*BAND OF BROTHERS* Ep 9 Reaction | Film Student Watches | Why We Fight 

The final episode will be posted next Wednesday! I wanted to get it uploaded this week, but having to re-upload two previous episodes because of copyright slowed things down, and I have to start The Boys and House of the Dragon this weekend. The documentary will be posted the following Wednesday.

"If anyone ever tells you the Holocaust didn't happen, or that it wasn't as bad as they say, no, it was worse than they say. What we saw, what these Germans did, it was worse than you can possibly imagine." - Private Babe Heffron

No one is EVER ready for episode 9. It’s that powerful.😢

The actors playing the survivors were actual cancer patients from a nearby hospital who volunteered to be on the show. Sadly, many of them died before the episode aired.

In High School in the early '70's, we had a janitor who was an Austrian Jew. In World history class when we reached this time of the war, our teacher would bring him in. He'd roll up his sleeve and show us his tattooed number and proceed to tell us what his life was like when he was our age. Thank you for sharing your emotions with us.

Sometimes the unspoken, unhighlighted parts are the best - you can see Bull Randleman just sat bewildered and stunned on the ground at one point - a dude who has seen, fought and done so much previously.

My great uncle was a Polish Jew who survived Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. His name was Bruno Cicherski and his camp number was 35711. He arrived on February 8th, 1941 from the Warsaw Ghetto and was liberated by the Soviet Red Army on April 22, 1945. After the war he came here to America. To this day, I don't know how he survived 4 years of literal hell on earth. We can't and must not forget the atrocity that was the Holocaust. You're reaction to this episode is totally understandable Jacqui. There aren't many people out there that are willing to show their emotions to something so brutal. It doesn't mean that you are weak or sensitive, it means you have a good heart. Don't let anyone take that away from you! Much love to you. - Clay

One of my favorite shots of this episode, which rarely gets talked about but speaks resoundingly loud with only a few words, is the scene of Frank Perconte approaching O'Keefe. Earlier in the episode, they made it a point for Perconte to repeatedly call him by the wrong name, and even have the speech about why no one wants to remember his name. He states that Germany is the best part of war he's seen, and implies how awful everything else was. By Frank using O'Keefe's actual name at the camp, and the look they share, it says (without saying it) that O'Keefe has now seen true war too. Frank, a veteran of every single horrible atrocity that Easy had been through, who literally lived through the worst fighting the European theater had to offer, was telling O'Keefe (who hadn't seen ANY of that), "okay, now you're one of us... now you've seen the worst part of war." Not only does it silently show respect to O'Keefe, but it heavily implies that Frank would rather relive D-Day, Carentan, Market Garden, Bastogne, seeing his friends killed, the hunger, the cold, all of it.... rather than see what he saw in that camp. He puts the horror of the camps on equal, if not greater, footing than everything he'd been through so far.

It doesn’t matter what you think you needed to say or that you didn’t say anything. We all were at a loss seeing this. There are no words to be found. We’re all here for you and understanding why the video ends this way. Take care, Jacqui

Your reaction to this is a sign that the creators did a great job with the emotional impact. They limited the grim scenes in this series and saved them for important moments, culminating in this episode.

My grandfather was forcibly conscripted by Axis forces as a 15 year old, in eastern Poland (now western Ukraine). He was lined up, a portion of them were shot, and the rest were given a choice. He carried the scars and the shame of that, for his whole life. Because of my family history, I was fascinated when my school took us to Normandy around the 50th Anniversary of D-day. When I was 17, I went to Berlin, again on a school exchange. They took us to the old main synagogue in east Berlin. It housed the Holocaust exhibit, before the memorial was built. The trip was on Hitler’s birthday, there was intense security, with heavily armed police everywhere. It was a surreal atmosphere. Inside, I moved around the glass cases of the articles of so many lost lives, and it struck me: I owe my life to this. If none of this had ever happened - I could not exist. It broke me. I sat in the middle of the synagogue and cried so hard. I vividly remember the guilt I felt. And I vividly remember watching this episode, when it aired, and remembering that day in Berlin. I always wondered how I would have acted if I had been alive during the Second World War. When the War in Ukraine escalated, I found myself helping to guide people to safety, with a diverse group of people across Europe. Now, I run a Ukrainian support team team for a refugee charity. I was having hard day today, and when I saw this, I knew it was what I needed. I needed a good cry, and a reminder: This is why we fight. This is why I fight. If I had been a soldier or a medic - I would have done that, but my skill set is different. So I try to fight the good fight with community support and organising, government advocacy, fundraising, translation and logistics. History is a lesson. And I’m doing my best to learn it.

My Grandad fought in WWII, he landed on the beaches during D-Day, which was pretty much all he'd tell me when I was a very young kid that had romantic ideas about the war and so on and was full of questions. When I asked him anything more about his time at war, he'd just get quieter and stare out the window. Years later, after my Grandad died, my Dad, who was also in the military, spent some time researching my Grandad (his Dad) and his army career. Turned out his unit was one of those that discovered the horror that was Bergen-Belsen. I read about that camp after being told and wished I hadn't. After it was liberated his unit was tasked with bulldozing thousands of bodies into mass graves. In hindsight it was no wonder he said incredibly little about what he seen and did, and it made me love and respect him even more knowing he'd seen the lowest humanity had to offer and was still the rock of the family and the best man I've ever known who would do anything for anyone.

