:00:27. > :00:35.Hello and welcome to Witness, with me, Tanya Beckett. I'm back at the
:00:36. > :00:41.British library in London with more remarkable insight into history from
:00:42. > :00:44.people who were there. This month we will hear from one of the scientists
:00:45. > :00:50.who tried to contain the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. A Cuban who fought
:00:51. > :00:57.at the Bay of pigs. And, the owner of the pooch that saved the day at
:00:58. > :01:02.the football World Cup. First, we are going back to 1961, when the
:01:03. > :01:11.Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was put on trial in Israel. Gabriel Bach
:01:12. > :01:14.helped to prosecute the man known as the architect of the Holocaust.
:01:15. > :01:18.In the ninth week of his Jerusalem trial for the murder of 6 million
:01:19. > :01:22.Jews, Adolf Eichmann takes the stand in his bullet-proof dock.
:01:23. > :01:25.Eichmann was head of what is called the Jewish Department in the SS,
:01:26. > :01:34.In many German documents it was called Operation Eichmann,
:01:35. > :01:42.Hitler and Himmler and these people, who actually made the order to kill
:01:43. > :01:58.all the Jews in 1941, they of course were more guilty.
:01:59. > :02:02.But Eichmann was in charge of the whole of the carrying out
:02:03. > :02:05.Eichmann, in 1960, was caught by Israeli agents in the Argentine,
:02:06. > :02:11.Two days after he arrived in Israel, the Minister of Justice called me,
:02:12. > :02:14.and he said Mr Bach, I imagine you will be one
:02:15. > :02:23.But would you be prepared also to be in charge of the investigation?
:02:24. > :02:27.The whole world spoke about it, and all the newspapers.
:02:28. > :02:30.You could see that Eichmann was proud about anything he did
:02:31. > :02:37.in order to prevent the saving of a single Jew.
:02:38. > :02:40.TRANSLATION: And then they took my mother,
:02:41. > :02:57.I put him on the stage as a witness, and then I asked him,
:02:58. > :03:02.He said, well, I had no idea what Auschwitz meant.
:03:03. > :03:05.And he said, my wife, when we came there, was sent to
:03:06. > :03:11.the left, which was shown afterwards to the gas chambers.
:03:12. > :03:17.And I had a little daughter, two and a half years old, and of
:03:18. > :03:21.Then they asked me, what was your profession?
:03:22. > :03:30.I said, well, I was an engineer in the army.
:03:31. > :03:33.So they said, to the right, because they wanted to keep me to do
:03:34. > :03:43.So the SS commander said, well, I have to talk to
:03:44. > :03:47.So it took a few minutes, and then he said to the boy,
:03:48. > :03:51.And I saw the witness, he was back there, with his...
:03:52. > :03:54.I could see his eyes, and he said, I couldn't see my wife anymore.
:03:55. > :04:02.But my little daughter, she had a red coat.
:04:03. > :04:05.And that little red dot, getting smaller and smaller, this is how
:04:06. > :04:13.At that time, my little daughter was exactly two and a half years old,
:04:14. > :04:16.and I had bought her a red coat two weeks before that.
:04:17. > :04:19.So when the witness said that about the red coat, it suddenly cut
:04:20. > :04:32.Until this very day, I can be in a restaurant,
:04:33. > :04:37.I can be in the street, and I suddenly feel my heart beating, and
:04:38. > :04:55.I turn around, and I see a little boy or a little girl in a red coat.
:04:56. > :05:05.Former Israeli prosecutor Gabriel Bach. In that same year, 1961, there
:05:06. > :05:09.was an attempt by a Cuban exiled to end the Communist revolution on the
:05:10. > :05:13.island. With help from Washington they sent a small army of volunteers
:05:14. > :05:20.to land at the Bay of pigs and try to invade Cuba. Our next witness was
:05:21. > :06:06.one of the supporters of Fidel Castro lying in wait.
:06:07. > :06:13.Cuban revolutionary troops such as these have invaded Castro's leftist
:06:14. > :06:14.island fortress. The rebels have struggled along the coast within 90
:06:15. > :09:11.miles of Havana. In 1990, after the fall of the
:09:12. > :09:15.Berlin Wall, journalists were allowed to report freely in Romania
:09:16. > :09:18.for the first time. They discovered that thousands of children had been
:09:19. > :09:26.living in terrible conditions in orphanages set up by the notorious
:09:27. > :09:39.Ceausescu regime. Our next witness was one of those orphans.
:09:40. > :09:44.So in 1989 Communism fell, and the world went to Romania to
:09:45. > :09:49.There were some medias that actually found institutions, institutions
:09:50. > :09:53.that weren't meant to be discovered by the public and the outside world.
:09:54. > :10:00.It left the world in shock that such conditions even existed.
:10:01. > :10:03.Those of us who visited these institutions
:10:04. > :10:07.built by the Communist regime are unlikely ever to forget them.
:10:08. > :10:16.Hundreds of children, not so much cared for, as contained.
