♪ damien: hello and welcome to "focus on europe." i'm damien mcguinness. great you could join us today. europe right now is having to deal with numerous problems, such as the refugee crisis, that are having a direct impact on the lives of ordinary people. but many europeans are also still dealing with painful memories of the past. 70 years have gone by since nazi soldiers shot 700 men and boys in the greek town of kalavryta. some of their relatives want to move on. others though are calling for compensation, such as this man, who says germany should be held responsible.

but more of that later in the programme. the story of lorenzo. first, an italian writer who is traumatised by memories of a more recent event, something that happened 15 years ago. during a g8 summit, being held in the italian city of genoa, lorenzo was one of hundreds of people hurt in violent clashes between police and anti-globalisation protestors. peaceful demonstrators, like lorenzo, were beaten brutally by police. and although the wounds may have healed, in many cases the mental trauma is still very much there. >> lorenzo guadagnucci has always been passionate about the written word. he's an author and journalist, and he's critical of globalisation. 15 years ago, his life was turned up side down. >> i was subjected to brutal violence and i was afraid i'd , die. the experience changed my life. it was like torture. i will never forget the feeling.

>> guadagnucci recalls the video night on july 22, during 2001 the g8 summit in genoa. that night, the headquarters of globalisation protestors were stormed by police. italian newspapers later reported beatings, and scenes resembling a dictatorship. >> they were relentless. i tried shielding my head with my arms and legs. >> these acts of violence were preceded by days of rioting. angry protestors from all over europe had taken to the streets in genoa and totally overwhelmed the italian police. a 23-year-old italian was shot in the head by a policeman. and killed. when police stormed the protestors' headquarters, guadagnucci was so badly beaten

that he had to be hospitalised. he suffered multiple burns from a police taser. >> we were trapped, there was no escape. the police were in total control. nothing justifies their extreme violence. many protestors suffered permanent injuries. >> guadagnucci took the issue to court, along with more than a hundred other victims. and, after all those years, he won. none of the policemen can be charged for their acts of violence because of the statute of limitation. and italy's interior ministry is taking a soft stance. >> one of the main offenders was given just a 50 euro fine to pay to his own department. despite being convicted of committing torture and bodily harm. >> lawyer tambuscio went to the

european court of human rights. the judges condemned the excessive force displayed by italian police. and demanded that the italian state pass a law against abuse and torture. but gianni tonelli from the italian police union says that such laws already exist. he he agrees that his colleagues used excessive force, but says not every officer from back then should still be held under suspicion. >> it's not the police's fault that our justice system works so slowly. nobody in the police force wants to evade justice. but you can't blame the accused if the courts don't deliver sentences in time. >> tonelli also rejects claims that no disciplinary action was taken against the police officers who were in genoa in 2001.

>> the accused were temporarily suspended from duty. for some, this meant the end of their careers. everything was done according to protocol. >> today, some of those who sustained injuries at the g8 summit will be awarded financial compensation of 45,000 euros. the italian authorities want to pay their way out of further trials. but guadagnucci, like many others, won't play along. >> does italy take the european convention for human rights seriously? if all we get after the ruling from the european court of human rights is money, then this is a legitimate question. >> today, guadagnucci lives in the hills of florence. he still feels bitter that his country failed to enforce the european legal principles against violent abuse and torture.

damien: they start their journey dreaming of peace and freedom. but they end up finding danger and poverty, trapped in a foreign country. that's the experience of many refugees fleeing to europe. the problem is that they are often so desperate to escape war and persecution, that they pay people traffickers to be smuggled into europe illegally. and it has become big business. so who are the smugglers? , to answer that question, our reporters have been investigating one of the biggest, and most lucrative smuggling routes, from eritrea, across northern africa, the mediterranean and southern europe, to get here to germany. >> it is the end of a tortuous journey. hundreds of refgees, mainly from the east african country of eritrea, have wound up in housing among the brothels and sex clubs around frankfurt's central train station. from libya, they made the perilous journey across the mediterranean to get to europe.

