28/10/2017 Witness

through unprotected sex.

Now on BBC News, it's

time for Witness.

Welcome to Witness. I'm here at the

British library to guide you through

another five extraordinary moments

from the recent past. We'll meet a

man who was caught up in written's

worst ever nuclear accident. A woman

who was taken hostage along with

hundreds of others when Chechen

rebels seized a theatre in Moscow.

And a man who helped thousands of

Hungarian Jews escape the Nazis.

First, on the ninth of October,

1967, Marxist revolutionary Banesto

Guevara was killed in Bolivia. A CIA

agent helped the Bolivian army

tracked him down.

I put my hand

around him before the picture was

taken. You can see a man who was so

powerful at one point in Cuba and to

see the way he was at that point, he

looked like a beggar, he was in

rags, he was filthy and a completely

different image from white people

perceived of him in the world. In

1967 there was an interest to

provide the Bolivian government with

capabilities against the gorillas

arriving there. I was to provide

information about Che Guevara and

advise them on how to either capture

or kill him. Che Guevara was in

Bolivia to take over the country and

if he was able to be successful that

way he would be able to support a

revolution to fight different

neighbouring countries that they

have boundaries with. The

instruction that we specifically got

from the CIA was if Che Guevara was

captured alive to be able to keep

him alive at all costs. We received

information from the field that he

had been captured. I was anxious to

meet this individual, so on the

following day we arrived at the area

where he was. We all came into the

room. He was tied down on the floor.

In front of him was the dead bodies

of a couple of Cuban officers who

were killed during the operation.

Later on I came back to the room and

stood in front of him and said, Che,

I've come to talk to you. He looked

at me arrogantly and said, nobody

talks to me. At that point I looked

at him and said, Commander, I admire

you. I used to believe what you

believe, although I think your ideas

are mistaken. I just came here to

talk to you, not interrogate you.

Every time I tried to ask him a

question that was a tactical

interest to us he would smile and

say, I won't answer that. At times

he was talking and I wasn't paying

much attention and in my mind the

man I did remember from the news...

That arrogant man with the big coat,

now to see this man who was really

in very poor shape, that impacted me

tremendously. There was a phone call

from high Bolivian command and the

order was 500, 600. We had a simple

code. 500, Che Guevara, 600, kill

him, 700, keep him alive. I asked

for them to repeat it and they said

500, 600. I went to the room, I

stood in front of him and said,

Commander, I'm sorry. I tried my

best. He turned white like a piece

of paper and said, it's better this

way. I should have never been

captured alive. I said, is there

anything you want for your family,

if I can get the message through? He

said, tell my wife to remarry and

try to be happy. He approached me,

we shook hands, he stood back and

stood at attention thinking I would

be the one to shoot him and I left

the room. About 0120 I heard a first

and that's when he was dead. People

really don't know who Che Guevara

was. A lot of people saw the picture

of Che on T-shirts, they like it and

they have no idea who he was. To me,

he wasn't an assassin but an

adventurer. We really have no

respect whatsoever for human life.

Felix Rodriguez, in Miami. In

October 1957, a nuclear reactor in

the north of England caught fire.

John Harris was working at the

nuclear plant when things went badly

wrong.

The old world ponders the

atom. Britain is aiding the peaceful

pursuit.

I joined in August of 1956

when there was a big boost of

recruitment into the not long form

the United Kingdom atomic energy

authority. There were dozens of us.

At least it felt like it. You very

much felt that this was the future.

Britain is making massive progress

in atomics. This is the first atomic

power station to be built anywhere

in the world.

Thursday, October ten,

57, I remember somebody saying,

look, and you could just see a

whisper of some light blue smoke.

Not much. Just a little drifts

coming up the top of one of them,

reactor number one. Someone said,

hey, look at that. That shouldn't be

there.

The atomic energy authority

have announced that some Iranian

cartridges -- uranium cartridges

became overheated yesterday.

Lima

got to the gates we were flights

through and told to go straight to

our berries were faces and

laboratories and stay there. But

there was a fire in the reactor and

I was given a job to do. I was going

to go up onto the so-called reactor

top and take measurements up there.