:10:17. > :10:18.Well, at the age of six months old I became ill,
:10:19. > :10:22.and my parents took me to a hospital to be treated for my illness.
:10:23. > :10:25.But instead of finding healing at the hospital, I actually ended
:10:26. > :10:32.My parents took me to a different hospital, in Sighetu Marmatiei.
:10:33. > :10:37.So the state put me in an institution
:10:38. > :10:39.for handicapped children, an orphanage known as a hospital
:10:40. > :10:48.What's in this room, no-one could prepare for.
:10:49. > :10:57.These boys are the most difficult cases.
:10:58. > :11:06.From the moment that we can remember for ourselves, that's all we knew.
:11:07. > :11:09.We didn't have compassion, we didn't have feelings or emotions.
:11:10. > :11:21.We were just wild animals that needed to be caged up, is what
:11:22. > :11:27.I grew up there until I was 11 years old.
:11:28. > :11:31.Romania has precious little that the world wants, accept its children.
:11:32. > :11:34.These are the children soon to start a new
:11:35. > :11:38.Some orphanages have been emptied already.
:11:39. > :11:41.I was adopted by a family in southern California, in San
:11:42. > :11:46.It was difficult pretty quickly, actually.
:11:47. > :11:48.I could not adapt into a family environment.
:11:49. > :11:52.My mind was just so used to living in the institution, I was desperate
:11:53. > :12:00.I even wrote letters asking the workers if they would let me stay
:12:01. > :12:07.Each and every single one of them said no.
:12:08. > :12:12.I went to meet my birth family, to search for answers.
:12:13. > :12:15.We also went back to the institution where I grew up.
:12:16. > :12:21.I tried to get to know her, but unfortunately not every parent
:12:22. > :12:26.If I had never come to America, I would either be
:12:27. > :12:33.There are so many kids who are just kicked out of the system.
:12:34. > :12:37.Every city I went to, to Romania, or every county, when you see a grown
:12:38. > :12:42.adult, sitting or standing, rocking back and forth, or doing something
:12:43. > :12:46.that only an institutionalised person would do, you can instantly
:12:47. > :12:54.recognise that person grew up in an orphanage. I do miss
:12:55. > :12:57.the institution sometimes, and people don't understand that,
:12:58. > :13:01.It's what we're used to, that's where we grew up.
:13:02. > :13:23.Remember, you can watch Witness every month on the BBC News channel,
:13:24. > :13:32.or you can catch up on over 1000 radio programmes in our online
:13:33. > :13:37.archive. It is 30 years since one of the units at the Chernobyl plant in
:13:38. > :13:43.the Soviet Union exploded, causing the worst nuclear accident in
:13:44. > :13:47.history. Our next guest was a young chemist who joined the thousands of
:13:48. > :13:49.so-called liquidators sent in to try to clean up the area. He told
:13:50. > :14:01.Witness his story. Everything was huge, everything was
:14:02. > :14:07.epic, a huge nuclear power plant, a huge exploded unit. Workers at the
:14:08. > :14:11.Chernobyl nuclear power plant, near Kiev, took pictures of a thick plume
:14:12. > :14:16.of smoke coming from one of the reactors. It was the first
:14:17. > :14:20.indication of what was to become the world's worst civil nuclear
:14:21. > :14:27.accident. Everyone living within a 20 mile radius of Chernobyl was
:14:28. > :14:33.evacuated. The first information about the disaster appeared several
:14:34. > :14:40.days after the disaster. It was pre-empted in the main Soviet
:14:41. > :14:45.newspaper, and it was a small announcement, like two x two inches,
:14:46. > :14:51.and then nobody could imagine that this is an event of such global
:14:52. > :14:59.scale. When I read in the newspaper about this event, I was not worried
:15:00. > :15:03.at all. Nobody was worried at all. Because the nuclear energy was
:15:04. > :15:12.considered as absolutely safe. At the time of the disaster, I was a
:15:13. > :15:18.senior chemist. I joined the regiment, the 25th Brigade of
:15:19. > :15:24.radiation and chemical detection. Only 2.5 miles after the explosion.
:15:25. > :15:27.The first priority was to make the reactors safe. A small army of
:15:28. > :15:32.helpers was recruited and brought in to help with the immediate task of
:15:33. > :15:39.sealing off the plant. The first shift of the mitigation workers did
:15:40. > :15:44.the most crucial efforts of not letting it to increase in its scale.