many paid thousands of euros to unscrupulous people smugglers for the journey through the desert and then the boat trip to , italy. >> my family paid for the whole trip from ethiopia to italy. it must have cost between 6000 and 7000 euros. >> some migrants were sold to other bands of human traffickers en route. these new owners demanded more money. >> a people smuggler named walid took charge of us. then we had to pay him off before he'd let us get on the boats that took us out to sea. >> their goal, to reach sicily. since 2014, some 10,000 people have drowned in similar attempts. in the sicilian capital, palermo, the anti-mafia pool is investigating the human trafficking the pool was founded by murdered

anti-mafia prosecutors giovanni falcone and paolo borsellino. investigators know the heads of the operation are based in libya, and their network reaches far beyond europe's shores. >> they treat these people as less than animals. there are many cases of rape of women, being beaten, and of migrants being killed, especially on the route through the desert. then to put all of them in these vessels is unbelievable to think about. small boats that we don't use to go fishing. >> we're given an exclusive look into the files of the case. they say that 71 people suspected of belonging to the people smuggling network have been arrested. most were caught in italy, but were seeking asylum in germany. three 2:11 a special unit of the italian police listened in on more than 40,000 phone conversations, between traffickers and refugees, but also between the

traffickers themselves. this enabled investigators to uncover the people smuggling ring. it's headed by this man, ermias ghermay from ethiopia. he's thought to have earned around a hundred million euros from the trade of migrants in just a few years. he sets boats off across the mediterranean, assuming that the refugees will be rescued by ships from the eu. the overfilled boats aren't seaworthy enough to make it to sicily on their own. this cynical practice often has deadly consequences. >> when they arrive in sicily , they also pay for this last part of the trip, or their relatives, families, friends in germany, london, or stockholm, pay for them via middlemen. so they receive support for the , last trip. >> we move on to rome, where the police arrested two eritrean leaders of the people smuggling

ring. ey stored around 550,000 euros in cash at a perfume shop near the train station. the money was seized and the shop was shut down. next stop, milan. here many call the via palazzi , little africa. migrants can find and pay people smugglers to arrange the next leg of their journey to germany. our informer is equipped with a hidden camera. together with a refugee he meets eritrean human trafficker tesfargergis abraham, alias , tesfin. >> i need your advice and assistance so we can get away from here. i've heard you help people reach their goal. >> how much to get to germany? >> it costs 550 euros to get to germany. >> do you offer a garantee? >> yes. >> would you say it is a big risk? >> sometimes yes, sometimes no.

of the 550 euros, 150 are for the document, 50 for the ticket, and the rest goes to the counterfeiters and those who organize the trip. >> the final goal of many eritreans is to reach frankfurt. the largest eritrean community in germany lives in and around frankfurt. these two women survived the perilous journey. simret abraham gave birth to her young daughter in italy, while still on the run. an ordeal she wouldn't want to repeat. >> never again. we fled because things were so bad for us in our homeland. but what we experienced during our trip was so awful that i wouldn't do it again. >> there are indications that members of the people-smuggling ring are posing as refugees and living in the frankfurt area. so far they've managed to avoid , detection by german

authorities. so, for the human traffickers, it's business as usual. damien: living here in germany, i'm always struck by how the crimes of the nazis during world war ii, are more than just historical facts. the determination not to allow such atrocities to happen again, is very much a part of modern german political culture. but some europeans say germany still hasn't done enough to make up for the crimes of the past. particularly in greece, where the nazis committed terrible atrocities. to find out more, we've been to meet some of those elderly greeks who still remember and still mourn what the nazis did to their relatives. >> kalavryta is a small town in the mountains of the northern peloponnese. it's often called the town of widows, because on this hill nearby, nearly all of the men and boys aged 13 and older were murdered by nazi soldiers in december 1943. spirous dimopoulos was 8 then.

he heard the shooting, ran to the hill, and found his father's body. >> i went alone, without my mother. i saw everything. while the corpses, 600 or women 700. came with bedspreads, and laid the bodies of their husbands on them, and then dragged them down the hill to the cemetery. >> spiros dimopoulos remembers the shallow grave dug for his father. the trauma remains with him to this day. in the 1950's, he and about 30 other youngsters from kalavryta were invited to west germany for job training, a gesture of reconciliation by the country that perpetrated numerous massacres in greece. but for dimopoulos, that didn't go far enough. he wants germany to pay compensation.

