Experiencing withdrawal symptoms after
finishing this lengthy well-narrated and well-produced series about the
greatest events of WWII in colour produced last year.
With an enormous amount of survivor testimonials
and British, German, American, Japanese, Russian and Dutch perspectives the new
series outshines the older ‘World War II in HD Colour’ (2009) narrated by
Robert Powell. Those old grainy black and white images of 70-80 years ago are
colorised using the latest techniques, so that old day politicians, Nazi
soldiers and officers, the allies’ infantrymen and pilots, civilians, inmates
at the concentration camps look so real and relatable, as if all that horror is
unfolding right now in front of our eyes. We are reminded not just by narration
but also by these very images that it all has happened and might happen again,
if we slip into traps of crazy but alluring minds, populist, extremely popular,
hatred-spreading politicians. We are reminded of Hitler’s motto before he came
to power: “Let’s make Germany great again!”
Adolf’s overdeveloped sense of vengeance
is so obvious when we see him full of silly arrogance entering the Compiègne
Wagon to sign the Armistice of 22 June 1940 with his disgraced French counterpart.
He had to drag the carriage out of a French museum and place it at the exact
site of the signing of the Armistice of 11 November 1918 with Germany as the
loser of the First World War. He wanted to erase that moment from the memories
by the second signing; this time victoriously. As if there never was a loss; it
had never happened. To make sure that it is fully forgotten he had the wagon
destroyed afterwards. We realise from the dawn of his political life that the
world is dealing with a psycho who enjoys a great deal of popularity in his own
country.
Apart from dehumanising experiments of
the Nazis, the concentration camps and Holocaust, we also learn about
Churchill’s atrocities more vividly; about the British attack on a French
warship in Algerian waters that killed 1200 French nationals, since Paris
changed hands. He regretted it later. It’s terrifying to see in colour what
happened to Dresden’s civilians after the “firestorm” set by the
British/American air forces. It swept off 25000 mostly civilian lives. But it
pales in comparison to Tokyo bombing that killed 100 000 and flattened the
Japanese capital in a couple of hours of the most destructive bombing so far;
until Hiroshima tragedy overshadows all other atrocities in human history. 70
000 people evaporate in less than a second with tens of thousand more victims
to follow. The same happens with Nagasaki to make the Japanese capitulation
possible... The prelude to these colossal disasters of humanity was the
Japanese surprise strike on Pearl Harbor that killed over 2400 American
servicemen about 4 years earlier...
You might know most of these stories if
you’ve been a good student at history class. However, this well-structured
documentary in colour brings those events to life and shakes you up and saddens
you.
You can feel more profoundly that human race tends to not retrieve lessons from the past.
You can feel more profoundly that human race tends to not retrieve lessons from the past.
