humor behind that, i know you've told me a story in the past about how the guys actually thought that day that you were killed. >> yeah, that's true. i didn't find this out until a couple years after the war. floyd talbert was there when i was hit, and i was very, very severely wounded. at the top of my head, it was about half off, i guess. i spent a year at army hospitals. i guess it looked worse than it was. i put my hand up, my whole head felt like a watermelon and mushy and soft. i can understand talbert looked at this and thought he saw me killed. he just turned away. back when i was in the states six or eight months later, i went to visit talbert's parents because i was in a hospital in indianapolis, and they were up in a place called green town, indiana, near kokomo.

his mother wrote him, ed tipper came to visit from the hospital. and he wrote back immediately, that guy that claims to be tipper is an imposter. call the mps and get him put in jail where he belongs because i saw ed tipper killed. of course, we got all that straightened out a couple years later. >> babe, when you came in as a replacement before operation market garden, what was your concept of war in terms of what it would be like and how was it different than what it was actually when you got into holland and started fighting? >> well, i remember -- can i stand? >> you can do anything you want. >> i ain't got a gun. when i was about -- it was in

the '30s, early '30s, i happened to be sitting on a step in south philly. you want to know about war the first time you get a taste of it. i sat next to an old lady, she was up there in years, same as i am now. and a man was coming up the street, and this is about 1932. and i was maybe 9 or 10 years old. and the man was coming up the street, and he was walking. and there's cement cracks, squares. he was walking, and he wouldn't step on the crack. and he walked all the way up the street, and he was going to mass.

and i said to him, mrs. lyons, why he won't touch them cracks? she said that man was gassed in the first world war, and this is what war does to you. so i went home and said to my mother, ma, mrs. lyons says that he was in the british world war an he was gassed, the man that won't step on the cracks in the cement. and my mother, of course, she was always very, very end of the house. she never would leave the house. irish, red hair, quite a temper. having four boys i guess was

part of it. anyhow, she said -- and i'm sitting there by myself. she said, well, let me tell you, when she was mad she called me edward. when she wasn't mad she called me babe. i knew she was in a good mood because she called me babe. she said, babe, let me tell you something. your father wasn't in the first world war. but let me tell you, that son of a bitch is gassed. i said, well, i didn't know. now, i'm 9 years old. i said did he work for the gas company? she'd say, oh, you're like your father. my father one day -- this is true what i'm telling you. my father was at the republican club all night, come home about 4:00 in the morning.

we had all just come back from mass and we're sitting at the breakfast table and we're almost finished and my dad come downstairs, and my mother is in the kitchen. he said, yo, ann. my mother said, yeah, joe. this fish is cold. he always ate sea bass in the morning. this fish is cold. so my youngest brother said to him, dad, you were at the club until 3:00 or 4:00 this morning. we heard you come in. my mother didn't say nothing. he said, ann? she said, joe, i'll be right in. she come in, she had a knife in her hand but she was using that for cutting meat or something. we got a little nervous. but she said to my father, my father had his back turned and

he was talking to my younger brother. and she said, joe, and he turned around and said, yeah, ann. she said go shit in your hat. and we sat there -- >> babe, we may have to edit that out for c-span, but don't worry about it. >> well, i don't know that. i'm telling the truth here. >> i know you are. if you want to hide things, i don't belong here. [ applause ] . i'm only trying to do what's right here. >> you're doing fine. you're doing fine. make sure you edit that. i'm done. >> so mom was boss in the house is what you're trying to say?

mom was boss in the house? >> yes, she certainly is. >> she certainly was. izzy, a lot of people know about auschwitz. they know about the conditions. they can read about it. they can watch it in the documentary. could you describe what the conditions were like at auschwitz to those who never lived through what you lived through? >> yeah. first of all, let me say it's a pretty tough act to follow. >> yeah, yeah. [ applause ] >> i'm only telling the truth. >> you are following a guy who tells the truth. he tells it like it is, and we love him for it. >> that's the way we talk on the

corner. can't hide anything. they all know you. >> you remember i asked you outside whether this is going to be -- >> yes, yes. that's all i had was jokes and all kind of stories. >> it's not a comedy show. it's true to life. >> it's the earliest form of the reality tv show. babe should have his own reality tv show and he would put the kardashians to shame, no question about it. >> okay. so let me go back to reality. >> let's go back to auschwitz. >> you asked me whether i can tell what it was like in auschwitz. >> can you convey it? >> number one, how much time have i got? >> we're going to keep it short. so you have to do the condensed auschwitz version which isn't easy i know. >> the reason i'm asking, it's very difficult or practically impossible to tell you in the

