The story of the Jewish people in the twentieth century
is one of disaster and triumph.
Kristallnacht begins the descent into the abyss of the Holocaust.
And in less than a decade,
two thousand years of exile ends with the birth of the State of Israel.
This is a dramatisation of events as they happened on two days that shook the world.
It is November the ninth, 1938.
In California,
Walt Disney has wowed the world with the first ever feature-length cartoon:
Snow White.
In New York, Orson Wells is about to bring Martians to America
in a dramatic radio broadcast,
while in China,
a real invasion is underway by Japanese imperial forces.
And in Germany, Adolf Hitler is about to sit down to dinner.
It's seven o'clock in the evening.
Tonight is one of the highlights of the Nazi calendar:
The anniversary of Hitler's first attempt to seize power here in Munich,
fifteen years ago.
It's a chance to catch up with old comrades
from the early days of the struggle.
And, for the upper ranks,
a night to put aside their petty rivalries and relax.
But behind the smiles there is tension.
Josef Goebbels is Reichminister for propaganda.
So far, in the eyes of the Fuhrer, he's been a man of limited value.
His career is very much on the line.
But tonight all that will change.
He will prove that he too is a man of action.
A telegram arrives for the Fuhrer:
News important enough to interrupt the state occasion.
For Goebbels, it is a gift from the heavens.
This one piece of news will make his career.
If he can persuade the Fuhrer to let him take charge of the evening.
Hitler traditionally makes a speech.
Goebbels asks to make it instead.
It's an incredible demand,
given the importance of the occasion but Goebbels knows that this is his moment:
That he must seize it.
Hitler finally gives way and leaves the party early.
The telegram concerns a man who,
less than a week ago,
no one had even heard of.
At five that afternoon,
Ernst Fomrat,
third secretary to the German ambassador in paris, is pronounced dead.
He has been shot and the man who pulled the trigger,
seventeen year old Herschel Grynszpan is a Jew.
For this single act,
the Jews will be made to pay a millionfold with their homes and businesses,
with their freedom and with their lives.
1938 is the fifth year of Hitler's National Socialist regime.
For five years,
Jews have been blamed for every economic failure of the nation and,
gradually, the legal noose has closed around their necks.
They are barred from most professions and their shops and businesses are boycotted.
Their books have been burned and they are excluded from the arts.
Even their children are publicly shunned, and reviled.
Many wonder how much worse it can get.
They will soon found out.
In Munich, Goebbels is about to light the touchpaper to the Holocaust.
He begins on a familiar theme:
Attacking the Jew as a threat to the peace and security of the Reich.
He then breaks the news of Fomrats death.
It is the perfect platform on which to build his case for revenge:
Revenge for an act in which he says all the world's Jews must share the guilt.
Seven hundred kilometres north of Munich lies the town of Krefeld.
It has a large and prosperous Jewish community including
Oscar Gompetz and his family.
A reasonably successful travelling salesman,
Gompetz is just one of five hundred thousand Jews in the Reich.
They are all about to become unwitting players in a drama
that will change the world.
Seventy kilometres south of Munich,
across the Austrian border, lies Innsbruck.
Even here, the tiny Jewish community will feel the Nazi's wrath.
Richard Berger arrives home from work.
An engineer and trade union leader,
Berger is also president of the Jewish community.
Six months ago, Austria was absorbed into the German Reich
and now he lives under Nazi law.
He organised his workers against the union with Germany.
Now Berger is a marked man.
Nazism is no longer confined to Germany.
As well as enjoying a new and welcoming home in Austria,
the Reich has recently swallowed
Czechoslovakia and parts of western poland.
The machinery is in place to turn Goebbels' poisoned words
into direct action across half the continent.
The only questions that remain: How far dare he go?
And how far will the people follow?
The party bosses are roused to action.
It's one-twenty a.m. SS Obergruppenfuhrer,
Richard Heydrich distils the essence of Goebbels'
speech into a series of direct orders...
