welcome to mosaic. i am tom burke with the roman catholic archdiocese of san francisco. our guest is saver of souls, maker of films, speaking long with won't have any trouble filling the time. dominican father david o arourke. >> thank you for inviting me. >> tell us about your film red terror on the amber coast. >> i ended up in 1999 being

recruited to work there, rebuilding the church after the collapse of the soviet system. i was living in the dominican house right across the street from the old kgb headquarters, i'm a writer and one morning i was out walking, actually i got in early from california, i was dying for some coffee with a 10 hour time difference. i was looking for coffee walked by the building, knew sort of what it was. the sun is up very early that far north. i looked in the window, pulled the door it was unlocked. i walked inside there was a brown door over at the end of the foyer. the building itself is a big czarist, neo- classical building. anyone in history scream at

you? >> indeed. there was nothing there, i went down stairs, saw the door, opened it walked down the stairs and found myself in the old kgb prison which a few years earlier had people in it. for the next two hours, in absolute silence and all alone i walked from cell to cell to cell. the torture rooms, place where they shot people. it was just extraordinary. i am a pretty smart guy, well educated i was asking myself how come i don't know what happened in this country. >> what period of time does your film cover? >> from the hitler stalin packet 1939 to the collapse of the system. who were the players. >> initially soviets and germans dividing eastern europe between them then stalin moving in for a year, year and a half, little by little occupying the

baltic republics, deporting the night of june 13th, 1941, one out of every 100 people in all thecountries in a massive deportation. shortly there after, hitler invaded russia, broke the pact. germans came in for three or four years, end of world war ii. >> what baltic countries? >> lit rain yeah, latvia, estonia. >> how many people died? >> one out of every seven, half a million people all told. >> how did they die? >> starvation, worked to death in the gulag. >> how did we know what was going on? >> we knew what we wanted to

know. it is extraordinary how much was known the soviets were our allies and also there was a real desire on the part of a lot of people in the united states to want to put the best face on stalin. >> where are those countries today? >> they are democratic republics. >> okay so do you have friends over there? >> oh, yeah. >> we will see some of your film. we will take a break and come back. we are here with father o arourke. ♪

♪ ♪ welcome back. today we are here with dominican father david o'rourke. recap for us what we are talking about. what is this film about?

what is captured about humanity? >> what this picture is about, is the soviets use of state sponsored terror as a normal means of government policy, begun with lennon and throughout the entire history of the soviet system used to intimidate people and make sure that anything that the government wanted to do, all government policy would be followed. people were terrified of the government because the government terrorized them. >> done in contemporary times with the rest of the world looking the other way. >> right. >> you made a film about this. was it difficult to do? >> very difficult to do. when i went to lithuania i went with an american's mind set of comfortable, privileged life and going there, and being in a city that was a gorgeous stage

set but it had been destroyed. the capital of lithuania and an example, after mass when the churches opened up again and there weren't many of them able to open, the old folks would come to church, looking at the ground, walk out, never making contact with anyone, and i asked what is going on here and they said if you talk to anyone, in a group of two or three or four outside a state sponsored meeting you go to siberia. >> we will get a taste now father. we will go to the film, red terror on the amber coast. ♪ [ music ]

♪ [ music ] the story of world war ii and the atrocities committed by hitler and the nazis is well known in the west. less well known is how joseph stalin used the war to occupy eastern europe. he imposed a 50 year rule of terror on formerly free nations. days before hitler invaded poland launching world war ii, he and stalin secretly agreed to divide eastern europe between them. stalin took the baltic republics, estonia, latvia,

lithuania and sent moscow trained communistsecret police to seize control to have government together they began to deport tens of thousands ofest tone januarys, lat i have januarys, lithuanians from their homes to the siberian wilderness. >> in the spring of 1941, after the russians came to lithuania, we had left our house and gone into hiding at my uncles farm we were afraid father was going to be arrested. soviets were arresting all the men but on the night of the 13th, my father and brother, reached the farm. later that same night, lithuanian and russian communists came and arrested us all. red army soldiers burst into the farm house they ordered us to be ready to leave in two