Your reaction, or lack thereof, is perfectly understandable. No one is ready for this episode the first time. It still hits hard after many viewings.

The reactions of all the actors is completely genuine. They were given the chance to see the reconstruction etc before hand but they all refused. They wanted their reactions to be for the first time in filming and genuine like the real soldiers would have been

I've seen so many reactions to this episode, but never saw a reactor actually leave the room during the camp scene. It goes to show the showrunners did their jobs right with this episode, and that you have a genuinely good soul. Best reactor on RU-vid, IMHO.

Your reaction was COMPLETELY appropriate given the subject matter. The show runners did an exceptional job portraying the horrors of the camp. I think that one of the most important lines in the series happens when the baker is being held at gunpoint: "Are you going to tell me that you never smelled the fucking stench?" At the time that Band of Brothers came out, there was kind of a dearth of solid, widely known research about the complicity in the Holocaust of the German public and the non-SS components of the German military. In the years since there's been a lot of scholarship on that front, especially with regard to the Wehrmacht, and there's a strong consensus that by and large, they ABSOLUTELY fucking knew. Not necessarily the nuts and bolts details of how it was being done, but that it was happening, and that being sent to a camp likely meant death. We also know now that the German army was without any doubt directly involved in the Final Solution. I'm very glad that the series mostly takes the position that, yeah, the public couldn't NOT have known. Too often, WWII media takes the tack that the German public or regular army was by and large "clean" in the Holocaust.

Seeing Leibgot in this episode kills me everytime... The fact that he, a Jewish man, had to not only see this but tell them they had to be locked back up...

A good friend of mine works in historical filmmaking, as well as living history programs where I met him. He's a younger man, kind and patient and funny as can be. However, the most angry I've seen him is when the topic of family lineage came up around the campfire one night. He told us how in high school, he asked his grandfather if he knew of any genealogy records he could find. His grandfather only cried and said they were all gone; the nazis had likely burned them all. Grandpa had been the only member of his family to escape and make it to the US. Not only did the nazis kill his family; they virtually erased them from history. Every record of my friend's family is gone and can never be recovered. He will never know his grandfather's side of the family, all because they were Jewish and in Germany.

I applaud your courage in being willing to fully take in this episode. Historian Richards Rhodes wrote in an authors note to his book, "Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust" that, "You may well ask why you should submit yourself to the experience of reading about such events." He said that the best answer for him was, "if reading about those crimes was painful, it did not even remotely compare to what the victims went through." We owe it to both the past and the future to learn and understand these horrors.

I love the way that they showed the somewhat "questionable" things the men have done (like the fraternizing, looting, taking houses, etc) then they just drop the hammer and superimpose that with the pure evil of what they discover that can't even compare to all we've seen before.

The story of the German officers wife was exactly as it was shown with one exception, it happened to winters and not nixon, they wanted to make one episode about nixon so they used that

One of my great great-uncles suffered through very similar conditions at the hands of the Japanese. He was one of the 75k US & Filipino troops who surrendered at Bataan; he survived the Bataan Death March, was then put on a ship bound for the Japanese home islands, and was enslaved in a salt mine for 3 and a half years. Came home a mere shell of the man he was; at the time of surrender, he weighed 185 pounds, when he finally liberated, he weighed 82 pounds, and he was 6ft 4in, a literal walking skeleton very much like the victims of the holocaust

My father-in-law was a top turret gunner/flight engineer on B-17's during WWII. As the war was ending he was offered the opportunity to travel to the continent to travel around with a crew to captured German airfields to evaluate and render operational aircraft unflyable. One day they came across a recently liberated "camp" - they didn't know exactly where they were or what the name of the place was but they went in to find out. He had a camera with him - at that ;point in his telling of the story he went into another room and brought back his wartime album and showed me the pictures he had taken that day. His photos could have been used for set design for this episode. Bodies stacked like firewood, pits full of bodies, a few emaciated survivors yet in camp. The horrors were and are real and are shocking to this day. Although he may not have known at the time about the "final solution" the Western countries did know of the atrocities but downplayed to an extent the tragedy. Only as the war drew to a close did it become widely know the depth of the crimes.