To be sent to all police and SS units across the Reich,
it's a blueprint for ethnic cleansing.
Demonstrations against Jews are expected and must not be prevented.
Jewish property may be destroyed but not looted.
Absolute protection must be provided to non-Jewish property.
As many Jews as possible for now only healthy males are to be arrested.
All concentration camps are to be alerted to accommodate them.
The orders are carefully worded to suggest
a containing role for the police in the face of spontaneous public anger.
Meanwhile, another set of orders is given over the phone.
And, throughout the Reich,
gangs of young men are let loose in the night
with a licence to terrorise Jews and destroy their property.
But for some, this does not go nearly far enough.
By tradition,
new SS recruits are sworn in tonight in a mass ritual across the nation.
Here in Innsbruck, as elsewhere,
they will soon get the chance to prove their allegiance
to the Fuhrer by shedding blood.
SS Oberfuhrer, Hans Von Fritzsche has scores to settle.
A number of senior of SS are ordered to report in civilian clothes,
among them Gerhard Lousicher a twenty-three year old student.
Lousicher has been drinking all night, celebrating his graduation.
Now a qualified lawyer,
he will set the law aside for the sake of the Reich.
They are briefed by Von Fritzsche
One Jew in particular heads the hit list:
Local union leader, Richard Berger.
Lousicher and his team are dispatched with his name and address
and a reminder to be discreet.
The Jewish community here is small and tight-knit.
Bergers neighbours have had visits from other special units.
They have not been very discreet.
His friend, Grabacht has been stabbed.
His wife has called a doctor but he is already dead.
Lousicher's team decide to deal with Berger
away from prying eyes
and he is taken away for questioning.
At least, that what they tell Berger.
Already, Goebbels' eager servants have gone beyond
the letter of their written orders
as he hoped they would.
There had been a chance to put a lid on the worst excesses.
It came at precisely two o'clock that morning.
In Munich,
Goebbels receives the first report of how the night is unfolding.
It includes a list of destroyed properties and the first report of a death:
A polish Jew.
There is also a personal message from the police chief in upper Bavaria warning
that more deaths will follow unless a restraining order is given.
Goebbels refuses to get upset by a dead Jew and issues no order.
The night is now set on an irreversible course.
All across the Reich,
the restraining grip of the law is being loosened
and the order to arrest all male Jews is being carried out with increasing zeal.
In Krefeld, in north west Germany,
the Gompetz family are asleep.
They are woken by the unmistakable sound of doors being broken open.
Three floors below them,
a squad of SS have arrived to take Oscar into custody.
Oscar fears the worst.
Rolf is Oscar and Selma's only child.
At ten, he already knows that, as Jews,
they are different from other Germans.
He is about to learn how different.
Only yesterday, Oscar had treatment on an infected eye
and Selma is desperately worried about his health.
Selma persuades Oscar to let her confront the soldiers,
hoping to convince them that he's not at home.
The arrest is not as straightforward as usual.
Selma is a determined woman.
Rolf hears that they have come to arrest his father
and decides he must do something.
He packs his small suitcase and calls out to his father that if they take him,
he will come too.
Oscar will not allow his wife to be abused any further,
nor will he go quietly.
In fact, he is determined to make the soldiers leave.
It's a dangerous game but, as the SS are about to discover,
Gompertz is used to danger.
Oscar Gompertz fought in the First World War:
The same war where Adolf Hitler fought for the same,
beloved Fatherland.
And just like Hitler,
Gompertz was awarded the Iron Cross for conspicuous gallantry
in the face of the enemy.
...Now he is the enemy.
Rolf will never forget what happened next.
They seemed to stare at each other for ages.
What now?
The usual 'dirty, rotten Jew' and a rifle butt in the face?
Or worse and even quicker final answer: A bullet in the head.
Suddenly, the Nazi signals his men to leave
and they disappear into the night without even breaking a single dish.
Not everyone is so lucky.
All across the country,
windows are being smashed,
synagogues and businesses burnt,
home ransacked in an orgy of destruction.