hours. mother started to pack some of our things father told her to stop it. they are going to kill us all any way he said. we were convinced they were going to shoot us. we had practically nothing with us. i was in sandala summer dress. i was 11. they put us in a truck and we drove to the railroad station. it was already very crowded. people were upset crying, and then some soldiers grabbed my father and started to drag him away. i was hanging on to him and started screaming i wouldn't let go of him so they beat at us with their rifles and pulled me away then they pushed mother and romas and me toward other cars we were packed in with many women and children. some how i managed to slip out of the car. i wanted to look for my father. i ran along the train. many more people had arrived shouting and looking for their own relatives i was screaming for my father and then from

inside one of the cattle cars packed with men, someone called to me. i stopped and i peeked in through a crack the men inside were crowded together in the summer heat like matches in a books their shirts were off sweat running down their bodies, father managed to geez through to an opening and -- squeeze through to an opening and slipped me his wedding ring through the slats. you will need this. give it to your mother tell romas from now on he has got to take care of the family. then the soldiers grabbed me and dragged me back to the other car. that was the last time i ever saw my father. lithuanians knew people were disappearing but didn't know where they were being taken or what was happening to

them. no one ever expected that the kremlin would begin to destroy lithuania and would use massive arrests, deportation and terror to do it. they began preparing for the deportations in the autumn of 1940. the first thing they did was make a list, a register of all phone shall enemies. the register came to over 350,000 names so called enemies. including their families, that comes to half of lithuania. in 1941, they decided to deport the ones they considered to be the most important enemies. from the night of june 14th, after families were arrested they were brought to the railway station. men were separated and shipped in cattle cars to the gulag, slave labor camps women and children were sent into the wilderness in siberia. these deportations had a

traumatic effect on the country. everyone had someone taken away from them. no one knew what had happened to them. after such massive disruptions in their lives the people were prepared to welcome anyone who would rescue them from this soviet terror. what happened was all planned in moscow after world war ii as soviets returned to lithuania and baltic state it is people who ran the first deportations came back with more schemes for terror in order to finish the restructuring they had started. [ applause ] we are watching clips from red terror on the amber coast we are here with dominican father david o'rourke. father do you still know the people you interviewed far? >> yes, i see them both -- for

that. >> yes, i see them both by design and run into them in the streets. >> are they glad to have their story told? >> yes they are surprised they feel relieved finally people in the west are being told what happened to them. for many years they figured no one knows no one cares. >> you told me off camera evil had no better teacher in that era. who learned from whom? >> hitler learned from stalin. pictures of the cattle car, those are all soviet cars but the soviet insignia on it and this was all worked out before hitler started deporting people. he was not a very imaginative person. they were very thorough god knows but stalin had been doing all this dividing of people into acceptable and unacceptable groups for 20 years for the nazi's, the division was by race, soviets, was social class. >> we will be back on mosaic

a great change is at hand and our task is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all. those who look only to the past or the present, are certain to miss the future. do not pray for easy lives. pray to be stronger men. ask not what your country can do for you. ask what you can do for your country.

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>> my name is tom burke today we are here with dominican father david o'rourke. we are getting tastes of it, clips from it. it is enlightning father want to tell people how to get it, at the website www.do media.org. it is on the now. and also you want people to call pbs and tell them to show it show it show it you are pitching it now to them. >> right. >> all righty. tell us father, you were speaking about it, when you walked into that kgb building, history screamed at you and talked to you, you had not been

in a film house for how long? >> 25 years. hasn't been to a movie theatre in 25 years. >> you are a writer. >> i am a writer. >> this just didn't yell book it yelled movie, picture. >> well, what it yelled to me was photo essay, written essay with pictures and the guy that i am working with,. >> who is. >> father ken gumpert who runs the film and video program, he was working in czechoslovakia at the time he said no, this is too big a story we got the make a documentary. >> tell about the rage. people are like why wasn't it done before that kind of thing. >> there just -- they do say -- they wonder why it wasn't done before but well, we screened it at a heritage foundation in washington a few weeks ago the lithuanian ambassador said