Sitting up there on the top of the

reactor, it was quiet and I sat up

there all night long. I remember

that. The whole night.

The milk from

200 square miles of farmland is

condemned as radioactive. The

trouble arose when radioactive dust

from the overheated tile fell on the

Cumberland pastures. The farm is

much further away would have faced

not emergency but disaster. --

farms.

I remember the morning came.

Take was put up everywhere. Don't go

past this point. I wondered what had

happened on the night. What I

realised was they had finally

decided the only way to put this

fire out, they tried various ways,

they decided to pump water through

the reactor. That reactor was not

designed to have water in it at all.

At the time we took that decision,

the people concerned would have been

extremely worried to put it mildly,

but it worked.

Now the worst seems

to be over. This man helped to bring

the overheated reactor in control.

It was radioactive for four days and

he couldn't kiss his wife until he

was given permission. If it had gone

wrong the worst that would have

happened is we would have had a

chemical explosion.

That would have

destroyed the structure of the

reactor and see uranium would have

been shot out. Which would have

meant at least a temporary

evacuation of west Cumberland, at

least.

Milk samples were found to

contain six times as much

radioactive iodide as international

health standards permit. So for the

time being down the drain it goes.

With atoms you can't be too careful.

And John Harrison went on to be a

lecturer in nuclear engineering,

specialising in system safety. In

October 2002, dozens of Chechen

rebels seized a theatre in central

Moscow and held hundreds of people

hostage for over two days. One

couple and their daughter were in

the audience when the rebels stormed

the building.

700 people, including many children,

are being held hostage in a theatre.

Gunmen armed with explosives raided

the building in the capital, Moscow.

TRANSLATION: On the 23rd of October,

we went to see a musical in evening,

the three of us. Me, Sacha, my

daughter, and Sandi, my fiance. The

second part of the show started with

the pilot's songs. After that we

heard some sort of noise. We saw a

man in military camouflage go up

onto the stage. To draw attention to

himself, he fired a gun.

And then I looked around to the left

and I saw that there was a crowd of

people in military uniform walking

along the aisle.

People reacted very differently.

Some were hysterical. Some people

seemed to turn to stone in shock.

Some people took it calmly.

The gunmen want Russia to stop a war

that's been raging for years.

Thousands of people have been killed

in the conflict and the gunmen have

given the government a week to

remove their soldiers from their

homeland. The two sides are

struggling for who gains control of

Chechnya, in the south of Russia.

A group captured the theatre and

seized 1000 people with great ease.

I don't think they had a plan about

what to do with us after that. Only

after the rebel leaders announcement

did I realise that we were really

being taken hostage. I didn't want

to believe this. Sandi was the

quickest to understand it and Sacha

was a child, 13 years of age. She

reacted as though she was in a film.

There was no real fear.

The last time I looked at my watch

it was just after three o'clock. I

have this feeling, a little bit

longer and we'll be freed. Sacha and

Sandi were asleep holding hands. I

thought, I need to falsely asleep

quicker so that the morning comes

sooner. -- fall asleep.

I came to in hospital. I didn't see

the storming of the theatre or gas,

because my sleep gradually turned

into a coma.

Within just one hour, hundreds of

the hostages were being carried out,

free at last after two-day ordeal.

Many were unconscious. It is special

forces had pumped gas into the

building to disable the Chechen

rebels, but it also affected the

hostages.

On the 27th of October, I

heard on the radio that Sacha died.

On the 28th of October, the

presenter gives of the US embassy

told me that Sandy died.

Anne went on to help found survivors

group for those caught up in the

theatre siege. Remember, you can

watch Witness every month on the BBC

News Channel or you can catch up on

all of our films along with more

than a thousand radio programmes on

our online archive.

We turned out to 1944 hungry during

the brief but brutal occupation of

the Nazis. David was a young Jewish

man and part of an underground

organisation trying to assist

Hungarian Jews assist -- escape.