In Lapine, Englishman, Michael Bruce,
witnesses a mob attacking the Jewish hospital for sick children.
In minutes, the windows were all smashed and the doors kicked in.
Then all the children were forced out, barefoot, over the broken glass.
In Berlin,
fourteen year-old Michael Lebau witnesses the wholesale destruction of his home.
We watched them destroy the whole apartment of five rooms.
Everything my parents had worked so hard for over eighteen long years
gone, in ten minutes.
In Mannheim,
Gunter Katz watches every Jewish home in his neighbourhood broken open.
All the contents were thrown into the street.
Anything that wasn't stolen
by the neighbours was piled up outside and burned.
All across the Reich, the story is the same.
In over a hundred and fifty towns and villages,
seven and a half thousand homes,
businesses and synagogues are being destroyed.
The message to the nation's Jews is unmistakably clear
and the death toll is mounting.
An old lady in Elbastacht
a couple of businessmen in Keil;
in Bremen, five Jewish neighbours and,
in Austria, Richard Berger is being driven away by the SS.
Untafuhrer Volta Hopfgarden recounts what happened next.
We drove west through Anestrasse,
over the university bridge, in the direction of Kranabitten.
Berger realised quite quickly that this wasn't the way to the Gestapo
and wanted to know where we were taking him.
He got a bit nervous and agitated but Lauseger managed to calm him down
at least for a while.
Then, just as we left the city,
Layseger suddenly announced,
in a voice loud enough so everyone could hear him,
that no firearms were to be used.
I think this upset Berger and he went quiet.
And I knew then that Berger was to be killed.
Night gives way to a grey dawn.
It is the last one Richard Berger will ever see.
Richard Berger, leader of his community,
husband and father is dead.
But Robert Duhey wants to be sure.
He disobeys Lausegers order not to use weapons.
In the SS, discipline is everything...
...as Lauseger is careful to remind him.
When the body is finally recovered,
the Gestapo will record Bergers death as suicide.
A line has been crossed during the night.
The rule of law no longer counts for Jews any Jew.
All Jews are now fair game.
By mid-morning, November 10th,
the storm has blown itself out.
But Germany has changed and everyone knows it.
The last shred of innocence has been stripped from the Third Reich.
This is what the world will remember as 'Kirstallnacht':
'The night of broken glass'.
This is what the slogans mean: Juden Raus!
It's decision time for the German people:
Whose side are they on?
For Josef Goebbels,
it is the launch pad to a glittering career.
He and other senior party officials propose two resolutions.
Firstly, that the Jews themselves should pay for the clean up:
A billion Reichmarks is extracted in fines.
But this is just the beginning.
Secondly, they agree:
The Jewish question will demand a more 'systematic' solution.
A 'final' solution.
Here and there,
a few escape abroad before the storm including Oscar Gonpertz and his family.
But in the course of Kristallnacht,
more than twenty-six thousand are arrested and sent to the camps.
The world reacts with horror but does nothing.
So begins the Holocaust.
From all across Europe,
more than six million Jewish men,
women and children will follow never to return.
It took six years of World War to bring the Holocaust to an end.
By 1948, new conflicts have emerged.
In Germany, the Soviets are blockading Berlin.
In India,
the assassination of Mahatma Ghandi has added to tensions
between India and pakistan.
While London gets ready to stage the first Olympic games for twelve years.
And in the Middle East,
a Jewish nation is struggling to be born.
May 14th: It is just past midnight.
David Ben-Gurion is creating history.
At four o'clock this afternoon when he reads these words aloud,
he will change world politics forever.
In this simple text lies a dream of the Jewish people
that has endured two thousand years of exile.
It is the declaration of the State of Israel.
Yet the nation may not survive the day.
All around him,
powerful forces are working to obstruct or destroy his fledgling nation.
In neighbouring Jordan,
King Abdullah heads an alliance of five Arab nations
committed to strangling Israel at birth.