The way this episode is written is absolutely brilliant. We start with the men of Easy discussing how they may have been friends with the Germans in another life and time. As the episode progresses you start to see the writing on the wall of what this episode may be about, but it doesn't make it immediatelyobvious. We see Janovich reading the article about "why we're fighting the war" and all he has to say is "the Germans are bad". A few scenes later we see Webster yelling "what the fuck are we doing here!" You really begin to realize that the men of Easy and the Allied forces in general had no idea about the Holocaust. That scene of Perconti sprinting back to regimen to tell Major Winters what they've found really drives the point home that these men had no idea what they had encountered. As soon as the enter that camp, the question of "why we fight" is answered immediately. To end the episode after seeing the horrors of the Holocaust we end with Nixon informing Easy "Hitlers dead" to which Webster remarks "should have killed himself three years ago, saved us a lot of trouble" to which Nixon replies "yeah he should have, but he didn't". That statement just drives the point home that what we as viewers just witnessed during the second half of the episode was the result of the Germans following orders from Hitler. There is no shame at all in you letting it all out and walking off camera. This episode is rough but it's probably one of the most well done and important episodes of the series.

My senior year in high school we watched this episode, Schindler's List, and Conspiracy and visited the local Holocaust museum. They really drilled it into our heads - this is real, this was an abomination and we can never let it happen again. Great episode, great reaction. I would say something comforting, but the reaction is 100% justified. My favorite line in the episode is when Webster and Lutz are walking in the camp and Lutz says "Can you believe this place?" Best line of the episode - shocked and appalled veteran of Dday and Market Garden, Webster just says "No". Sums up the episode masterfully. Can you believe this happened? No, its too horrifying to believe. Great stuff!

I am a combat( Vietnam ) and I had it bad but not near as bad as my father did . He was in the 82nd Air Borne in WW II and helped liberate two camps . He was always mean when I grew up and never knew why until I went to war . Thank you for this and God bless you.

Growing up in Austria in the 80's and 90's it was part of our history lessons in high school to have a camp survivor come visit us in class and talk to us about how it was to "live" in a camp. They pretty much nailed it in the show. We also had a class trip to one of the camps (turned museum) to see it in person. Let me tell you, standing with 30 other people in a gas chamber (being built to look like showers to keep a false pretense for the victims to the very end, which only worked for a time until everybody knew what it meant if you were selected to go "showering"), even a defunct one decades later, hits way different than seeing it on TV or being told about it...

Final Thoughts: No words are necessary. Your reaction said everything. I've seen this episode many times and it always gets me, but your reaction really struck a chord. Hearing your calm voice over reading the episode closing remarks while you were uncontrollably sobbing on camera really shook me. That was a powerful moment.

Ive been watching this show quarterly each year for the last 10 years. This episode never fails to cause me to search my soul

This episode is what convinced me that this show would forever be one of the best made, I can’t think of many that really hits home just how tragic and shocking such a discovery would have been

Most german students visit those camps in their school time. Seeing the remains, the fotos, hearing the stories of the survivers, being on site... It hits differend... It is an attempt to make sure something like this never happens again.

This is always a rough watch for me. As I've said before, my paternal grandfather was a British Army Paratooper in WWII. He was one of the few thousand 1st Airborne Division men to get back over the river in the aftermath of Arnhem. I understand that he had the opportunity to not return to action after that but very quickly volunteered for the 6th Airborne as they invaded Germany. He was among those who liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where Anne Frank died. Even though it was not a "death camp" and had no execution chambers, I am told he was sickened by it and HATED Nazis for the rest of his life.

The opening and closing of this episode reminded me of something told by a survivor which I heard when I was young, and dove-tailed with my experience later in life, "nobody could believe it was happening. We gave the world Brahms, and Beethoven! How could this be happening?" or words to that effect...

I watch this show every year on Memorial Day. Episode 9 leaves me in tears every single time

Some freed prisoners did die from being given too much food too soon. The soldiers didn't know, they were just so desperate to help them. It wasn't until the doc got there that it was stopped. Even just too much bread could cause problems. The residents of nearby towns claimed that they didn't know what was happening in the camps, but the smell from the furnaces was pervasive all over the area around the camps and the so was the smell from the mass graves of those not cremated.

As you watch these characters, realize what they have been through ... airborne basic training, D-Day, Market Garden, Bastogne, and now this .... and most were only in their early to mid 20's. There's a reason why we referred to them as "The Greatest Generation."

I watched this went first came out over 20 years ago, and I too, did not realize that they did not know about the camps. It didn’t even dawn on me. Every single person should watch this series. It truly is one of the best series ever filmed!

This and Episode 7 are the hardest to watch, but this is an important episode to watch. The camp depicted here (which was actually liberated by the 12th Armored) was Kaufering I, part of a series of sub-camps of Dachau. The camp Winters describes the Russians liberating is Auschwitz. As to who knew, the averaged Allied trooper on the ground didn't know until they started liberating the camps, while Allied High Command had some knowledge of the camps, but still were unaware of the full horrors within. How much the German people knew is a matter of debate, but Allied generals made sure that the Holocaust was fully documented to combat any future attempts to deny it.

@movienightwithjacqui , thanks for sticking with it. All I can say as an older guy at the end of his career to a wonderful empathetic young woman starting hers is to say - at our best, this is part of *what we do*. Not just to entertain, but to inform. I still remember when I was a kid in the '60s one of my teen babysitters' dads getting drunk one night and talking about liberating a camp. These are stories that should be remembered for all time. And grainy old 16mm footage from the 1940s doesn't seem to do it. Virtual hug, hon. I know it was tough.

