators focuses on WWII during the period between June and December 1944. While following the action from the D-Day landings on the shores of Normandy up into Belgium and Holland, the film also highlights the contributions of the women who remained on the homefront. As the fourth largest producer of armaments among the Allied countries, Canada spent much of the war evolving into a formidable industrial nation.

Part three of a 3-part series, Canada Remembers, Endings and Beginnings focuses on the final phase of WWII in Europe in 1945 and the aftermath. Veterans recount their memories of the conflict at the Rhine and the celebrations on VE Day, followed by their contribution to the victory in the Far East. These recollections are complemented by outstanding footage filmed by army cameramen. The film also focuses on what transpired after the war, when the soldiers had to reintegrate back into society.

This feature-length documentary focuses on the Canadian pilots who served in the air force bomber command in Britain during World War II. From the outset, it was clear to Britain that air combat would be the key factor in the battle against Hitler's Germany. Told they would be targeting factories and military targets, the airmen were actually ordered to drop their payloads on civilians in an attempt to annihilate the enemy. Using interviews, re-enactments, old footage and photographs, Brian McKenna's film depicts the war from the perspective of the pilots.

This documentary from the Salute to Flight series links the barnstormers and bush pilots who explored Canada's vast hinterland with the aviation heroes who flew the Bolingbrokes, Ansons, Mosquitoes and Hurricanes of World War II.

This feature-length documentary looks at German POWs from the WWII who were housed in 25 camps across Canada. Filmmaker Eva Colmers follows her father's story - Theo Melzer - who spent three and a half years in a POW camp in Lethbridge, Alberta. Growing up in Germany, she had always been puzzled by her father's fond memories of his POW life, so when she moved to Canada, she set out to rediscover this story. What she found surprised her. Watch as Theo Melzer, along with other POWs, recount how their lives were changed by the unexpected respect and dignity they received at the hands of their Canadian captors.

This 1940s newsreel demonstrates how the U.S.A. and the Commonwealth countries contributed to the war effort during World War II.

This 1964 documentary returns to the battlefields where over 100,000 Canadian soldiers lost their lives in the First and Second World Wars. The film also visits cemeteries where servicemen are buried. Filmed from Hong Kong to Sicily, this documentary is designed to show Canadians places they have reason to know but may not be able to visit. Produced for the Canadian Department of Veteran Affairs by the renowned documentary filmmaker Donald Brittain.

This documentary introduces us to thousands of Indigenous Canadians who enlisted and fought alongside their countrymen and women during World War II, even though they could not be conscripted. Ironically, while they fought for the freedom of others, they were being denied equality in their own country and returned home to find their land seized.
Loretta Todd's poignant film offers forth the testimony of those who were there, and how they managed to heal.

This 1942 British film, Women at War, contrasts sharply with similar Canadian productions. It accepts women's direct participation in the war effort as a natural outgrowth of their peacetime occupations.

This Oscar®-winning short film is comprised of a lecture given to students by outspoken nuclear critic Dr. Helen Caldicott, president of Physicians for Social Responsibility in the USA. Her message is clear: disarmament cannot be postponed. Archival footage of the bombing of Hiroshima and images of its survivors seven months after the attack heighten the urgency of her message.

This documentary looks at the events of June 6, 1944, when a combined force of American, British and Canadian troops landed on the beaches of Normandy. The Allied invasion of occupied France was a turning point in the war against Hitler's Germany. From a tactical view, Canada's role was limited; strategically, it was pivotal. Part of the 3-part series The Valour and the Horror.

This feature-length documentary sheds light on "Karelia Fever," a phenomenon of the 1930s that led many Finnish Canadians to a tragic fate in the Soviet Union. Taimi Pitkanen last saw her brother Aate in Leningrad in 1931. She was returning to Canada from Moscow while her brother was heading to Soviet Karelia, where his skills as an English-Finnish electrician were in demand.
He wrote letters home until 1941, when Hitler attacked the USSR. After that, no one in Canada heard from him. Some 60 years later, letters (written but unmailed) were discovered that revealed his fate and brought together Taimi and Alfred, the son Aate never had a chance to meet. Alfred follows his father's journey from Thunder Bay to Karelia. With him, we learn about Aate and one of the great dreams of the 20th century.

This documentary follows a mission into the Burmese jungle to recover the remains of a RCAF crew of six young Canadians lost during World War II. Their lives and wartime experiences are recalled through the memories of colleagues and families, who attend the emotion-laden funeral near Rangoon, where the men have finally been laid to rest with full military honours.

From the beginning of the Second World War in 1939, Mackenzie King tried to avoid conscription. Most English Canadians thought young men should be sent to fight, while most French Canadians vehemently disagreed. This same division had nearly torn the country apart during the First World War. King had to make a decision in the final year of the war. This docudrama combines archival footage with excerpts from The King Chronicles, a dramatic series written and directed by Donald Brittain.

Even at a frail 90, Martha Katz has an impish energy that remains undiminished. She chides grandson-filmmaker Daniel Schubert over his choice of shirt during a visit to her Los Angeles home, but there’s trauma beneath the humour. At 14, Martha and her family were torn from their village in Czechoslovakia and shipped to Auschwitz. A visit to a Holocaust museum ignites painful memories, including a haunting personal encounter with one of Nazi Germany’s most notorious figures. For Martha, however, the emphasis is on a tough but rewarding postwar life in Winnipeg, which she fondly recalls in this warm, intimate portrait of an unrelenting survivor.