He is defying the United Nations who have their own plan for the Middle East.
Civil war rages across the country.
And the British Empire,
which has played regional peace-keeper for thirty years, is leaving.
His only hope lies in Washington.
With the backing of president Truman,
Israel might have a chance to survive.
But right now,
he doesn't know if America will even recognise the new state.
He is gambling with the future of his people and the whole Middle East.
Just six months earlier,
the United Nations tried to find a political solution
to this age-old dilemma by partitioning palestine.
The Jewish State will include the ports of Haifa
and Tel Aviv and the whole of the Negev valley.
The Arab will occupy the fertile Eastern part.
Jerusalem will come under United Nations trusteeship.
Jews were ecstatic.
After the nightmare of the Holocaust,
they would have a land to call their own
but at the expense of the palestinians.
Although they made up sixty-five percent of the population,
they would getjust forty percent of the land.
They rejected partition and took up arms.
Sectarian violence spilled over into civil war.
Trying to keep the two sides apart, is the British army.
The British have held a mandate to rule palestine since the First World War
but it ends at midnight tonight: May 14th.
The sun rises and the countdown has begun.
Said Ali-Abi Laghud is fourteen years old.
Today he is scouting a sniping position for his elder brother
in the bombed-out ruins of Jaffa.
According to the UN partition,
Jaffa was meant to be a palestinian town.
Most of it has already surrendered to Jewish forces...
yet there are still pockets of resistance.
Said's nineteen year-old brother, Hassan,
was a student before the fighting.
Like most palestinians,
he has no military training and his rifle is from the First World War.
The British army is meant to keep the opposing sides apart,
yes Israelis are sniping
and shelling over their heads to force the last few palestinians out.
Said believes he has spotted where the snipers are holed up.
It will make little difference.
When the last British soldiers leave,
they will have to fend for themselves.
As long ago as March,
the American government recognised the UN partition was doomed to failure.
Something had to be done.
To terminate to mandate on May 15, 1948,
if carried out by the United Kingdom would result in chaos.
The United Nations cannot permit such a result.
American Secretary to the UN, Warren Austin,
proposes that partition be temporarily abandoned.
Instead, with the end of the British mandate,
direct control of the country would pass to the UN.
It promised a halt to the fighting,
but Jewish Independence would have to wait.
May 12th in Tel Aviv.
With just two days to go before the end of the mandate
Ben-Gurion calls his cabinet to a crisis meeting.
Before them is a single, burning question:
Will they take the cease-fire and put off Independence
or forge ahead and risk losing everything in the war?
For Ben-Gurion,
Independence is a once-only opportunity to be seized at all costs.
But first he has to persuade his cabinet.
Many are afraid to go it alone and with good reason.
Golda Meir has two children fighting at the front.
As Ben-Gurion's envoy in Jordan,
she has just met with King Abdullah to request his neutrality.
Abdullah has proposed his own solution:
Palestine would remain whole with himself as sole ruler;
the Jews would be allowed a tiny,
autonomous ghetto around Tel Aviv,
but this would not be a state and he would be King of the Jews.
She told him 'No'.
There is worse news to come.
The cease fire is a US initiative.
If they reject it,
they could jeopardise America's recognition of Israel
and without that they may not survive.
Foreign Minister,
Moshe Sherett has just returned from Washington.
His mission: To get Truman on their side.
The president is known to have some sympathy with the Jewish cause but,
denied access to Truman,
Sherett has met instead with Head of State Department,
Senator George Marshall.
For Ben-Gurion,
the future suddenly looks very uncertain.
Yet, at this very moment in Washington,
an unlikely ally has just got out of bed.
Clark Clifford is Truman's Domestic policy Advisor.
At four o'clock this afternoon,
he will attempt to persuade the president to commit himself to recognising Israel.
Senator George Marshall will also be in the meeting
and Marshall thinks Clifford is meddling in affairs that don't concern him.