No matter HOW MANY TIMES I see this episode, it NEVER gets any easier to watch!!!

The event Nixon is talking about at 5:26 is Operation Varsity, a militarily successful paradrop that took place on the 24th March 1945. It received a lot of praise by commanders but after the war historians have questioned whether the operation was even necessary at all. So Nixon probably believes that the nearly 3000 casualties they took during the operation had been lost for nothing.

Please watch “We Stand Alone Together”! Jacqui, your honest reactions and your knowledgeable commentary are top shelf! Love your channel. It is my new favorite! Please don’t stop!!! Also, you normally pick up on storytelling subtleties. In the opening scene, Liebgott said the quartet was playing Mozart (an Austrian, which Hitler was), but Nixon corrected him saying it was Beethoven (a German). It was a very subtle nod to the repentive post-war Germans rejecting their country following an Austrian/non- German and reclaiming their German roots. Subtle, but poignant.

I think the section of the book, concerning this camp, is worth quoting here: The company stayed in Buchloe for two nights. Thus it was present in the morning when the people of Landsberg turned out, carrying rakes, brooms, shovels, and marched off to the camp. General Taylor, it turned out, had been so incensed by the sight that he had declared martial law and ordered everyone from fourteen to eighty years of age to be rounded up and sent to the camp, to bury the bodies and clean up the place. That evening the crew came back down the road from the camp. Some were still vomiting. "The memory of starved, dazed men," Winters wrote, 'who dropped their eyes and heads when we looked at them through the chain-link fence, in the same manner that a beaten, mistreated dog would cringe, leaves feelings that cannot be described and will never be forgotten. The impact of seeing those people behind that fence left me saying, only to myself, 'Now I know why I am here!'"

This episode pulled no punches and that was precisely its goal.

This episode is just so horrifyingly brilliant in so many ways. We are with these men when their training begins in 1942. We see the grueling training that they're put through and are with them when they put their two years of training and take to the skies to be a part of the largest invasion and liberation force that the world has ever seen. We are with them from their battles in France, Belgium, Holland, Austria. We are emotionally invested in all of them and are emotionally crushed when we see one of them fall. Aside from backing our European allies, there is a burning question that even many veterans at the time felt, which is "Why are we here?" America had been very much an isolationist country leading up to WWII and many still felt that we shouldn't be medaling in European affairs. It wasn't until about mid-1944 onward as Russia and the Western allies began liberating the towns and cities around Austria, Poland, and eventually Germany that they realized the true horrors of the Third Reich's Regime and what Hitler's conquest really meant as they began discovering these death and forced-labor camps. It legitimized the suffering and trauma that these men had been put through, why they were over there and why they were fighting. The cause became clear.

Jacqui, your presentation on this episode is perfect. I hope we never lose the ability to be touched by those horrors in exactly that way.

The woman in the house that Nixon breaks into early in the episode was the wife of an officer killed in the war. You can tell from the black ribbon surrounding the frame of his picture. He was an officer, which means he and she were likely Party members. They KNEW what was going on and about the camps. So the parallel of Nixon and the woman each being "found" in their sin by the other is profound, rounding out the plot. My uncle had to operate a bulldozer used to bury the dead when he went in with his unit in WW2. Never talked about it except with his wife (my blood-related aunt).

That long shot during the first scene is an underappreciated part of this episode for sure.

My grandfather was one of the first British soldiers into the concentration camp at Belsen. He never spoke of what he saw there. When he passed I found his war diary and in it he described a prisoner coming up to him, holding onto him so tightly and refused to let go.

10:30 One aspect about this episode that I love is how it touches on (*very* briefly) the fact that the Allies knew about the Holocaust and what was going on in a general sense, but at the same time knew they couldn't shout it from the rafters for fear of it being taken as propaganda. During World War One the Americans were showered by British propaganda of German atrocities in Belgium: elements of truth, but greatly exaggerated. The contrast between what the Americans were told to expect by the propaganda and the reality they found when they arrived (not to mention the aftermath of the war, etc) were contributing factors to the US retreating into isolationism after WW1. What this meant, however, is that during World War *Two*, the Allies realized that if they broadcast the simple truth of the Holocaust, the reaction would have been something to the effect of "pull the other one; it rings". Simply put, they knew the populace wouldn't accept the truth of what was going on in Germany just from Allied publications, for fear that the public would accuse the Allies of trying to pull the same trick in WW2 that they did in WW1.

My wifes Grandfather(Jewish) Shimon Bacon escaped Czechoslovakia in 1938. He emigrated to the US joined the US Army and went back to Europe fighting in North Africa and liberating Buchenwald. He knew what would happen if he got caught. FYI his cousin Mordecai Wulkan was the Jeweler in Schindler's list who made the ring at the end of the film.

Aye, that's about it, Jacqui. A person who does not react like that to this is not a person I ever want to meet! For me, the most heart-piercing moment in the whole series is seeing Joe break down in the back of the truck after having to tell the prisoners they were going to have to stay in place.

