6362 you're watching the news coming up next our documentary film series what secrets with a small box of photos from world war 2 the whole world and all the latest news of course available on our website that's d.w. dot com or on twitter at deep i'm called aspen thanks watched. her 1st day at school. her 1st climbing lesson and when doors grandma with arrives. join the oregano on her journey back to freedom. you know work interactive documentary during general ranting returns home on the t w don't come to tanks.

let me introduce myself i'm a health noack a polish filmmaker my grandfather was an ethnic german from salacious i recently found a small treasure troves in our house and cut off pizza and it changed my life. that's my grandfather alloy screen storage we had a special relationship he was an obstetrician in fact he brought me into the world

. there was one thing about his past that really fascinated me he served 4 years in the uk during world war 2 in school we heard about the atrocities committed by german soldiers and every sunday i ate potato soup was one of them. it all started when i found this orange box 120 old artful photos and 2 rolls of film i thought these must belong to grandpa and i wondered what secrets they might hold. i decided to talk to my mother ana she is eloise's daughter she's a doctor like everyone in our family. visited you see all his photos from the war

are just the ones with him. yes not just the ones with him but was the group photos with other soldiers standing next to cars and maybe a tank and there was a photo of a field hospital just not. to a large degree i want to find out what grandpa did during the war what do you think about what is this completely misses. and you know i don't know maybe some people need to do something like that but i certainly don't mean mom i didn't pester my parents with questions about the past 2 years a month on his middle ages well my mother maybe but not my father he hated that is you know i don't. even those and. that's not unusual my mother belongs to the generation that was raised to not ask questions about the war. is not how we should look at home and he didn't talk about it much and when i did it was usually after a few strong drinks enough to know that when i was

a traumatic experience and it really affected his character. i think that if you start digging up the past it could be a sobering experience. and most of the. maybe it's just better to forget it was on the new book week to moses but if you really are that serious then you'll just have to go ahead. of us systems of which. well not all have to do it on my own my grandfather pasted most of his photos neatly into an album but not the one what's the story behind these pictures. here's a list of the places where he served during the war and the 1939 map of europe. french helmets a field hospital. it says here surgical training in france. to

be photographed as russian girl did he like her or was she the 1st prisoner of war he saw on. a rabbi being taken away jewish greystones as tank traps. a burning synagogue images of war and war crimes. i can see why he didn't put these into the family album. there are nearly 60 pictures of the warsaw uprising in 1944. but always could not possibly have been in warsaw at that time he was in a military hospital 600 kilometers away recovering from shrapnel wounds that's confirmed in a letter that his mother sent him. my dear son i have sent you a rosary because you have lots of time to pray now may the mother of god heal your

wounds and give you comfort because your own mother cannot be there with you. my father's family is polish some of them refused to come to his wedding day and fought against the germans and now my father was marrying one. he's kept track of the family history on both sides when grandpa signed up for his military disability pension my father helped him with the paperwork. to join grandpa talk about the war or you sure i think i was the only want to talk to about it. he had some photos from poland and france. which photos i think it's no one's new york in shock box. without thinking when i took the oath and what are you talking about with that has nothing to do with your grandpa no he's one of those who longs to my family to fulfill

a joke. while i got it completely wrong. this is my great uncle like you ship on skis elec for short he's my father's uncle he fought in the polish underground a kind of hero that we read about in school. the uncle who fought the enemy. who sent secret messages. and bravely led his troops. his code name was care more heart like in a game of cards. snapshots from the war from the german point of view from one of these photos have to do with elec did he steal them. did he take those photos from a german so that he didn't steal them. i don't know how he got them. if.

it's a test but to find out. so that going to go right at most will. fortunately elex sister christina is still alive my father calls her and tells her i want to meet her. maybe she knows something about the photo albums and can tell me more about alice. she lives in just a hole in the city was occupied by the germans just 2 days after they invaded poland. alex resistance group was based here. i think i'm on the right track now. some of the photos were taken here.