something, the nicest complement he said this is a remarkable movie, honest and trustworthy. >> we are going to see some more footage. where are we going is this. >> the old czarist police headquarters which became a government building when stalin took over they made it the kgb headquarters. >> wow. >> smack isn't the heart of the city it sits on what for 50 years was lenin square. >> this is hate in motion. we are seeing it more, red terror on the amber coast. the first time i was arrested was for participating in the resistance movement. i was part of an under ground organization, we were working with the partisans in western

lithuania. eventually, they identified us and in the spring of 1948, i was arrested and convicted of anti soviet activity. i received 25 years which i served in different slave labor camps gathered throughout russia. >> when you were arrested did you have any lawyer with you or anyone on your side? >> i was 17 the first time they arrested me by the time of my second arrest i was 29, married with a baby on the way. kgb came on christmas eve and took me to their prison. russian commander who interrogated me told me our struggle was pointless. 35,000 lithuanians have already lost their lives, give up this

fight. >> on august 27th, 1974, 14 agents forced their way into my apartment. during those times, the number of under ground publications were being produced and i was in the process of typing one of them. i had just finished typing 6 pages, they searched and found them. and i was arrested and incarcerated in a kgb prison. for 9 months they interrogated me. the kgbs worse torture consisted of taking a healthy person and locking them up in a psychiatric hospital and give them electric shock treatments. it didn't take long for these treatments to destroy the body. before my arrest my neighbor a

poet was locked up in a psychiatric hospital. all of them were run by the kgb they used e lek tree shock therapy on him and chemical treatments. after four months his wife was allowed to visit him she told me he could no longer speak had put on 90 pounds, and one by one his liver and kidneys and other organs began to collapse. this kind of torture ends in a slow, terrible death. >> wow. red terror on the amber coast. father david o'rourke. dominican father, producer of this film we are not talking about people talking about history we are talking about people who are part of history 1974, i was alive i was 23 years old. >> i was already a priest. >> this is going on, and you says the not over yet. >> no, one of the major

networks, perhaps yours a year ago had an interview with a soviet, a russian newsroom who had spent 6 months in a psychiatric hospital in moscow last year and was a physical wreck. his body, memory, ability to speak were destroyed they have started it again. >> we will take a break and be back ,,,, today is a special day. today, we gather as a nation

and as an international community to recognize the selfless decision of one of the most influential women of our time. she's been recognized by religious figures, and politicians around the world. to us, she's just rachael, but to the rest of the world she's the woman who, after having one too many drinks, chose not to drive home buzzed. here today to honor rachael is the family whose lives she spared.

welcome back to mosaic. i am tom burke. we are here with dominican father david o rock. there is a website you can -- oh work. there is a website you can get the picture. i have been remiss you wrote a book 40 years of priesthood. >> well, when i was in lithuania, living in the middle of history you start making sense of life and then you start making a sense of your own life i figured, i will

write a memoir and did. >> you are not only a picture maker, there is the book you can also get that at the website, and you -- you are also a saver of souls, a pastor in point richmond just across the bay here. what do your parishioners think of this? >> well, fiction of all i think they are glad -- first of all i think they are glad i am there, i am the gardener, and cook, good cook as well. they are proud they have an old man who is still doing things. >> and tell us about your organization? the projects? the tatra project? >> it is an information network i set up, with some friends it is a california public benefit corporation whose purpose is to try to make the information that is surfacing now, the good studies, books, about life under the soviets, available and it is just an information source. >> is there a link to that?

>> no, it has its own tatra project.org. >> mountains in poland. >> there you go. >> what has this done for you making the film? >> been the most wonderful adventure in my life. when you have had the privileged life i have had, life coming toward the end years it is good to spend time doing something for people who have been in the wrong place and wrong time. >> tell us so far, what can we do to help over there? keep this from happening? >> learn what happened. don't write it off, and remember that those -- what happened to those people is worth knowing about because they are worth something. i think they had the feeling, we don't count. what you do is learn everyone counts. >> are you on a hate list over there? >> well, i never went to st. petersburg which i regret it was a lovely city but i wouldn't go there now i tell

you that. >> they know what you look like and where you live. father, one irish man to another it has been a pleasure. >> thank you. >> thanks a lot. thank you for joining us on mosaic. and i love it ♪

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