While the line in the beginning about Beethoven and Mozart seems like a throw away line, it's much deeper than you think. Beethoven was German while Mozart was Austrian and Hitler was Austrian, not German. I always thought they were trying to make the point in this scene that Hitler's time was over and it was time for the Germans to rebuild and move on without his influence. That's just my interpretation 🙂

The frustration of being at war for so long from the Easy company men throughout the episode was understandable. The nagging question if they are still fighting for the greater good. Then the answer is suddenly made very clear when they find the camp. Battle hardened men brought to their knees at the sight of it all never fails to make me emotional. Lots of love and hugs to you! This episode is emotionally exhausting for sure. 🖤

Your understanding of trauma and deep rooted empathy is beautiful. I've seen this series many times, and still can't keep my eyes dry through this. So important that this series was made, may we never forget. Much love and peace to you

No matter how prepared someone thinks they are for episode 9, it isn't even close, I've known so many people that have watched this episode, some of them the toughest people I know and we all reacted the same. The name for the episode is so fitting "Why We Fight"

This is why this series is so crucially important, and what it does so well, it forces the viewer to think. And maybe, just maybe, develop even the beginning of an inkling of what that period was like. It really should be required viewing. This episode does that particularly well, the music, Nixon’s portrayal, Winters’ response and the just sheer, raw emotion. They managed to treat the subject matter with the respect, and honesty, it needs. War against humanity, why we fight.

The first time I saw this was watching someone react to it because I had not seen the show before. After seeing it I like you was emotionally overwhelmed. As someone who has seen the films from the camps in school I never thought about the allies reaction. I never really thought about the soldiers because all I could think about was what happened to the people who were enslaved, killed and used to quote "like cattle". Seeing it with these men really stood out to me what an observer must have thought. Did the upper echelons of the Allied command know what was going on? As the war was drawing to a close it was pretty clear they knew to at least some extent. Some have argued that most people on the ground and in reading reports had an idea something was going on but I think largely soldiers were clueless as they were in the show. After watching this, I bought the series, then watched the episode again in full. Then I sat down with a few of my kids and watched it with them and after went into discussing with them about it because there are so many people who listen to conspiracy nonsense like denying the holocaust I want them to know that it was real that some German public knew about it, others closed their eyes to it, and some fought against it and some whole heartedly participated. And that could happen in any country in the world given the right set of circumstances. So in a way we never forget, and we never make excuses for the dark hearts of those who planned and carried out this industrialized slaughter.

"If anyone ever tells you the Holocaust didn't happen......" My father was ordered to the Belson Bergen camp as part of the British 11th Armoured Division to help with the clear up, not something he ever forgot!

I was stationed in Germany in the 90’s, and I had problems looking at Germans who looked over a certain age. It still frustrates me I felt that way thinking “Were you a monster or did you let the monsters do what they did?”. Or if they would only talk about their mother because their father died when they were young or before they were born. It was an uneasy conversation where you know it's better to back off. Then later it's an itch you can't scratch. I know it wasn't healthy to think about, just wanted to share it.

The cruelty of what humans can do to each other must never be forgotten, so we do not repeat it.

I have seen this episode, and reactions to it, many times. This time what made it difficult for me was watching Jacqui crying so hard. My wife and I visited Dachau in 2015. Visits to that place, or another one (Auschwitz, perhaps) are worthwhile. Another way to get in touch with the true horror shown here is to look at a map of all the concentration camps that were in the Third Reich. They were all over the place. The concentration camp at Dachau is not far from the town at all, and it was also the very first one built, in 1933-The year Hitler took power. This camp operated for 12 years and was built to hold 6000. At the end of the war, the camp at Dachau held 30,000. I cannot believe that the German people could not figure out what was going on, even if they did not want to admit it.

Hello Jacqui. Your reaction is the exact same I get when I watch that episode. It is a true testament to how well that entire series and episode in particular was made. One of my great-uncle was there and at the first concentration camp built by the SS, called Dachau. I got to visit Dachau over 20 years ago and let me just say that it is the most jarring experience. Before walking into the gates you could hear talking from the other visitors that were there and birds chirping. But the second I walked through the gate I was hit all of a sudden by sadness. Gone was any sound other than the crunch of the pebbles under my shoes. I took pictures of the camp and when I showed them to my great uncle he said "still looks the same. You just don't see the dead bodies, the living skeletons, and smell that godawful stench." The only thing the series couldn't depict was the stench in the air. I want to thank you for showing when you watched this series. I got to meet two of the veterans of Band of Brothers before they passed away. One of which was Shifty Powers. He was exactly like, how he was portrayed in the series. A genuinely kind southern gentleman.