i only see great and christina at family weddings and funerals this is the 1st time i've been. her house. no good oh my hips hurt i got psychotic. and my back is killing me kind of us it was a day go. just like. my father said i should come talk to. me that you're not moving which is what is mr costello you know. you should talk to me if you wish and. yes i'd like to talk to about how like i said what he did during the war. so just give us his main task was to keep track of the parachute drops that were organized by the polish government in exile london he'd get the time and place usually a forest and then organize the pickup i want to be in a. distant this spot little room look this my ears

a piece of one of the parachutes to be pinned the color of the materials had great colors. that we used to make closed out of that was so confusing to me i was this is part of. your composite like back that. yes. here are the guns and the ones i was on the way to school it was a secret school so i was just set up by the underground polish home army. eats the skin off god i was crossing the square and suddenly the germans showed our. stomach was a raid they shopped me into a truck and took us to the old school and yes in the course of a street level they were going to deport us to germany as are forced laborers. russia i cried my eyes out yes i was 14 years old and i was being sent to germany. i cried like

a baby one of the germans took pity on me he brought me to another room and told me to stop crying he said they wouldn't take me away they'd make me a waitress at the gestapo canteen medicaid or the gas that gestapo now you and then. night but then my brother grassroot is going to the home army. you say ma'am i have a satellite i kept the aprons as a souvenir they're all faded. a tailor made them for me because you couldn't buy things like that anymore. your group says there's no democrats unless you have a i've still got a few options. you don't get that deal to get it if they want to use when you work

at the gestapo canteen with us you know when you're there you know right if that if you can live sleep and you kept track of the prison guard if they're upset after the germans arrested someone i tried to find out as much as i put in my mind you could join she was upset about. incredible my great aunt was forced to work for the gestapo at the same time she was working for the home army and she was just 14. kristina told elec what she could about the prisoners. he passed along the information in coded messages. less yucks the nice wife a roski just wife nugent skeet henrich. elec also sent his sister on missions through the city carrying messages or weapons. she'd been caught she could have been executed.

the day which it is i came here to talk to you about this box of photos on the net give the ins us some money and i know when elec was in the resistance he lived with a married couple who disagreed to hide him. well my i was raised by i think the man called stefano scott so i worked in a photo circle and he took the photos and developed the whole of all. of that. so stuff and ascii work with l. ike and the resistance. 75 years ago this was the largest photo story in just a hole that everyone had their photos developed here including the germans. stuff and also he and i man names for their skin made unauthorized copies of their photos and passed them along to l. and. now i'm going to be traduced these grandson. with you because as you know. i still get just as this photo with

a rabbi is from the chester home again oh. it's. not as neat that's. so this could be thought this is the school on the. right you know you know here's another one of the from us a good steak in the same place must you have this photo to write this is my cousin something that's yours and this one's mine look there's an x. mark on the back of both. there's an observer printed on the same paper they're both a bit overexposed in the death of a deal this one's overdeveloped but see my grandfather used to make 2 sometimes 3 copies for the german customer from soft and from the resistance. what is this russian girl thinking.

and this woman realised what was going on around her. the rabbi looks afraid probably for good reason. this classroom was converted to a jail cell on the wall there's a quote from the killer's mind a conflict. in an age of racial poisoning a state that preserves its best racial elements will one day become master of the world. the box has pictures from all over europe. i figured out that this is the school in the austin of course because street police battalion number 310 from iranian born or stationed there but they were not traffic cops they were there to impose german law and order with deadly results.

i did some research on the web and then decided to visit the police college or on inboard just north of berlin. feeling make huge as an expert on battalion 310. that's not looks like russia. maybe you can tell me more about the photos. here. that's them put that's definitely a police officer you can see the german eagle insignia actually raised by oak leaves holmes and he said what the other parts of europe. this is. just this is the question i've been trying to find out. about my family and how it survived the war why. as a thing we have there are lots of photos of prisoners and detainees and scenes of deportations with. those so i think the photographer was recording events for

posterity as he would in fact before it was that would give information to the relatives about the person's fate when she didn't want to. and then these photos document war crimes and the unbelievable destruction that took place in the as that was the grabs they were intended to be used later as evidence and to help bring the perpetrators to justice. but i'm trying to take these photos. and why he collected them. and those who are using my i have no idea of our story are the ones that show the germans deporting people from warsaw are valuable as evidence and there. are 7 of they shipped people off to the camps. and a lot of them never came back. navis him. so here you are the.