>> the fear i felt, the fear i endured, who will compensate me for that? i can't sleep at night. it's been going on for years and years. i have lost 10 years of sleep. who's to blame? who could it be, the germans? it's quite possible. >> almost everyone in kalavryta is on the search for their past. on that december day 73 years ago, alexandra restemi's brother and father were killed. she was 18 and the oldest of four children. >> my father came to kalavryta to fetch his son, but the germans seized him. and then they killed both of them. >> alexandra restemi is 91. she's never gotten over what happened. kalavryta's municipal museum tells the story of the area under italian and then german occupation. in an act of revenge for the

killing of about 80 german soldiers by local partisans, nazi troops killed greek civilians, nearly all the men and boys of kalavryta. for alexandra restemi, the military background is irrelevant. it's the horrible memories that haunt her. she can hardly bear to look at the photograph of her father. according to her niece, decades passed before she spoke about the massacre. >> after some years, when we asked her about what happened, then she started saying the story. and then really slowly she started saying things about what happened back then. >> alexandra restemi, her mother and sisters stayed in kalavryta, as did most of the bereaved women. but she does not express bitterness. >> we should not feel hate. what happened, happened. of course, they should never have been allowed to kill so many people.

>> this is the memorial to the victims of the massacre. here only a few are willing to , forgive and forget. most want germany to do more to compensate the victims' families. damien: painful memories in greece of nazi war crimes. so, what do you think? should modern-day germany pay reparations? i'd be really interested to know your thoughts. drop me a line on twitter, email or facebook. , thanks to all of you who got in touch about a similar story recently, about whether the austrian house where adolf hitler was born should be destroyed. walter ty suggests, that it should be turned into an anti-fascist museum. do keep those comments coming. back in my home country of britain, the big issue we're all arguing about is what sort of relationship the eu should have with the uk once it's no longer a member. you'll remember that in june british voters opted to leave the eu in a referendum. the debate was heated and at times divisive. i know families who have fallen out with each other over the issue.

but what does leaving actually mean? norway for example is not in the eu, but has extremely close trade ties. so would norway, be a good model for the uk? probably not, say norwegians themselves. >> the owner of this field is glad his country's not in the eu. he's a leading politician here and may even head the government , some day. right now, he's weeding his crop. >> this is wheat. one square meter of wheat from this field makes one loaf of norwegian bread. that works out to 120,000 loaves growing here. that's a lot for norway, but not enough to compete in the eu. that's according to agrarian centrist politician vedum. >> in norway it's our goal to

, use all the land from the finnish border to the southern tip. all resources should be available to the people. i'm sure that's one of the reasons why norway voted against joining the eu in the 1994 referendum. the state subsidizes farmers to grow crops in smaller fields, in the mountains or along fjords. >> these quintessential norwegian cows should not have to compete with eu cattle. that's why agriculture and fishing norway's own domestic , production are excluded from , the european economic area. tariffs imposed to protect local goods boost the price of food items like this dutch cheese on the farmers' market in oslo. >> the farmers have a good foot in the government, as i understand, to raise taxes and customer costs for foreign cheeses to protect their own cheeses. that's basically what it is. >> but having enough money helps.

norway can well afford the norwegian model, thanks to revenues from north-sea oil. norway's special agreement on access to the european union market comes at a price which norway pays much as if it were an eumember. a voice in eu policy would only come with norway's membership. and polls show that over 70% of people here would still vote against it for many of the same reasons the british did. >> there was a big discussion about social insurance tourism. one aspect is that workers from, say eastern europe, could ush out norwegian workers, because they're cheaper. the norwegian unions took action. now, foreign employees have to work under conditions that are standard here. this way, no two-class system can develop, and labor conditions won't deteriorate here. >> migration is a topic of

debate in norway, too. though less heated as in the eu, it's about migration from the eu as well as from elsewhere. according to the european single market agreement, any eu citizen ceded too much power to brussels. >> i don't think great britain wants a similar agreement to our eos agreement. >> the british may feel at home with norwegian weather, but with the norwegian model probably not , as much. damien: now a lot of people i , know where i live in berlin, would like to buy their own apartment.