This documentary follows a Holocaust survivor in 1965 on an emotional pilgrimage to Bergen Belsen, the last of 11 concentration camps where he was held by the Nazis. He and 30 other former Jewish inmates travel through the new Germany. Scenes still vivid in his mind are recalled in flashback. The memorandum of the title refers to Hitler's memo offering a "final solution" to the "Jewish problem."

The bombing of the American naval base at Pearl Harbor thrust 9-year-old Minoru Fukushima into a world of racism so malevolent he would be forced to leave Canada, the land of his birth. Like thousands of other Japanese Canadians, Minoru and his family were branded as an enemy of Canada, dispatched to internment camps in British Columbia and finally deported to Japan. Directed by Michael Fukushima, Minoru's son, the film combines classical animation with archival material. The memories of the father are interspersed with the voice of the son, weaving a tale of a birthright lost and recovered.

Hibakusha is the Japanese word for the survivors of the American bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This powerful and moving documentary focuses on a few of the eighty hibakusha who journeyed from Japan to New York in June, 1982, to take part in peace demonstrations held to coincide with the Second United Nations Special Session on Disarmament. They came to urge the nations of the world to prevent nuclear war. Instead of concentrating on the physical suffering of the victims, the film reveals the mental anguish of the hibakusha, who are still haunted by nightmares.

This short documentary depicts the stories of two hibakusha, survivors of the 1945 atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This film follows them on their mission to New York as representatives of the Japanese Peace Movement at the second United Nations Special Session on Disarmament held in June 1982.

This provocative documentary uncovers a lost chapter in Canadian military history: how the Armed Forces dealt with homosexual behaviour among soldiers, during and after World War II. More than 60 years later, a group of five veterans, barely adults when they enlisted, break the silence to talk about how homosexual behaviour "was even more unmentionable than cancer." Yet amidst the brutality of war, instances of sexual awakening among soldiers and officers were occuring. Initially, the Army overlooked it, but as the war advanced, they began to crack down: military tribunals, threats of imprisonment, discharge and public exposure. After the war, officers accused of homosexuality were discharged. Back home in Canada, reputations and careers were ruined. For the young men who had served their country with valour, this final chapter was often too much to bear. Based on the book Courting Homosexuals in the Military by Paul Jackson.

The filmmaker did not suspect that meeting a philosopher would have such a profound effect. It compelled her to shed light on the exceptional life of Raymond Klibansky, his uncommon destiny and his path to humanity. As a German Jewish philosopher of action, he lived in times of upheaval, war and hate. As a young man, he moved in the circles of Karl Jaspers, Erwin Panofsky, Marianne Weber, Ernst Cassirer and Albert Enstein. Early in his career, he made his mark as a historian of ideas and a philosopher, and his work was known around the world. Then came the Nazi lie, which he condemned and, better yet, fought. In the prime of his life, he was Chief Intelligence Officer in the British Secret Service during World War Two. He moved to Montreal in 1946, where he has continued to promote tolerance and fight for freedom on all fronts.

In 1945, Great Britain and the United States organized a bombing raid that devastated the ancient city of Dresden. This short documentary returns exactly 40 years after its destruction and celebrates its renaissance with the re-opening of one of the most beautiful opera houses in Europe. One guest at this gala was the Canadian navigator of one of the bomber planes, returning to Dresden on a mission of peace that brought him face-to-face with the people who were once his enemies.

They raised children, baked cakes... and built world-class fighter planes. Sixty years ago, thousands of women from Thunder Bay and the Prairies donned trousers, packed lunch pails and took up rivet guns to participate in the greatest industrial war effort in Canadian history. Like many other factories across the country from 1939 to 1945, the shop floor at Fort William's Canadian Car and Foundry was transformed from an all-male workforce to one with forty percent female workers.

In the autumn of 1941, nearly 2,000 inexperienced Canadian soldiers were sent to Hong Kong at the request of the British government as a symbolic show of strength that would deter a Japanese attack on the colony. Canada's soldiers found themselves in the midst of a desperate battle they could not hope to win. On Christmas Day, 1941, the British colony of Hong Kong officially surrendered to Japan. The surviving defenders became prisoners of war. Over the next three and a half years, many of them would come to envy the dead.

At the end of World War II there were sixty million sick and starving children in Europe. The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration undertook to provide food, clothing, shelter, medical care, education and sympathetic attention to these terrorized victims of war.

This documentary tells the personal story of filmmaker Jari Osborne's father, a Chinese-Canadian veteran. She describes her father's involvement in World War II and uncovers a legacy of discrimination and racism against British Columbia's Chinese-Canadian community. Sworn to secrecy for decades, Osborne's father and his war buddies now vividly recall their top-secret missions behind enemy lines in Southeast Asia. Theirs is a tale of young men proudly fighting for a country that had mistreated them. This film does more than reveal an important period in Canadian history. It pays moving tribute to a father's quiet heroism.

This short newsreel highlights the battles faced by both Axis and Ally powers over the minds of the world through propaganda and information. Part of the World in Action series, this film includes footage of Winston Churchill, Benito Mussolini, and Adolf Hitler.

A film record, suitable for schools, of the war years of 1939 to 1945, showing major developments from the rise of Nazism in Germany to the first atomic bomb at Hiroshima. It does not minimize the brutality of war, but shows how this "total war," unlike wars of the past that engaged only the men of the fighting front, involved in varying degree almost every individual of every nation.

Based on the diaries of Canadian doctor Ben Wheeler during his internment in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp during World War II, this feature-length docudrama is a glowing account of the spirit and its will to survive physical and mental suffering. The film is comprised of newsreel footage, interviews and dramatic re-enactments.