german troops both s.s. and very marked put down the warsaw uprising in just 63 days. more than 200000 people were killed 100000 were deported for forced labor and 60000 were sent to concentration camps hole. somewhere in this crowd is my grandmother honea my mother's mother her brother was killed in august 1044 just after the uprising started in an air raid. in september her husband was shot and killed in october she was deported. after the war she married heloise my grandfather. now i was just

30 years old when the war ended younger than i am now. there was something else in that box besides the photos i still haven't been able to watch the 2 rolls of 16 millimeter film. i've taken it to a photo lab to see if they can help me. but i wonder what the film will show. to amateur pictures of german soldiers. scenes from the war.

it's marked 1039 which means it was probably developed in that year but it doesn't show a war time scenes these pictures may have been taken in the summer of 39 shortly before the war started 4 minutes one second snapshot in time. who are these people why are they smiling and what are these pictures doing and lex collection. i'll show them to and christina and see whether she knows. the look you know this is from l x 2 rolls of film. you know they do through school i don't recognize any of these people that i don't know who shot this film. you know how did a film end up in the box. no idea if there's ever going to be tooken from a german mosher possibly. look at that.

my ends has lost none of her secret agent skills let's see if we can make out the license plate number. that could tell us who owns the car. my license plate starts with s k s 4 cyl asia and k. for coffee it's a 75 years ago in germany it would have been i cade. the original vehicle registration lists no longer exist but there are copies at the national library in light sick. there are probably thousands of registrations with the sillies or prefix. the number i'm looking for is i came before 7860. i found a copy of the list but everything is filed by the registration date. finally

i find the car was owned by the shredder brothers they lived at brough plots one his parents. the car was an 8 cylinder horse a pretty cool car at the time. today is called yellin your gorup i still can't confirm that the photos were actually shot there and i still don't know why l. ike had this roll of film i need to do some more research on. evil operate it she is the director of the national archives here. this is up stuff and that's the old posture asa. it's not far from here it's these days it's called home army street. because it just goes on there obviously on a trip of some sort. it's a czechoslovak bunker in the mountains near to it not. built to protect against

a german attack it was 80. the germans annexed the student inland in 1938 who later took over the rest of the country as those in the bunkers ended up as tourist attractions and he thought it into blue attack so to this is. that's an unusual development but i still want to find out who those people were and what they were doing there. was a piece of that the germans annexed the sudan inland and turned western czechoslovakia into a protectorate so those people are visiting the new german territory but. are these the shirkers. i want to find out what happened to them after the summer of 1939. people helped me to track down the construction files for bra plots one. and then to thought that there are. some of them i've got a blueprint to scratch for building

a toilet still know that the sun still with it will divide up thought it's a pub that adjoins the city brewery. so what's the bit about a meal that some of the shirkers own hirshberg. we can't find any more documents that he's gotten it after the war a lot of east german territory went to poland including now you lend your torah. if the shirkers survived the war and want to hold on to their brewery they'd have had to become polish citizens but some of the number of those i wonder whether either of the brothers applied for citizenship i couldn't find an application for them so i looked at some documents filed by others with pisani. we read some klara of. here by apply for polish citizenship. and as my last name indicates my ancestors were of slavic origins but the one is of the place that

is good and is the best applicant joined the nazi party in 1937 he says he signed up only because he had a government job and was never an active member and she adds that he has no polish blood. on. the authorities gathered information about the applicants by interviewing neighbors to both german and polish this application was rejected. twosomes is not yet. there are no files on the shorter brothers it seems that they had to leave their property behind probably in 1906. the poles had vivid memories of the atrocities carried out by the germans and they were in no mood to forgive. even still german civilians leaving poling if they let them back up their things and go back on. it c.q. we put heaters in their trucks and gave them blankets and our food. they got paid

to do it. saying good riddance. say can i mean i was upset. when would have happened if my grandfather had not been granted citizenship in poland he would have had to leave the country he'd never have met honna the young woman from warsaw and he never would have delivered me. i wonder whether the shirkers have ever come back to visit their birth. today prop lots one is not one and today 10 families live here instead of just one. but if you took a quote trying to find out what happened to the people who lived here in 1945 oh you know i do yeah i've only lived here for 20 years i just you're not going to be . one of the neighbors might know about 3.

