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back you're watching r t these are the week's top stories russia mourns forty six victims of this plane crash in the northwest of the country the aircraft caught fire after a crash landing at a major road just a kilometer from its destination while air and poor weather conditions are believed to be the main causes of the tragedy. levy has seen a surge in the number of civilian casualties from nato airstrikes in the country where the latest bombing reportedly killing fifteen leading officials say over eight hundred civilians have died since the operation began in march. and the demands for greece to impose tougher budget cuts to secure a fresh bailout sparked mass protests at home and outrage and yet another rescue plan within the block that's made predictions that the euro is on the brink of collapse. next we explore the past and present of the place where one of the most

bitter battles of the second world war two plays. brest fortress today it's on the territory of the sovereign republic of belarus formerly the soviet republic of belarus a fortress was once the westernmost outpost of the soviet empire each day schoolchildren in the town of brest take part in a ceremony by a local monument to commemorate what happened there. on june twenty second one hundred forty one german fascist forces invaded the soviet union without a declaration of war the defenders of the breast fortress found themselves in a dead end situation it is here that the myth about the invincibility of the german army was broken after the end of the war and the rest fortress as a name became synonymous to perseverance courage and belief in victory for years to come.

the early hours of june twenty second nineteen forty one german artillery unleashes a massive barrage from the breast garrisoned. german warplanes some ultimately dropped hundreds of bombs on the fortress soon after infantry assault groups launched the initial ground attack. is one of the officers in charge of the fortress defenses. is dodger aisa often visits the monument to her father on the outskirts of rest. shows what's he look like me at the even today i guess nervous when i come here what's failing me i see those events in my mind's eye as if they were yesterday. today children play war in the old case me but in the first days of the real war

the unit under the command of lead. was holding out in one of them within two days the defenders had exhausted their ammunition. daughter saw the germans trying to capture her father. of the roof suddenly there was a noise it seemed that the head. he had jumped on to the ratings and plunged into the river by the germans began firing i asked him present death in captivity he shouted those were the last words he a trysts to his soul. in accordance with their plan to attack the soviet union the germans had amassed three armies close to the border among these army group center was the most powerful its mission was to encircle and destroy soviet troops and belorussia and move on to moscow vyas money. the german strategy relied on surprise attack to demoralize the adversary from the opening second.

the sound of the explosions was deafening before that i had seen war only in films . i thought it was an earthquake i just couldn't believe there was a war going on. the first hours of june twenty second one thousand forty one. a member of the military band asleep in his barracks on the second floor abreast fortress. within minutes of the attack bullets and shells fragments and riddled the barracks walls. i remember dust all over the place. well. i could barely breathe iraq myself in a blanket but almost literally then i heard an order from your rifles and get downstairs. i barely had time to pull all my clothes before rushing down stairs

with my platoon. only a few hours later the german plan to move through the russian territory had. every week covered from the initial shock. offered stubborn resistance despite being numbered nearly two to one by their attackers. one of our rifle regiments counterattacked the german. tried to roll back to the gates. they were met with a shower of bullets there are too. many of the fastest stuff. back was born in munich on june twenty second one thousand nine hundred one he was among the german troops who entered the russia. shortly before that he had been

called up from high school and sent to the eastern front to serve in a panzer unit. huge force terrifying wave of german artillery from all sides. into russian territory and when they were done we knew we had to go in. the tank. but i saw the first horribly injured german soldiers and it wasn't just me we all knew what would happen and it was terrible. the border between. follows the same line along which. deployed. it was they who bore the brunt of the nazi invasion for several days small arms were the only weapons the border guards can nevertheless they held up the advance of german troops and tanks for some time. to organize.

yes can come on the german command allowed thirty minutes for the destruction of the frontier posts but some held out from one to seven days repulsing one attack after another. these pillboxes on the border were built shortly before the war but they were never used supplies and ammunition for the machine guns had been scheduled to arrive the day after the nats invasion of soviet territory. was in command of one of the pill boxes he was officer on duty the day before the start of the war this picture shows or so i would encourage his friend nikolai a fellow servicemen returning from a night of dancing in breastplate on june twenty first. the news. vladimir. i have something terrible to tell you. his thoughts. when i was there my girlfriend told me. that