Being Jewish, I grew up in an education system that made us aware of all of this from a young age, to a significant extent because we actually have a lot of documentation, photos, video etc from the Western Allies. But of course for non-Jewish people the info is not always known or even accessible even today. Then, it was absolutely inconceivable. My grandfather served in the Red Army, Went through all of the war. Was wounded in Stalingrad. Rarely spoke about any of that, as was clear it was all hell. But years after he had passed away my dad told me that grandad was part of a unit liberating some of the countless small camps the Germans ran in the Baltics. By then almost all of the Jews were already murdered, and only small groups remained. And these people, who survived almost all of the Holocaust, were executed a day, maybe just hours before the Soviet troops reached the camps. The Germans were getting ready to burn the bodies but they didn't have enough time. My grandad, being Jewish, saw that right there. It was so horrible for him he only mentioned it briefly once to my father (that's how he knew). He would sometimes speak about his other experiences in the war, but about the camps- that was the only time.

Some information about the camps was leaking out of Germany. For example, some Jewish families in Germany were able to get word of what was happening out to relatives in other countries, including in the U.S. Most of the stories were dismissed as propaganda. After all, we had camps too (Manzanar, etc) and they weren't death camps, so most who did hear about the camps thought that the German camps were similar. While the President and the top military staff heard more of the unfiltered stories, the American public generally didn't even know the camps existed. The soldiers certainly didn't know they existed until they stumbled across them. This episode is a tough watch, and it's just a re-enactment, plus you knew about the camps before seeing the episode. Imagine how those soldiers must have felt, seeing it in real life for the first time, having never even heard about the camps before. The Landsberg camp that Easy Company stumbled across was just one of 11 sub-camps that were part of the Dachau concentration camp complex. The prisoners were forced to build their own huts to sleep in, with limited materials. The huts leaked and were inadequate protection from the elements. The prisoners were part of a plan to get as much work as possible out of the prisoners with as little cost as possible. The prisoners were, in many cases, literally worked to death. The prisoners built railway embankments and hauled concrete for bunker projects. Some of those bunkers were to protect the development and production of the German ME262, the world's first jet fighter. The camps were filled with vermin, and many prisoners were beaten for trying to pick fleas off of themselves when they should have been working. By the time Easy liberated the camp, about half of the workers were unable to work due to starvation, malnutrition, exhaustion, exposure to the elements, and all of the beatings and cruel treatment that they received at the hands of the Germans guarding the camp.

U.S. and British Intelligence had gotten reports of the camps... but, they didn't believe the reports of the conditions. They COULDN'T believe it. They couldn't believe humans could do that. So, while they didn't discount the reports entirely, they didn't put particular urgency on finding these camps - until the first one was liberated. I've seen this episode maybe 20 times, and I was sobbing right along with you... just like EVERY time. This is why I'll never watch Schindler's List, either. As a kid, in the 70's, I met a lady with one of those numbers tatooed on her arm. I didn't know what it meant then (and as a 2nd or 3rd grader, I didn't ask). I learned in high school what it was about.... I'll never forget. And one day, I may well be arrested for assault if some young punk tells me "it never happened, it's just jewish propoganda"....

Jacqui Both Hanks & Spielberg kept actors portraying vets away from "camp" scene until day of filming. That's why their reactions are real. "Survivors" were cancer patients volunteering as extras for this episode from nearby hospital. Sad that some didn't make it when this episode aired.

The contrast of the older German woman giving Nixon the "How dare you!" stare, and then later Nixon returning it right back to her.

I know you filmed this long ago now, but long distance hug to you. Episode 9 hits every time. For me it’s when they open the train car and the arm falls out. Or when the guy talking to Liebgott and Winters hears the word “criminal” and his face registers his offense.

Love your honest reactions. You're so well spoken and intelligent; I usually learn something from you. Rough episode.

My grandfather fought with the 36th Infantry Division. When I was growing up, he would never tell me what he did during the Big War. But when I joined the Marine Corps, and came home from the Iraq War. We sat down out by the BBQ pit in his front yard for seven hours one day and he told me everything. He said that he couldn’t tell me before. Because I had no frame of reference to understand what he had to say about the war. Or the things that he described seeing in Germany. Since I had seen war for myself now, he could tell me and I would understand for myself just how terrible it really was. This show did a very good job of showing and explaining, but it was really much worse than can ever really be shown. The other thing that he made perfectly clear to me was that he Hated every German, not just the nazis. And he did so until his dying day. There was no forgiveness in that man because of what he had seen. You are a very good movie reactor. Thank God you will never know what one man can do to another man. Never forget.