to pogo recognize anyone. movies but one of them may be. i mean i don't remember much from that time i hope it's just the thing when you accept that it's a whole lotta shorter's and so you know because they spoke german. for you mean so that's a bank then when people had german they thought hitler was just around the corner. you know the doorbell rang an interpreter asked whether i'd mind talking to a couple of germans who used to live here she had with us on the go that i said ok and invited them in so it was a man and his wife so they brought me some trousers i still have them.

a pair of black trousers. and that. the problem is that the shirkers did not leave a forwarding address so how can i track them down. i decided to try the german federal archives fibroids. germans were driven out of the eastern territories after the war could qualify for compensation if they renounced all future claims they had to fill out an application and provide an address. stephanie yost works at the orca maybe she can help me. as a boxer and i've seen him in the ring a good ok ok says he owned a car a horse it was a used car. as he bought it in 1937 for 3000 marks coughed easy says the very mocked confiscated it 5 years later this is

the schlock. here's a list of everything he says he lost by say alice for the hot one to leave see in that car in the film so maybe we can find a record of the car here in the file just us dusty says i'll talk over here and. evaluate how good now off i was in the documents he describes the cars he owned. it could be that the shway type that family went with water off the family car just into weekend trip with friends all relative so whatever but the other possibility is of course that there was it was not their own cars so and you know the cost quite prominent in this feature film so maybe if they made the film because they were so proud of the rental car. damn

a rental car so it may not be the shrimpers in the pictures after all but stephanie keeps looking. that has no thought of laughter yeah i'm a sham i should say that there is a name for this is the this is really interesting the 18 year old son is named his name is yeah it makes sense yeah i did much didn't appear in any out before it is. there is a kind of logic and because he would have been too young at the time to even $945.00 or $46.00 he would have. in 10 years old. he has no property so he didn't fill out an application stand so this might be your missing link to have was something. that's the one. you keep our short term was 10 years old in 1946 he still could be alive. maybe i'll be able to find him online. i'll see if he has any other relatives.

to file show that dietmar was born in bad form braun today it's called chip plates and the district i'm feeling your core i've managed to track him down to date and place of birth match perfectly. that is definitely. he's an artist i know i'm not a hello my name is me look here dietmar shirt is right. i'm looking for the shorter family from harrisburg i have something that may belong to your relatives. would like to show it to you if i could. shift it so you can go again. is this finally the family i'm looking for

the choice is a place to meet you like to say met life i've. gotten to see it not enough to know it's incredible when there's a. here or there they are going to continue to stop for a 2nd so i can see the people and it's right there those are the be pushed on relatives then. i snoozed i can't really identify any of those people and they're really much too small for me to recognise i'm 10 am. and besides he was pretty young at the time that the film was shot this could be shorter but i can't say for sure but i think she gained more weight later on but it could be her. the whole she wanted to brewery and has back it is there was huge and old i remember and. there were 2 vaulted sellers.

cough played on the brewery and my grandmother an uncle and some other relatives lived there. in front there was a park in the taxis and buses used to park there. i made a lot of money i mean i didn't have enough my family but there's backside. after the war all the shirkers left. i mean if you have a family photo album. this is the new 1000000000 year this year you're in the mountains that's me my dad has my mom and if he is the more it ended by then yeah. i spent a year under occupation and click effects 1st the russians then the poles i was our collective fate of me things were pretty bad i had no idea why this was happening

to us i was just a kid so i didn't ask. my get all those ideas and i wanted us out of the house hands up and we had to find no place to live what see anyone but when done time in the year later in 1906. we went through the district street by street. and order all the germans to come out and say load us onto a train. gun's toilets but it was a great adventure. destroy seen anything like it. was a freight train i set right up front i says it was hanging out over an iron bar a train moved really slowly and i just watched the scenery and i thought it was quite a pleasant trip. feed i'm going to bother me at all a lot of people are really sad some are crying. and there was a straw to sleep on the sanitary conditions were appalling. that we didn't time them across the nicer river. we were still wearing the armbands that the poles had

ordered us to wear some tightness were took them off and threw them away we were going to the west. continued north he did but one. voice you know inspector the local farmers and residents didn't want to stop there i told us to go back where we came from. outside for a while and then found a place to stay stall in the barn after that things got a little more normal. dietmar family have to leave my family wanted to like many with german groups and the 1980 s. it took a long time to do the immigration paperwork and then they aren't curtain came down so we stayed where we were tomorrow i'm going to meet dietmar sister hunter sure her palm maybe she can identify the people in the so.