which is actually quite unusual in germany. traditionally germans tend to , rent rather than buy homes in cities. but it's all because of low interest rates. and it's leading to rapidly rising property prices. just across the border in the czech republic though, for the same cost as a flat, you can buy a fairy-tale castle. although it might need a fair bit of fixing up. >> this mansion in the country just outside prague can be had for a mere 200,000 euros. but there's a catch. >> we're here in a typical czech chateau. one strong gust would blow the whole thing down. all that's left of the roof is pieces. but there are still some traces of the time when it was a luxury estate belonging to an aristocratic family. >> natalia makovik specializes in selling manor houses. she estimates that the new owners would have to invest as

much as euros in this one to one million restore it to its former glory. it's no exception in the czech republic. a good 90% of these stately homes are in an equally deplorable condition, she says. and very few czech home buyers have the money to save the aging structures. >> if we don't succeed in bringing in serious investors within the next 10 years, especially from abroad, a great many of the czech manor houses will be completely lost. >> this estate about a hundred kilometers east of prague is on the market. galina befort and katharina michaelis, russian citizens residing in southern germany, have come to see it. they're looking for a chateau in the czech republic for a 'social project'. but they don't go into specifics. >> i spotted it a month or two

ago on your facebook page and did some research on the internet. and i showed it to my partner and said, katharina, look at this. it's the palace of my dreams. >> they've come a long way to find out the reality behind their dreams, a 600,000-euro price tag, plus another estimated million for the 1.5 restoration rather steep. >> as you can see, much of the ceiling is still well-preserved. the missing pieces can all be faithfully reconstructed to match the originals. >> but many czechs aren't so happy to see their heritage being sold off one piece at a time. most czech property-owners just don't have the means to keep up these stately homes, so they're offered to solvent buyers from abroad.

in spite of the rouble and euro crises, russians are the most frequent customers. that doesn't sit well with many of the local residents especially in rural areas. >> before you know it, we'll have gambling dens and the mafia here. >> it used to be like a park where you could take a nice walk. now, there's a wall here. nobody's allowed on the property any more. >> the potential investors can't understand such complaints. >> it's not like we're coming here with nothing. we're hoping to invest and help to improve the infrastructure, as well. the project will fill the place with life. we'll have to hire people. we'll be creating jobs. >> natalia makovik agrees. she says it's important to preserve the old estates for future generations.

>> the great danger is that society will fail to maintain its cultural legacy. it stands by and watches these grand houses the symbol of the , whole country just crumble and , decay and die. >> natalia is working to prevent that, not just for professional reasons, but out of passion, too. damien: well that's all for this week. thanks very much for watching. remember do feel free to get in touch with us anytime with your thoughts and comments. but for now it's goodbye from me, and the whole team here. and do join us next week for more personal stories from all over europe. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

steves: since the romantic era in the 19th century, luzern has been a regular stop on the grand tour route of europe. [ whistle blows ] its inviting lakefront now includes a modern concert hall, which incorporates the lake into its design. the old town, with a pair of picture-perfect wooden bridges, straddles the reuss river, where it tumbles out of lake luzern. the bridge was built at an angle in the 14th century to connect the town's medieval fortifications. today, it serves strollers, rather than soldiers,

as a peaceful way to connect two sides of town. many are oblivious to the fascinating art just overhead. under the rafters hang about 100 colorful 17th-century paintings showing scenes from luzern and its history. this legendary giant dates to the middle ages, when locals discovered mammoth bones, which they mistakenly thought were the bones of a human giant. here's luzern in about 1400, the bridge already part of the city fortifications. and luzern looked like this in 1630. luzern is responsible for controlling the lake level. by regulating the flow of water out of its lake, the city prevents the flooding of lakeside villages when the snow melts. in the mid-19th century, the city devised and built this extendable dam. by adding and taking away these wooden slats, they could control the level of the lake. swans are a fixture on the river today.

locals say they arrived in the 17th century as a gift from the french king, louis xiv, in appreciation for the protection his swiss guards gave him. switzerland has a long history of providing strong and loyal warriors to foreign powers. the city's famous lion monument recalls the heroism of more swiss mercenaries. the mighty lion rests his paws on a french shield. tears stream down his cheeks. the broken-off end of a spear is slowly killing the noble beast. the sad lion is a memorial to over 700 swiss mercenaries who were killed, defending marie antoinette and louis xvi during the french revolution. the people of luzern take full advantage of their delightful river with a variety of cafes and restaurants along its banks. this evening, we're enjoying the setting as much as the food. i'm having the local pork. my producer, simon,

is having eel, fresh from the river. with a picturesque setting like this, the dining experience makes for a wonderful memory.