A forty-one year-old lawyer,
Clifford's reputation is built on the sharpness of his argument:
Finely tuned before he steps into court.
Today, he will have to be very sharp indeed.
Sir, the draft public speech,
which I worked on last week,
advocating the recognition of the Jewish State,
is-I believe...
Clifford is not employed in Foreign policy
but he has a compelling reason to fight for the Jewish cause:
He wants to keep his job.
...The Jews have been promised a homeland.
Senator, would the Jewish State has been accepted in principle
since The Balfour Declaration.
Sir, this is a moral issue, notjust...
Lecture -don't lecture Marshall.
1948 is a presidential election year and Truman risks losing.
New York alone has one hundred thousand potential Jewish voters.
...Yes, the numbers don't make sense.
Thirty million Arabs; six hundred thousand Jews...
Suddenly, Truman's foreign policy decisions could have a huge impact
on the survival of his administration.
The stakes are high for everyone.
...And if the Jews go it alone,
as I believe they will,
we have the opportunity to support a country
that supports the democratic system in the Middle East.
The Jewish State can be that if we help them.
And how's it gonna look?
If they turn to us for help and we abandon...
If we turn our backs on a potential ally: A fellow democracy.
And there's also the Soviets to consider.
If they support the Jewish State, and it survives,
they will have gained a foot-hole in the region.
While the politicians argue, the war intensifies.
Jewish forces are increasing their stranglehold on Jaffa,
helped by the withdrawal of the British.
Yes, as one occupying army departs, another waits in the wings.
Abdullah's legions are massing at the border.
Armies from Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon:
Thirty thousand men with tanks, artillery and air support.
Two days to go and counting.
In Tel Aviv, the meeting trails on into the evening.
Ben-Gurion hopes that Truman may yet come round.
But if he doesn't, what then?
Without legal recognition they will be unable to buy new weapons and ammunition.
Left on their own, how long can they survive?
Ben-Gurion turns to thirty year-old Chief of Operations,
The Jewish forces are short of heavy weapons and tomorrow,
if the Arabs invade as promised,
they face armoured columns and artillery.
In most places,
they are outnumbered by irregular forces
and the Kibbutz are being picked off one by one.
They are running out of ammunition
and their lines of communication are seriously overstretched.
Golda Meir hasn't heard from her son in days.
Now she fears for the very survival of her people.
When I heard Yahdems' words,
I felt a chill run down my spine.
For the first time,
I was genuinely afraid and wondered if we were making a huge mistake.
But they have to make a decision.
For Ben-Gurion, it is a question of destiny.
History will never forgive them,
he believes, if they fail to take this chance.
Yet, if they gamble and lose,
who will be left to forgive them?
It's time to vote.
The destiny of the Jewish people
and the whole Middle East is literally in their hands.
Despite her fears,
Golda Meir remains true to the dream.
She votes against the cease-fire,
as does Sherett and Yahdem.
With Ben-Gurion's own vote,
the decision is to reject the American cease-fire by just six votes to four.
...Yet they still depend on Truman's recognition.
And, in Washington, Clifford has failed.
Marshall has threatened to resign
and it appears to have swayed Truman in his favour.
That was two days ago.
Today will be Israel's Independence Day and, as far as they know,
they are still on their own.
Ben-Gurion finishes the Declaration document.
The early draft adhered to the UN partition plan
but the palestinians have never accepted partition
and now he takes the decision to remove all references to UN borders.
He doesn't want his new nation to be limited in its ambitions.
For Ben-Gurion, Israel is the Holy Land.
All of it.
Just sixty kilometres East, in Jerusalem,
fighting intensifies for control of the city.
It is the spiritual capital for both Jews and Arabs.
Under the UN plan,
it is meant to be neutral,
but both sides are trying to grab it while they can,
and the palestinians are gaining the upper hand.
There is worse news:
...A telegram arrives from a collection of
kibbutzim south of Jerusalem called Guchetzion.
Two days ago,
two hundred and forty settlers were massacred.
The commander of the block has just surrendered to avoid a repeat.