:15:45. > :15:50.I consider them real heroes, I don't consider myself a hero, what they
:15:51. > :15:57.are real heroes. Because they were exposed to very large doses of
:15:58. > :16:04.radiation. A noticeable share of them developed acute radiation
:16:05. > :16:10.sickness. My job was to lead the quorum of armed reconnaissance
:16:11. > :16:19.patrol vehicles into the zone in the morning, then to do my own mission
:16:20. > :16:26.with my own crew. After dinner, me and my officers were to sit in the
:16:27. > :16:33.tent and to do piles and piles of paperwork, to sum up as a result of
:16:34. > :16:41.the day. Our crews were the last to make the final check before the
:16:42. > :16:48.government commission was to decide whether to evacuate the village or
:16:49. > :16:52.not. And you can imagine, you know, this crying and suffering and pain,
:16:53. > :17:00.and you know it, and you can do nothing about it. And you can... You
:17:01. > :17:07.cannot help these people. The overall health effect on the health
:17:08. > :17:14.of the population is enormous. And of course, it is negative. The
:17:15. > :17:23.acknowledged effect of Chernobyl radiation is an increase of their
:17:24. > :17:29.cellular cancers in the children of Belarus and most of Ukraine. And it
:17:30. > :17:41.pained me a lot. It's still pains me. Sergii Mirnyi, who now runs
:17:42. > :17:45.tours of Chernobyl for visitors. And finally, the early 1966, when
:17:46. > :17:50.excitement was building in England about the foot or World Cup. The
:17:51. > :17:56.organisers decided to put the famous Jules Rimet Trophy on display in
:17:57. > :18:04.London. But, to their consternation, it went missing. Enter Pickles
:18:05. > :18:08.mongrel, and this owner David Corbett. We were told when the cup
:18:09. > :18:13.went in Hill that the most stringent security precautions were being
:18:14. > :18:20.taken to protect it. Today, somehow, they failed. It was top news, and in
:18:21. > :18:24.the morning the paper's headlines, World Cup stolen, and some critics
:18:25. > :18:29.say the best police force in the world had lost the cup. We found out
:18:30. > :18:35.that the security was really sparse. It was 170 odd-year-old guard
:18:36. > :18:43.looking after it, and he had gone to his dinner break. -- one
:18:44. > :18:46.70-year-old. I'm afraid that this present moment I am unable to make
:18:47. > :18:49.any statement. I'm sure you appreciate the amount of pressure I
:18:50. > :18:54.have been under. Once I have had the chance to gather my faculties, I
:18:55. > :18:59.will talk with you and tell you everything I possibly can. Low back
:19:00. > :19:06.the general feeling that the people had, that the police were not going
:19:07. > :19:13.to find this cup. I took my dog Pickles out for a walk, and he
:19:14. > :19:18.scooted round the front of the house, and he went over to the front
:19:19. > :19:22.of my neighbour's car, and he was sniffing around. So I walked over to
:19:23. > :19:27.put the lead on him, I noticed there was a package on the floor, wrapped
:19:28. > :19:33.in newspaper, very tightly bound with string, all the way up. So
:19:34. > :19:39.curiosity obviously, I bent down and picked it up, and I saw a bit of the
:19:40. > :19:46.newspaper off, and I saw Brazil, Germany... Being a football fan, and
:19:47. > :19:52.all the publicity going on about the cup, my heart started thumping,
:19:53. > :19:59.bang. It is the World Cup! I said I'll take it up to the police
:20:00. > :20:03.station. I jumped in the car, I've got these lax on in the top, and
:20:04. > :20:07.slippers, I can remember pushing the doors open and going straight
:20:08. > :20:12.through, and there is the sergeant standing behind the big, polished
:20:13. > :20:17.desk, and I say to him, I think I have found the World Cup. And this
:20:18. > :20:23.boss comes, and he says Wright, take up to Scotland Yard. And suddenly it
:20:24. > :20:26.dawns me that I am number one suspect. After a couple of days, the
:20:27. > :20:32.police came down, questioned me again, after that it stopped and
:20:33. > :20:39.then I became a witness when the prosecution was brought against the
:20:40. > :20:41.guys that stole it. It's all a bit bewildering for Pickles. For the
:20:42. > :20:46.suddenly world-famous pooch, there is more glamour to follow. The
:20:47. > :20:51.National sporting cloud honoured the finders, David Corbett and Pickles.
:20:52. > :20:55.David Corbett uncovered a special treat for Pickles, but it is Turkey
:20:56. > :21:00.or nothing these days. To honour David Corbett, a reward check for
:21:01. > :21:13.?1000, resented by the cloud to Pickles and this owner. After the
:21:14. > :21:16.game when we won the cup, we were invited to the reception in London,
:21:17. > :21:18.and we drove up to the hotel, the road was completely blocked with
:21:19. > :21:34.people, and there was a sort of big alchemy out the front of the team
:21:35. > :21:36.out there. We went out with them, and Bobby Moore picked him up, and
:21:37. > :21:41.the crowd was really, really excited for me. I think it's really exciting
:21:42. > :21:47.for the whole country. Pickles helped me by this house, and he is
:21:48. > :21:50.buried out of my garden, and a nice summer nights I go out there with a
:21:51. > :21:58.nice glass of white wine and have a little talk to him, and cheers,
:21:59. > :22:03.thanks, Picks. And that's all from Witness from this month. We will be
:22:04. > :22:07.back with more stories of our Times told by people who were there. But
:22:08. > :22:28.from me and the rest of the Witness team, goodbye.
:22:29. > :22:34.With plenty of dry, occasionally sunny weather to come this weekend,