few minutes what auschwitz was like. let me just say in general, i don't know how many you people saw movies about the holocaust, how many books you were reading, what you know about the holocaust and what you know about auschwitz. in general, the former chancellor of germany, hell amount cole on the 50th an verse i have of the liberation of auschwitz says auschwitz is the darkest chapter in german history. even for me, for one that was living in auschwitz, living in auschwitz, existing in aush witsz, it's impossible to describe even if you'll give me the rest of the evening of what a death camp -- you must remember auschwitz was not only a concentration camp.

it was a death camp. auschwitz was one of six death camps in poland where when i was there in 1944, what was called the busiest time, 10,000 people -- please. we're talking about 10,000 human beings were being gassed, cremated in auschwitz. every day, transports were arriving from all over europe. men, women, children, babies. the ones like myself that were picked out from my transport to place for slave labor for work, some were thinking and talking out loud, not knowing who is better off, their relatives, their friends who were sent this

morning from their transport to the gas chambers or those, the ones that were picked to live in the camp. that's what the situation was. every day people not being able to take the conditions, live under those conditions, threw themselves on the high voltage wires and were electrocuted. i don't know where to start to be able to get into details. in general, auschwitz was something that never existed before in the history of the world, and i hope -- i hope and pray that it will never happen again anywhere in any part of the world against any people. [ applause ]

>> babe, when you were in europe, easy company liberated a concentration camp which was a sub camp of dachau called landesberg. >> landesberg. >> landesberg, germany. what do you say to people who deny that it existed. >> this is what i tell them in no uncertain terms, it was there. it was there. just as this gentleman said, the

german people denied it. the villages that lived around the camp said they never saw it, they don't know about it, but our company commander winters said, well, i don't believe you because you're going to come in here, you're going to clean it up. you're going to get these bodies and put them where they can be buried properly. and it was mighty hot. nobody gave them any mask or any kind of medical coverage for their faces. but when they come in to do the job of moving their own people, their own people in the camp, the jewish people were laying there, the ones that were there -- which i want to tell

you also, the movie version is quite a little bit different. we couldn't get near them, we couldn't hug them, we couldn't -- they wanted to, and it was a sad, sad thing. and i remember one jewish fellow, very thin -- they were all very thin. i remember him trying to talk in english. and one of the other jewish inmates said to us as a group, especially eddie stein who happened to be one of our boys, jewish descent from st. louis. he said -- i think he said it right. he said he is american, but he can't say it. he can't talk, but we know he is

an american. so they pulled him out. i don't know what happened. nobody knows because it was very -- i can't tell you because it's not, not to be told. it's something -- the gentleman here to my left is saying it right. may you never, never see anything like it again because it's something you dream about, something you go to bed thinking about. it's very sad what man can do to man. when the east german people walked into that camp, they all had surgical masks on. why'd that have surgical masks on? they must have knew what they were going to face. where did they get them from?

but the german villagers knew because i'll tell you why. the stench would tell you something is wrong in that section of that vlittle village. i don't know how many years they were there, but somebody, somebody knew they were there and somebody has to tell somebody else. word get around, but they didn't care. nobody came. nobody made an effort. they let things go the way they were. boxcars full. bodies on top of one another.

eddie stein said to me, babe, they're my people. i said, ed, they're our people. but it won't be long, they'll be out of there. him and joe liebgott. and any one of you, this gentleman said it all. it's awful. you don't want to ever, ever see it. the man went through it. he can't talk about it. i can't talk about it and i only saw it. >> thank you, babe. >> i just want you to know that. it's very sad.