The road to Jerusalem is now open to the Arab legion army.
Ben-Gurion's other big enemy today is time.
In seven hours, America will awake.
The UN will sit down to debate a new resolution
appointing a mediator in the dispute:
Legally taking over from the British.
At eight o'clock,
Sir Alan Cunningham,
the last British Governor, takes his leave.
Atjust thirty years,
the British Empire has had the shortest rule in history
and leaves behind a land in crisis.
In Jaffa, the palestinian resistance is on its last legs.
As the British leave,
Jewish forces are pushing further and further into the city,
mopping up as they go.
Said and Hassan are running out of time.
In Tel Aviv, Ben-Gurion prepares for the Independence Ceremony.
The time and location have been kept secret for fear of an attack
by the Egyptian air force.
The wording has finally been agreed just half an hour ago.
They are committed now, come what may.
And Ben-Gurion is calm in the eye of the impending storm.
Over a thousand people have gathered outside the Tel Aviv art museum:
The secret location didn't stay secret for long.
It is four o'clock.
The Jewish people's Council
and three hundred selected witnesses are ready.
Just down the road in Jaffa,
Said and Hassan have a choice to make:
Stay and fight or try and leave.
David Ben-Gurion,
reads the six hundred and fifty words
of the Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel.
In less than twenty minutes,
two thousand years of exile of the Jewish people will be brought to an end.
He refers to the Bible,
the Holocaust and the UN resolution as steps along the road to this redemption.
But as one chapter in the history of the Middle East closes, another opens.
For three quarters of a million palestinians the exile is just beginning.
Said says he has heard that
there are spaces on the last British convoy out of town.
They will even be allowed to take their weapons.
It is their last hope.
Hassan decides they will leave Jaffa and link up with the Arab legion army wherever
they can find it,
then return to liberate the town.
They take what mementoes they can as well as the keys to their family home
and the deeds to their business.
Whatever happens after midnight,
there will be a new authority when they return
and they will need to prove ownership.
They expect to be back in a few days with the liberation army.
It doesn't occur to them that they may never return.
The climax of the Declaration is Israel's
commitment to peace with its Arab neighbours.
For Golda Meir,
this moment of independence is the realisation of a dream
she thought she would never see.
But there is sorrow mixed with the joy.
I thought of my children fighting and their comrades dying at this moment.
And I thought of the six million who perished:
Of all of those who should have been here;
all those who will never see Israel.
Today is a precious moment of triumph,
but she knows the real struggle is just beginning.
The next few hours will be make or break for the new nation
and the key to its survival is five thousand miles away.
May the 14th draws to a close in the new nation of Israel:
A nation in limbo.
It still doesn't officially exist in the eyes of the world.
The Arabs are coming; the Israelis wait.
Only one question remains.
And Truman's answer stuns the world.
At six eleven p.m.
Eastern Standard Time,
president Truman responds to Jewish pleas
and signs his recognition of the State of Israel.
Like the Declaration,
it makes no reference to any borders.
Truman recognises an effectively boundless state.
With America leading,
the rest of the world follows, and Israel is a reality.
We expect the nations around the world will help us in our difficult task...
Elated by the news,
Ben-Gurion makes a radio broadcast appealing for the world's support.
...at the time that I am speaking,
Tel Aviv is being bombed by hostile planes...
In the background can be heard the bombs of the Egyptian airforce
as Israel comes under attack.
King Abdullah makes good his promise and attempts to destroy the new nation.
Yet the tide is about to turn.
With recognition,
the Israeli's can buy the weapons they need
and the War of Independence will ultimately be won.
Later that day,
Israelis occupy the last corners of Jaffa,
including the home of Said and Hassan Ali-Abi Laghud.
Three quarters of a million palestinians will never return to their homes.
And in the first few hours of independence,
the pattern of the next fifty years is set.
The Jewish State survives to this day.
But Ben-Gurion's dream remains unfulfilled:
Israel is still not at peace.