Before anything else is said, I just wish I could have jumped through my phone and given you a hug as you watched this. As a history teacher, I show this episode to my classes when we cover WWII. This is one of, if not the most powerful episode of television in history. A few points to go with it: 1) I feel like Winters telling Nixon to write what he always did about the boys that didn’t get out of the plane is a callback to episode 2. Winters was already feeling cynical after Hall’s death, but Nixon kind of brought him back by saying the map he found would do a lot of good. This was Winters doing the same by saying he still believed they died as heroes. 2) The point I make with my students is look how the show progressed. They saw them in episodes 1 & 2 laser focused, but the first half here is them being annoyed, worn down, just wanting to go home and forgetting why they went over and complaining incessantly…until they found the camp. Once they found the camp, not one of them complained after about their situation because it brought them back to the reason, the “Why We Fight” of the entire war. 3) As to the actual history, all the death camps were located in the east, in Poland. The one Winters mentions that was 10x as big was most likely Auschwitz II - Birkenau, which is the one most people think of when they actually think of Auschwitz itself. 4) Unfortunately, the Holocaust was not just done by gas chambers, it was also done by bullets. Prior to 1942, the Nazis had mobile death squads, called Einsatzgruppen, that followed their armies east. They would round up all the Jews in a given area, make them dig their own mass grave, then shoot them and have the bodies fall into it. It wasn’t until they realized they needed the bullets because of the US entering the war and the Russians fighting back better than expected that they changed tactics to the camps and gas chambers. 5) It was known about…kind of. The upper levels of the military and governments knew because of reconnaissance flights over Auschwitz in 1942/43. Jewish people had managed to sneak letters out to family in the US and other countries, but nothing was investigated deeper because it was the middle of a war zone. 90% of the troops had no idea about it, though. Many were Jewish or friends with guys who were and they were worried they would make mistakes, or try to go off and find camps to try and liberate them, but possibly at the cost of the overall mission. Sadly, the number of victims has grown to closer to 13 million (mostly Jews) as more previously unknown mass graves have been found. I have taught this topic so many times, I’ve been to multiple camps both as a grad student and bringing my own students over there. I’ve seen my students’ hearts break as they see the drawings of young children from the Terezin Ghetto and realize that every one of them died before their own current age. And still, it must be taught. It must be seen. As General Eisenhower said when he ordered film crews to film every camp liberation and forced the German people to confront the mass atrocities, “We need to film this so that some son of a bitch in the future CAN’T deny it happened!

Such a tough watch 😢.

The local townspeople knew. They just collectively denied it just like the other towns that were near the other KZ and death camps. Members of the camp staff would get drunk at the local beer halls & taverns and talk about what they were doing. The countless trains arriving at all hours of the day but had nothing to do with transporting soldiers or military supplies. Even officers among the German Heer (Army) would be complaining about the SS commandeering trains that had nothing to do military necessity. Those officers & soldiers were writing letters back to the loved ones about what they were witnessing in the East.

I have only watched this episode alone. I’ve never cried during it until I saw this watch along. Our need for social interaction drives us to search for videos like these. It is your raw honest reaction that touched me, and what sets you apart from others. A difficult, highly emotional subject, handled with respect and class. Bravo! Thank you so much for sharing!

Thank you for your reaction. In highschool i got to go on an echange program to Germany. When we were in Bavaria we visited Dachau. It was the Creepiest place i've ever been. There were no Birds. The world remembers what happened in these places. Never Forget, or we'll be Doomed to repeat ourselves.

I also sobbed watching this , such a powerful episode.

I have watched this episode dozens of times since it was first broadcast in October of 2001, and I weep every time. Including this one. Do not think for one moment that your reaction did you a disservice. It just proves you're a decent human being. I'm sorrry you had to suffer through that. But in the long run, it will be worth it.

I share your pain, Jacqui. Believe me. I live 86 Km. from Treblinka and around 300 Km. from Auschwitz-Birkenau. When I just came to live here, I spent many sleepless nights thinking about where I was. I promised to visit those places only when I were ready. I finally did it, but you are never ready enought to go there. It was really hard to hold the tears all that time, and this same music was in my head all the time. I went to pay respects, to honor the victims and to pray. Thank you so much for your courage to watch this episode.

I must've watched this series over 20 times since it was released on DVD, episode 9 gets me every single time. My grandfather always used to say that, if Hitler had ever invaded England you wouldn't be here, because the Nazis would have killed me and your mother. I often wondered what he meant. He once told me that it was because he wasn't blond and blue eyed (Aryan race). However, I recently found out that his mother (my great grandmother) was Jewish... Bless you, Jacqui

This episode wrecks me every fucking single time 😭😭😭

I've always said this show needs to be shown in every American high school, but this episode at least should be a MUST. They handled this situation with grace IMO.

I’ve watched the series every year for the last 15 years and this episode never fails to draw tears. This episode alone should be played in every secondary/ high school across the world to show the evil that humans are capable of when unchecked. No one is ever ready for episode 9!

Spielberg once said that the fun in making Band of Brothers ended with Episode 9. I've watched it many times, and still have to take a deep breath before starting the episode. It hits just as hard as it did the first time. That shot of Bull crouching outside the fence, unable even to lift his head, sums it all up. No mercy. And a note on "fraternizing", there was a great deal of (shall we say) nonconsensual sexual activity between GIs and German (and Dutch, and Belgian) women. Not something any of us want to think about, but there it is. And lastly, if you want another genuinely emotional episode, watch Ep 6 (Bastogne) which follows Eugene Roe through a day in the siege. Another gut-puncher supreme. And IMHO, simply the finest war movie ever made even if it was a for-TV series by HBO. And if you want to watch what has to be one of the most chilling movies ever made, watch "Conspiracy", another HBO movie, on the 1942 Wannsee Conference that put the Final Solution into motion (Kenneth Branagh, Stanley Tucci, Colin Firth).

the woman in the red coat did not say one word - yet said the most in this episode

Thank you for sharing this.