This job was to produce tens of

thousands of carefully forged

identification documents for those

trying to flee. TRANSLATION:

When

the Germans invaded Hungary I

changed my identification documents

to Arian. I left the flat I was

living in as a junior and began to

live with a different identity as a

Gentile. A few days later I met with

the leaders of the underground

Zionist youth movement who told me I

would be joining a team to forge

documents. I became part of the

biggest rescue operation during the

Holocaust run by Jewish people. I

was 18 at the time. A month or two

after the invasion, orders were sent

to all Hungarian provinces for

Jewish people to wear the yellow

star of David and to be concentrated

in ghettos. Any Jew who arrived at a

train station was arrested. They

were the first to be deported to our

fleets of -- Auschwitz. In our

workshop we prepare the documents

needed for everyday life. To rain a

flat um to prove your residency and,

later on, work permits. The most

difficult stands to forge with a

Hungarian government because their

emblem had so much detail. You had

to be very accurate. I was always

busy, thinking about how to secure

the safety of the workshop, how to

provide documents that would

withstand inspection, how to keep my

friend says by providing them with

the right documents. I felt

responsible for life-and-death. For

safety reasons, we often had to

change location, moving from place

to place around 15 times over a

period of nine months. On December

21, as the Russians were at the

gates of Budapest I was arrested

along with two of my workshop team.

We were taken to the Hungarian

fascist party headquarters where we

were interrogated. Later on, we were

beaten up. One of us, Nicki, died in

the early hours of that morning in

our rooms. I spent three days in the

prison in the hands of the fascists

until my friends managed to free us.

The police fled because Budapest was

under siege. They wanted to save

themselves. Only the civilian guards

were left. We couldn't save all the

Jews but at least through our work

we saved as many as we could. Tens

of thousands of Jews in Budapest

were saved thanks to the work of the

underground.

Dated now lives in Tel

Aviv with his wife, also a survivor

of the Nazi Holocaust. Finally, for

five years this woman and her family

lived on the frontline of the

Israeli occupation of the Gaza

Strip. In 2005 when Israel pulled

its troops and settlers out, she

finally regained possession of the

family home after years of

occupation by Israeli soldiers.

Israel has been in Gaza since the

six days in 1967 when it won a war.

The war shaped the modern Middle

East and the conflict that Israelis

and Palestinians have been fighting

ever since. Israel occupied land

including Gaza and the West Bank and

started moving its own people in.

Under occupation I lived in a very

serious situation. Two, it happened

yesterday. I am 25 years old. My

father was an English teacher. After

the few patient of the Jewish people

they started to build a settlement

in the Gaza Strip. Close to my home.

Because my home was a tall building

Israeli soldiers occupied my home

for five years. They put all my

family in one room and the rest of

the home was for the soldiers.

Soldiers were sleeping here and they

are so... I felt like it was not my

home. My grandmother told my father

please, leave the home. My father

said no. This is my place, from my

grandfather and I will die here. My

family really suffered at that time.

Five years. In 2004, the Israeli

Prime Minister announced an

agreement to withdraw from the Gaza

Strip. I could not believe that.

Because the settlement here, we have

the building in the school they

lived in. They lived a life as if

they were going to stay forever. But

I kept dreaming of the day they

would leave my home.

On Israeli

television tonight Prime Minister

Sharon said that holding Gaza for

ever was impossible. Over 1 million

Palestinians live there, he said,

and hatred is growing with no

prospect of peace. The soldiers

found out across the sand dunes of

this Mediterranean paradise. The

police took the beaches. The teams

moved in to negotiate with the

residents. They did not get far. How

can you be offering help, she

shouted. You are destroying

everything. And then the time for

talking was over.

The people in the

settlement who were Jewish, they

were upset and angry because they

have lived there and they do not

want to leave. If we hear the sound

of the people in the settlement

shouting now, don't leave. I used to

be positive, as my father taught me,

but you have to look at the reality

and the reality right now is quite

difficult. I wish that in the future

it will be Palestinian and Jewish

together. OK, but before that, give

me my rights.

That is all from

witness this month here at the

British library. We will be back

next month for another five accounts

of extraordinary moments in history.

For now, from me and the rest of the

witness team, goodbye.