8pm Thursday SECRETS OF THE DEAD History/Science
BOMBING AUSCHWITZ - Join historians, survivors and experts as they consider one of the great moral dilemmas of the 20th century. Should the Allies have risked killing Auschwitz prisoners and bombed the camp to stop future atrocities?
In April 1944, Jewish prisoners Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler miraculously escaped from Auschwitz concentration camp and fled through Nazi-occupied Poland to find refuge in Slovakia, where they connected with the Jewish Underground. Once safe, they recounted what they left behind. Their harrowing testimony revealed the true horror of the Holocaust to the outside world, describing in forensic detail the gas chambers and the full extent of the Nazi extermination program.
While millions of troops fought on both fronts and battled for supremacy in the air during World War II, Nazi forces continued to deport Jews to the concentration camp. As Vrba and Wetzler’s account made its way to Allies, the idea of bombing the camp was discussed at the highest levels of government. Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Allied Air Commanders, the American War Refugee Board and the Jewish Agency were presented with one of the greatest moral questions of the 20th century: Should we bomb Auschwitz and risk killing Jewish prisoners in the camp to stop future atrocities?
Secrets of the Dead: Bombing Auschwitz explores this dilemma through dramatic recreations of arguments that took place on both sides of the Atlantic and first-hand testimony from historians, survivors and expert voices.
9pm NAZI MEGA WEAPONS – History/Military
In the quest for world domination, the Nazis built some of the biggest and deadliest pieces of military hardware and malevolent technology in history; tanks as big as battleships, superguns blasting shells the weight of an SUV and rocket domes capable of smashing whole cities. They're all part of Hitler's plan to control a nation, conquer a continent and win the war.
Nazi Mega Weapons follows a group of experts on a dark journey through Europe's mountains, forests and beaches to uncover engineering secrets that have lain hidden for decades and the stories of the men that designed them.
SUPER TANKS Hitler’s megalomaniacal impulses led him to demand the construction of the largest tank the world had ever seen – a mobile fortress weighing 180 tons. But even this colossus couldn’t satisfy Hitler’s thirst for enormous weapons of war, as he went on to request a land battleship weighing 1,000 tons.
10pm MY GRANDPARENTS’ WAR – History Military
Follow leading Hollywood actors as they re-trace the footsteps of their grandparents and learn how World War II changed the lives of their families - and the world.
KRISTIN SCOTT THOMAS - Follow actress Kristin Scott Thomas as she pieces together a lost chapter of her family history, learning how her grandfather, a Royal Navy officer, saved thousands at Dunkirk and survived some of World War II’s most devastating battles.