@movienightwithjacqui Jacqui, you have an empathetic heart, and this episode pulls no punches, your tears and upset are warranted. *hugs* This episode definitely shows how to make a scene and tell a story that cuts to the core and elicits emotional response from your audience - it never fails to do so. The first camp that the US Army liberated was Ohrdruf. At that place, Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight Eisenhower brought General George S Patton and General Omar Bradley with him to see for themselves. What they witnessed there made 'Ol Blood n Guts' Patton become violently sick and he threw up against a wall, later refusing to go into a building where bodies were stacked like cordwood. Eisenhower sent communications to every unit within range not engaged in active combat operations to also come see, he also sent communications to the press and Congress to send representatives to witness this horror in order to document it. Ohrdruf was the first place they ordered the locals to be marched through the camp to bear witness to these atrocities, and ordered them to bury the dead. At the end of their tour, the Mayor of Ohrdruf and his wife went home and hanged themselves in their living room. As it turned out, one of the 'guides' giving them a tour of Ohrdruf was a camp guard in disguise! That is, until one of the inmates recognized him and the inmates promptly beat him to death. To quote the Supreme Allied Commander: "“We are told the American soldier does not know what he is fighting for. Now, at least, we know what he is fighting against.” -General Dwight D Eisenhower.

I’ve watched band of brothers, at least 100 times in the last 10 years. And even though, episode 9 doesn’t impact as much as it did the first time I watched it, I never cease to shed a few tears. Especially to think now, that similar things are happening all over again-as though we’ve learned nothing from history, or we have an ignorant and blatant denial of what actually happened. These younger generations need to watch Band of Brothers, to understand history as it truly was.

The camp described in the chapter is the Kaufering IV camp, which was one of Dachau's subcamps. I have noticed that archival footage from the liberation of the Dachau camp was reconstructed, such as the scene of the opening of the train car. The episode is telling the victims story so it will not be forgotten, thank you for watching their story.

I hope you understand.

Composer here, so I'm glad you noticed the music. Once again, the writing and directing are brilliant, if hard to notice beyond the gut punch shocks. Take for instance, the contrast of sublime beauty that a country like Germany can produce - in the music of Beethoven - against what is perhaps history's ugliest moment, discovered in that same Germany. What commentary does the writer suggest in that the music is mistaken for Mozart who, like Hitler, was Austrian, not German like Beethoven? And I have always almost shuddered at the symbolism of the violin case being opened at the beginning and then closed in the final image, like a coffin, with the beauty of music enclosed therein. It suggests an accord with Theodor W. Adorno's famous quote: "There can be no poetry after Auschwitz."

Beautiful and heartfelt reaction Jacqui! It's arguably my favorite episode and never fails to put a lump in my throat or bring a tear to my eye. I have been to Dachau and seen where the Nazis committed so many of their atrocities. Thank you!

My father was airborne (17th airborne Glider trooper) who saw combat with his unit very close to several of the places highlighted in this series. He participated in the same battle that Nixon (barely) survived when he jumped out and most of the rest of the men in the plane blew up. He also witnessed the liberation of a concentration camp...I don't know where because he never would speak of it. I only knew because at a family gathering decades later he got drunk and talked about it with some of our family there. I use his unit's shoulder patch here on You Tube as my avatar to honor him and all those in his unit who fought, died to end that madness and came home to build a better world that we get to live in.

13:47 This scene is so horrible. I was expecting something a little less worse. This is the worst thing ever done to humans 😢 A small thought to these unfortunate people 😔

In the 1960s, my dad worked with a WW2 vet who had taken part in liberating one of the camps. Apparently, there had been some "medical experiments" done. He told my dad you just didn't want to believe people were capable of doing those things to other people.

The thing about band of brothers is how it hits in different ways. Things nobody thinks about. The horrors of war, the atrocities of humans, and the after affects of it. It wasnt until i joined the service myself that i realized how much each death hurt. Every single one a potential brother. And real conflict is usually complicated. Questioning why we are even at war. But this episode reminds us that without a doubt that fighting this war was worth it. Sadly the world today forgets about this war.

It was hard. Almost had to turn it off. It hurts to see a smart woman cry.

When this series is done, I urge you to watch Tom Hanks' other miniseries, From the Earth to the Moon. It's a terrific retelling of the space program in the 1960's and early 70's (and not nearly as heavy). Every mission was unique and had an interesting story behind it. It's also timely, because we're losing more and more of the men who travelled to the moon. (Another one died last week).

You did good to get through this episode Jacqui, and I think your response at the end was on point. I don't know too many people who handle this episode well. I've been an amateur war historian for quite some time, so my reactions are different. And I have visited two former concentration camps, Dachau and Natzweiler-Struthof. The camp depicted in this episode was a sub camp of Dachau, for workers. Lest we forget.

I grew up an Army brat and we visited Dachau during my dad's first tour in Germany. It is a memory that is still burned into nearly 50 years later. Even that could not prepare me for this episode.