a war would break out to morrow she was four in the morning. on this nine hundred thirty nine two years before the start of the war. between the soviet union and germany have become noticeably warmer foreign ministers of the two states mullet of an ribbentrop sign a non-aggression pact. in september one nine hundred thirty nine german troops invaded poland. this is german commander on his tanks capture the breast fortress at that time part of polish territory. this is rare footage joint so that in german military parades in accordance with the secret deal to divide the german military hands breast over to soviet troops in less than two years time on will again launch an assault on breast

fortress fighting against the same troops. in the interim dispenser units will have gained valuable experience in successful offensive operations in europe. and. ashore and we have the modern technology to communicate between the time. headphones. and that allowed us to react small quickly. the russian tanks couldn't communicate with each other and whereas we could for example withdraw and then attack from the sites. june twenty fourth one of the most tragic days for the defenders of the fortress during another attempted assault used russian officers wife and children as a human shield on this bridge.

they told us women and children to lie down on the bridge close to want to be pieces. can you imagine for a five guns firing it's a time it can shatter your brain. my son slava had one of his it. now he can't hear anything it's all in that's here yes i saw my daughter's hand nina turning gray one after another. she was only a little kid. alexander was only six years old in one thousand nine hundred forty one he and his parents were living in brest fortress he spent two days in the so-called powder magazine at the start of the war he was wounded and lost his entire family. at all since and the gravity of the situation but. who. was

standing in this new huge. that's when we got scared over who. and when i was told my mother and sister killed while sitting right here. i took myself away as far as i cooled on the feet of those who were in the cellar with. in essence the entire territory of the fortress. is a monument to the victims of the wars of first days known as building houses a museum. at its center a famous exhibit an alarm clock that stopped ticking as soon as the war began. another exhibit is dedicated to the children of red army commanders who fought in the fortress many of them were murdered by s.s. task forces in one thousand nine hundred two a year after german troops attacked the soviet union. forces in the awesome of one nine hundred forty two the fascists massacred fifty four children at an orphanage

me abreast their parents had already died in the war. while her french army command was the children's teacher she and the children the forced out of the orphanage and all of them. a vigil of commemoration and sorrow takes place each year in the breast fortress on the night of june twenty first candles are lit in the embers yours veterans come here from all over the former soviet union a slide show features pictures of the red army commanding officers who took part in the defense of breast fortress after the ceremony border guard soldiers float trees in the western movie river to commemorate the people whose lives were cut short in breast fortress in june one thousand nine hundred one the names of many of them are still unknown.

seventy six hours of intense fighting. six thousand desert of beach front battlefields several kilometers long. and now there is only one person who cares. to see we are surrounded by garbage everywhere but also there are . on this beach which of course isn't. most appropriate sig signification a symbol of everything that's wrong with our goddamn government. but to a chair we were so many guys died. a new battle is going on. will the history be protected. return to terra what julian cooper story on our t.v. .

which brightened moon and sun moon from finest impressions. screens ta-ta tea. room. june twenty second. eight hours after the german attack most of the surviving defenders of the breast fortress moved into cellars under the barracks. and his comrades spent about three days there back in the nineteenth century the cellars withstood direct hits in the aerial bombardment. input of the year when there was a hospital for the wounded here but while the makeshift mortuary was over there at the end of the corners or more the german command demanded that the defenders lay

down their arms and surrender when they turned down the ultimatum german assault groups used flame throwers to flush them out. beach the heat was so intense that even bricks began to melt. the fighters continued their resistance as they shifted from one place to another. this is how the german war correspondents portrayed the event but cameramen were unable to film an emerging from sellers with their hands raised as a sign of surrender none of them did back. this russian surrender. that will let you live don't be afraid. when some of the spotted the loudspeaker they hit it with the machine. is. that was the end of the propaganda that's.

a shortage of water was the biggest problem the defenders faced. the western river was nearby but german troops were in control of all approaches to it still another fighters managed to reach the river several times under the cover of darkness. we were sometimes crawling sometimes running. trying to make no noise we had to do with the germans fired flares all the time they certainly would have opened fire if they. know days mining engineers or wartime ammunition in the western. one of the latest finds is a german two hundred ten millimeter artillery shell. is just as dangerous today as it was sixty eight years ago. slowly slowly turn it over.

to shell could go off at any moment if it's not handled properly if it does judging by its size it will obliterate everything within a radius of about five hundred meters. on the. diver's pick up three to ten objects relating to the first days of the war. fortress was long considered impenetrable the outer walls were. in effect. all the fortresses gates were continuously under artillery and machine gun fire they were also blocked by attacking enemy troops as a result fewer than half of the men who were here on june twenty second were able to leave the fortress and protect the border.