that at least they're never sure if i'm late sorry it's a. reason if i really sorry i'm late i shot there. she was ready to leave but i twisted her on ok. ok. ok so i'm going to explain to you the story of why i'm here. oh oh no hitler no that's not hitler and human this is it is not hitler at a different nose. just. when you think it's a dead ringer there's no doubt about it you don't miss the death of to know. he was from through this we can see that he was in and as the people i play the part of any nazi party for the party members to fire me for they weren't interested

in politics my father my father joined the party because he had to work for the state he wasn't a true believer just a member. me to come up for more i miss him to asking my mother to join but she refused to my husband the motor. in the but. she had more courage than my father did my mother mahmoud. what sort of where is that. oh right. yeah yeah. and i kill license plate force lesia that's what those with the shorter brothers cars it was their company this is no this film was shot while they were on a trip to the mountains in 1938 or $39.00 after midnight as you would have none of that you know own the camera and film did it have to do you had they always had the

latest high tech gear. yes. absolutely they were obsessed with their toys. do you recognize me when i. return please. let's just end this is that. it samartha and you can see it more clearly here no doubt about it horst know that high forehead she was always having headaches. so it's aunt martha who had a high forehead and suffered from migraines. a real person not just an anonymous figure in a brief film clip. ana and dietmar suggest that i visit their cousin dieter who lives in the v.a.'s are up lands region he's the last surviving schroeder from the brewery. to horse car

belong to dealers father i think i finally solved this case here is this there's this post office that's post office post office was the right. answer and the capitol cinema was just a few steps away now. i can still remember 70 years. he certainly can remember the old part of harrisburg his aunt martha even their phone number at the time of them having ever been back there. yes there are 4 times that that the last time was 3 years ago mine's a one no i sudden wanted to see the place so off we went well it doesn't. fall on my wife comes from the press not at all those of us or so we visited professor. and the reason about the mountains as beautiful. as my home plant is the fly felt at

home again right away so it's a lot of fun. it's time for me to head back home. i've solved the puzzle. it started with a simple family story and turned into a german polish polish german saga. a complex history full of sorrow and personal loss. to share her brother who survived the war but they were forced to leave their homeland. there were many victims in my family too. after the war the communists took over in poland and started to eliminating potential opponents. here so that's the keep going straight that says because here's the house where he was killed there's the gate. going to the secret police

had a jail here comes you but he was arrested for being an anti communist because he tried to escape in a courtyard and they shot it was that. in a. cemetery straight ahead that's meant that. no one will be there in a minute larger here. i guess alexander league you sure know tenet of the home army code name born in 1916 murdered august 2nd 1905 by the polish state security bureau. we're here also mega actually it was august 6th they got the date wrong about our new.

job i still can't believe the greater percentage of just a little bit of sun but it is they never told us where they buried him he just disappeared. the file on him was close to my usual so you can't search for him we spent long days and nights at the cemetery so whenever they've buried someone my mother would take a look out to see if it was alec. i do not so i never gave the body back to us to do that we don't know where they buried him. but here maybe here maybe there is all we can do is guess. this is the fact of the matter is that ship and he's gone. pm. it's. good. to.

see. you. folks. in terms of the conflict zone confronting the powerful. the north atlantic treaty organization nato has just started 70th birthday but it wasn't a happy one my guess this week here at nato headquarters is rose got so much luck to be organizations deputy secretary general who she now acknowledged the great show cause serious splits in its unity conflicts. w.

s o s europe the european i'm using crisis. if it's to have a future it will mean champions young champions. for activists working come. crews are going to. transfer to the american church. do they stand a chance for going to save the european idea thank god i'm here to stand up for european values and contribute to something important that shape. future of europe starts september 2nd on d w.

place . this is g.w. newsline from berlin fire in the streets of hong kong thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators define a police band of the 13th straight week at a mass protest something tonight in the barricades as night falls the hong kong police ratchet up their response also coming up a controversial citizenship list leaves nearly 2000000 people saying listen india's northeast decision on who is official.