and i live with it like he does. but it's something that should be -- i just wish i could get into detail about it but i can't. i can't. it's not acting. it's the truth. >> very emotional. >> thank you, babe. >> one of the hardest episodes for the actors to film was the concentration camp episode in lansds berg. ross had a prominent role in that. jimmy obviously was featured as well. could you guys address how that was set up by stephen spielberg and tom hanks. there was a little bit of a surprise for the actors filming this episode as well, correct? >> yeah. you know, that was -- we knew the episode was coming, and that was a big, a big conversation that they had with me, liebgott

was i think one of two jewish company members that were featured in the show. and so the producers had talked to me early on and said we think it's probably a good idea if we sent you to one of the camps in europe to go see it now. >> for the job, i knew that nobody had witnessed these camps. until easy company came across landesberg. i kind of wanted to convey that as much as i could in a

realistic enough way. so i said i'm not going to go. i don't want to go. i want to see it on film. i want to see it on film for the first time. we shot the show in europe in -- all over the place, switzerland and england and stuff. for the camp, they built a camp in the middle of a forest that was 20, 25-minute drive from our base camp.

horrified to truly get as close as you can in in today's societ thing was -- heartbreaking is not must have. you can't fathom, you know, people actually put time and effort into build these things and then in prison. human beings. and anyway, i'm digressing. the camp we used for the show

was us was as real as they could made to show the world -- we were hoping the show would be as big as it was and to show the world what it must have been like for easy company, for any man or woman to see this firsthand and to experience what these people went through, you know. so there was a lot of body makeup on guys slender built, but even then, we used grease to

con straight brutality on the situation. and it was really hard on me. i'm not trying to -- it was a hard thing just because i knew -- i'd grown with it and become a part of me and all of a sudden i'm seeing this. and they made a wonderful effort to make this be as shocking and heartbreaking and realistic as humanly possible and that did it for me. and just -- i'm not jewish. so i wanted to study the jewish faith. i wanted to get into joe's skin a little bit and when this episode came along, as important as it was for the show, you know, we all lost something that episode. that was a rough time. but it was important and we have

to continue telling that story. it can never, never, ever be for gotten, it can never be remotely discussed that it didn't happen. so hopefully we managed to do that in the show. >> we got -- i remember us getting -- we had good times as we shot. i mean, we joked around a lot. we had fun as you can tell. and i just remember getting the memo that this is going to be a very hard episode and let's just focus and concentrate on the job at hand. and then david frankel directed that episode. terrific director. and word came down that david had family that spent some time in the camps. and so i think all the jokes

went away for that honesty. a month. and i remember it being set up, the world was being set up like he said before we even got to the set. you'll the extras and they were all terrific and dedicated were set up. and the fencing and the huts and -- forgive me, truly forgive me. it was very -- it was very hard to pull up and just look around and it was just quiet, man. not too many people were saying many things and the jokes stopped. and it was a very, very hard episode. it was a really hard episode. and david frankel was great. but you saw, you know, what you saw. it's he a fraction of what

really happened, but it was a very tough episode. >> a lot of fans from the show actually would single that episode out in particular of being, you know, obviously the most heartwrenching. but one of the most memorable, which i always found fascinating and wonderful that people really did click into that. they wanted to nknow know about. >> we'll open it up to questions. i have one final question for you and then we'll open it up for the audience so please get your questions ready. we talked about the television series whe series. were you happy, did they do a good job portraying what war was like or can you portray that on tv? >> some was on realistic, it shook me up.

people asked me wasn't that a big exaggeration. i said, oh, no, that's exactly the way it happened. but they took liberties in a couple of cases. earlier on after the jump when private hal confessed to an officer that he didn't quite know what to do, it was very sympathetic. the officer that i know would never have been sympathetic to him. he wouldn't have shot him, but he would have said you don't belong in this outfit, get out. and i guess there was some dramatic reason for putting that in. but the book i think was much more accurate. we for probably 60 or 70 years after there were almost none of

us talked to our families, i taught school all those years, i didn't tell my kids war stories or anything. and it was just so horrible, so wasteful, and you just can't talk to anybody about it unless they experienced it themselves and know what is you're talking about. >> david, hbabe, how do you fee portrayed it in terms of war in. >> my personal feeling, i don't want you to get irritated because -- you're going to say, you know, i'm not a jokester and i'm only telling the truth and that's what i'm here for. but they should have had more little details in the movie to at least -- making people laugh that's in the audience, in a their parlor, i don't care where the tv is, in the kitchen,

because i remember one scene that actually happened with me of course grenade, machine guns, whatever was required, and one of the guys come up, he had two ammo and he'd say, bill, i got -- bill and bob -- bill, i got two ammos here. what do you want me to do with them? give them to heffron. so he goes over and gives them to me. so i throw them over me. and then another guy