on. the german plan to seize soviet territory. but most of the soviet leaders as hitler would target britain first before unleashing any attack on the school teacher. but a. and was already aware of the. february. the problem was that the germans. initially was. trying to kill. where the first assault was launched actually consisted of several. islands around. the eastern seaboard offered the most resistance. most of the fortress

defenders still expected reinforcements to the end they did know they were already well behind enemy lines germans has seized the town of brest within hours. abreast residents lived under occupation for nearly three years when the germans came she was told she was not. a second person. that. even public tell this in hospitals could not be used by everybody johns had decent food this were not so lucky. if they don't name every way you could see a sign saying. only oh. no and it's already during the first days of the war many people in breast and its environs started sneaking out of town. in the forests they formed groups of guerrilla warfare. learn new skills those. here in the forest in june one thousand nine hundred. children and women.

and if all of us lived here. all of us were helping each of. the partisans stayed in the forests for three. in the daytime they carried out reconnaissance and secret monitoring of the enemy. in the evening they were engaged in special operations. forces use this railway to bring military hardware to the front line. the german reconnaissance padi's to check the tracks but that didn't help. as the train came closer we singled out the military equipment to be. quick and the wagon was no more. than the german forty fifth division.

after the assault on the. german troops and already swept across poland. and much of europe. they encountered the most ferocious today. weapons with the best in the world. we were the strongest anyway. and we believed it. successes in western europe and in france but it was far from the truth. these for so with memorials commemorate fighters whose bodies have been recovered by search parties. searching for missing soldiers is a long and complicated process. first the head of a search group asks locals where exactly the fighting took place. what with there

are also. many of our fighters particularly the partisans died in this home but i just. see the dead lying in groups of ten or twelve they never made it out of the forest. then a group of volunteers sets out on an expedition they comb the site meter after meter. weapons and other objects made of metal. underground. this is a soviet helmet it was a direct hit. you can see where the shot entered and exited. the base. as. these are small cases containing all

important papers they carry the information that will help identify the soldier his age rank and the name of town or village where he was called up. it just so happens that we're from the same place as the dead soldier we're going to look for his relatives now one more fallen soldier has a name. if papers identifying the dead are found they are sent to officials us state our cause each year as more names to the list of breast fortress defenders. this is the personal record of one of the fighters still. his identity was verified just a few years ago. no his name is inscribed on the memorial wall in the central alley of brest fortress it is replaced another place saying unknown soldier . he's nice is his only surviving relative just recently did she learn of her

uncle's fate. that people want to at least see the grief of somebody they loved least flourescent and think about that person there is nothing more painful than the missing so when my uncle's name was finally written on the memorial plate it was a very touching moment for my family. the last defenders of breast fortress german attacks for nearly a month in the one nine hundred sixty s. the museum received a fragment of the inner wall of one of the case mates of the eastern for an inscription discovered on it dates from july twentieth one thousand nine hundred forty one scribbled with a knife and said. i'm dying but i'm not surrendering. nobody surrendered in their own accord in the way all of those captured people's. will run able to use their weapons. but nobody raised their hands before to the

death to the last minute. hitler and mussolini arrived in august one thousand nine hundred one for a visit to brest fortress despite official reports claiming that there were no surviving defenders on president. security precautions were put in place. on the eve of the top level visit to german soldiers patrolling an area near the fortress had disappeared. hitler and mussolini entered the fortress through a bridge that used to be right here what hitler saw here is known to have made a strong impression on him but even took a stone lying amongst the ruins. after the fall of berlin the stone was found in hitler's office at the chancellor of the third reich. church fortress. there are traces of shells on the walls and inside. it was

from here that the defenders of breast fortress launched their first counterattack . scores of german and soviet soldiers died here. the time has come for mutual forgiveness. we must live in peace. it's not that we should forget the past it must not be forgotten. we might forgive. children now play a fortress where military hardware dating back to the one nine hundred forty s. is on display they knew about that war only from books and films. on holidays veterans told tourists about the war. and other survivors of the first battles in the fortress regard these rooms as the cornerstone of their faith in the ultimate victory troops'. comrades lived to see that victory in one thousand

nine hundred five nearly four years after those tragic events fortress.