Reunion (1946)

[Music] when you're fighting a war you never know what's happening until you read about it later in the [Music] newspapers you just know that you have to throw stuff at the enemy and Dodge the stuff the enemy throws at you maybe someday when you were out of the line you'd read about what you were fighting for pretty words like democracy and Liberty but while you were fighting the prettiest ones were words like tanks and machine guns that's the way most GIS felt about it until we got a look at some of the 21 million Europeans who had been held captive in Nazi Germany it was long ago in the spring of 1945 but we'll never forget it we saw Liberty it was A Rush of excitement it was a feeling that couldn't be controlled because it had been controlled for so long it was doors opening up for the first time in many [Music] years it was a celebration without champagne or confetti there were a few flowers that looked very beautiful and there was something in the air that was stronger than champagne that was Liberty [Music] too we learned about freedom from those who appreciated it most you heard those voices in a dozen different languages saying we have waited so long for you to come it made you feel kind of good to be among the soldiers who saw this part of the battle and then another thought about Freedom began to crowd your mind the thing about Freedom that was hard to realized was the fact that freedom was [Music] you Freedom was a mixed up thing it was not all celebration every cheer had an echo in Hearts too weak to shout [Music] aloud and yet all this was part of the lesson we were learning the lesson of Liberty we learned it from young kids who should have been studying the multiplication table yes we saw freedom and liberty in that long long ago of the spring of 1945 we saw the fancy words come to life and death does your calendar say that the spring of 1945 was not so long ago your calendar lies it was very long ago many many lifetimes ago you can read a library full of books about fascism and it doesn't mean as much as one little kid who remembers his name is a number branded on his arm you can read a book and forget what you read by the time you put it down but there are women who will carry Souvenirs of the Nazis all their lives there are men who will never be able to feed the emptiness left by 5 years of starvation hungo was their constant companion [Music] have you read about the coal and the oil and the iron the Germans stole this is the human Loop of the Nazi plunder of [Music] [Music] Europe it was amazing how gentle and tender a rough tough GI could become Allied soldiers had silenced German guns but Allied doctors still fought against the death the Germans had left behind typhus and denter were as common as a cold in the nose at bson 3,000 people were dying each day when the Americans arrived the doctors reduced the number to 800 then 400 then 200 if we got here 24 hours earlier a lot more people would be alive [Music] today people's courts were set up to try Gods who were extra ambitious in their [Music] cruelty they're crying were things like murder and torture the people accused the people gave evidence and the people judged it was a little difficult to keep a calm judicious atmosphere with a mother standing next to the murderous of her child or to say take it easy to a man who'd been beaten for 4 years one GI said I guess that's what we're fighting for to take the keys out of those guys hands then it began the home would Tre home was Holland or Russia or Belgium or Czechoslovakia or [Music] France up hills through city streets pushing pulling carrying a few possessions there's something about the idea of going home that puts strength in weak legs we knew because we had been away from home too for a year and a half for 2 years or 3 years we knew what going home meant for those who had been away for 5 years but there was some things we could only guess at how it felt to be heading home and not know if home or Village or city was still [Music] standing going home was a dream these people had and we could understand it a little because we had the same dream there are certain things you don't count on in dreams things like the military traffic that needed the German highways things like eastern and western Europeans arriving at opposite Banks of a German river and all wanting to cross at the same [Music] time a Soviet American commission handled a problem they met and worked out a plan a plan as wise and effective as it was simple those fathers from home with the cross first every hour a thousand people cross that [Music] River some going east some going west but all following the same road the Homewood Road the dream Road like most dreams this one of going home needed a little outside help so the Army stepped in by this time there were Traders Among the Betrayed and you couldn't tell who was who it was the job of cic the Counter Intelligence Corp to sort out the bad apples it wasn't an easy job the face of the guilty does not always reveal its Secrets but the cic men were a patient Bunch they interrogated and investigated checked and double checked they'd find a little lie offer a little bait and two young gapo agents were in their net informers were not the only lights that had to be removed DDT took over where cic left [Music] off but it was the kids that really got you especially if you had one of your own an ocean or so [Music] away and maybe you might want to hold one for a second just to see what it felt like even though your buddy who knew you only as a rough neck Soldier was a little puzzled by It All The Wanderers were collected from the crowded highways and brought to the repatriation centers that were set up all over Germany organization and Order began to appear the migrations were well as the bre hat say they were expedited that means many things it means a pair of shoes for an old man whose feet had walked many miles it means decent clothes underwear and a coat for a young boy who had been cold for as long as he could remember it means an attempt to reunite family that had become separated that in turn means information that had to be collected numberless interviews with the Nationals of almost every country in Europe their dream of going home had been taken over as an Allied project the military supplied a name to describe those who had been torn from their homes and starved and beaten they were known now as displaced persons or if you're in a hurry just dpas impersonal as the military was and its labeling of people it was quite different in its treatment of them it's difficult to be impersonal at Point Blank Range the Army found itself providing services that had never before been part of fighting a [Music] war [Music] it's a complicated job even for an engineering officer this trick of making a reality out of a dream everyone spoke a different language everyone had a different destination he had a planet so everyone got what he wanted the dream was getting places Vehicles which had brought supplies to the front were pressed into service to make the return trip with a different cargo for those who were old enough to understand for those who were too young to care and for those who were just old enough to be confused and frightened by it all for all of them the GI truck became a Heavenly [Music] Chariot and this was going home [Music] there were also those For Whom the homood road was set on railroad tracks this was a final wait they had waited the long years of slavery they had waited the interviews the medical examinations the delings now they were done with waiting home was no longer years away home could be measured in days [Music] the excitement and the happiness was a fever that became [Music] contagious no peacetime luxury Streamliner ever carried happier passengers than these there were others whose physical condition did not permit a long truck or train journey for 999,000 French Nationals the American Air transport command and the British royal Air Force planned a mass evacuation [Music] home home was only hours [Music] away below the Germany that had enslaved them nurenberg Stadium Hitler's playground they saw the Nazi Harvest destruction the fruit of fascism they saw J and they wondered what France would be [Music] like and finally there was Paris Paris had survived what the New York skyline meant the returning GIS the towers of Moscow to Red Army solders Big Ben to British tomies that's what notredam Cathedral meant to these Frenchmen [Music] a few hours ago Germany now a few minutes from Paris it was almost too much for the mind to absorb this tremendous idea that they were really home Paris was home home isn't just a matter of geography home is a warmth people have for one another home is a smile that welcomes you [Music] back they had been away a long time they had suffered a great deal now they felt the warmth of people for one another now they saw the welcoming [Music] smile now they were home every day during the spring and summer and fall of 1945 the people crowded the Paris railroad station waiting and seeking I fixed on every train that came in because any train might be the [Music] one each day they were there those anxious hopeful fearful faces decent people of the world who have suffered in the name of decency one day we spoke in a language we all understood a language of smiles and tears this was our Day of Victory the day on which good people were reunited with those they [Music] love it was not the same day for all and the day never came for many but those who survived made a bargain with time they traded the years for a moment a moment so wonderful and so terrible that it cannot and must not ever be experienced [Music] again [Music]