:00:00. > :00:30.Now on BBC News, it's time for Witness.
:00:31. > :00:37.Hello and welcome the Witness, hear from the British library in London.
:00:38. > :00:40.We have another five witnesses who have given us an extraordinary
:00:41. > :00:44.glimpse of history through the eyes of people who were there. This month
:00:45. > :00:49.we will hear from the owner of one of the first privately run
:00:50. > :00:54.restaurants in communist Cuba. And a journalist who witnessed a mass
:00:55. > :00:58.march into the Sahara desert. And we retrace the steps taken by millions
:00:59. > :01:05.of migrants, seeking the American dream. First, it's 40 years since
:01:06. > :01:10.the death of general Francisco Franco, the fascist leader of Spain
:01:11. > :01:24.who ruled the country for decades. Witness had spoken to a journalist.
:01:25. > :01:35.He was the fewer in Spain. He was a friend of Hitler and Mussolini. In
:01:36. > :01:44.75 he fell really sick. I remember I went to the hospital. We were asking
:01:45. > :01:57.how it was going. We thought it was impossible to be free of this guide.
:01:58. > :02:05.-- guy. I grew up in the civil war. Persecution was a problem. My father
:02:06. > :02:09.was in the army, so I grew up in an atmosphere of fear, not telling
:02:10. > :02:16.anyone what we spoke about in our house. It was like living in a jail
:02:17. > :02:19.for 40 years, my God! He was an extra ordinary man, the last of the
:02:20. > :02:22.Western European dictators and the only one whose power was
:02:23. > :02:27.undiminished until the moment he stopped breathing. He had been half
:02:28. > :02:32.dead for weeks, but nobody dared to move to replace him for fear that he
:02:33. > :02:40.might recover and exact retribution. Everybody thought that the civil war
:02:41. > :02:46.ended. April one, 1939. No. The dictator was killing people without
:02:47. > :02:54.trial and he was torturing, fighting against the other side. There was no
:02:55. > :02:58.peace agreement, never. Finally, when a got the phone call very early
:02:59. > :03:03.in the morning, it was dark. He died, they told me, he died! I
:03:04. > :03:10.couldn't believe my eyes, my ears. I woke up my wife, he died! He died! I
:03:11. > :03:21.gave it big increase to her and she was so excited, like me, and we
:03:22. > :03:30.almost cried. So much relief. We finished and we went to the newsroom
:03:31. > :03:31.and we thought the Prime Minister would say something, some official
:03:32. > :03:44.communication. He was crying. In the newsroom, we
:03:45. > :03:50.opened champagne. The beast is dead! I went to the printing press quickly
:03:51. > :03:55.to fix the front page cover story. We distributed that magazine with
:03:56. > :04:06.Franco on the cover story, saying he died. Only, he died. Franco has a
:04:07. > :04:10.lot of support. The Catholic Church was with him for the 40 years. The
:04:11. > :04:17.army and all of the conservative people. One by one Spaniard filed
:04:18. > :04:25.past the open Coughlan on a catafalque which was flanked by
:04:26. > :04:31.members of his guard. -- open coffin. The only sounds were those
:04:32. > :04:40.who were weeping as they filed past. Half were happy, the other half were
:04:41. > :04:47.grieving and sad. It was a great moment. The civil war finished when
:04:48. > :04:49.Franco died, that very day. It was the first day of peace on the 20th
:04:50. > :05:10.of November. The Spanish journalist.
:05:11. > :05:13.Now, that same year as Franco lay dying a quarter of a million
:05:14. > :05:19.Moroccans marched into the Sahara Desert to try to claim the colony
:05:20. > :06:14.which the Spanish had there. Our next witness went with them.
:06:15. > :06:20.The king of Morocco has brilliantly exploited this idea of a peaceful
:06:21. > :06:25.invasion. Both to achieve the bloodless takeover of the Spanish
:06:26. > :06:29.Sahara and as a sly device to muzzle his own internal political
:06:30. > :09:09.opposition by obliging them to rally patriotically behind the march.
:09:10. > :09:16.One of the highlights of his career.
:09:17. > :09:19.Next, we're off to New York to retrace the journey taken by
:09:20. > :09:26.millions of migrants. More than 8 million passed through a processing
:09:27. > :09:30.centre on their way to a new life in America. Our witness was one of
:09:31. > :09:46.them. My father was a singer. His voice was very beautiful. Very,
:09:47. > :09:57.very beautiful. My father had a lot of charm. He could charm anybody.
:09:58. > :10:09.Not only women, who adored him, but men too. I was ten years old, ten,
:10:10. > :10:18.11. He sang in the Opera in Russian. We lived in one room. It
:10:19. > :10:29.was difficult. Some Americans visited our town and they heard him
:10:30. > :10:37.sing and they invited him to come to America, which was also very unusual
:10:38. > :10:53.for a Jew. Everybody wanted to come to America. A relative was able to
:10:54. > :11:01.get us on a beautiful boat. That was some journey. It was cold, we had
:11:02. > :11:12.nothing to wear and everybody was freezing. Finally, we came through.
:11:13. > :11:17.This is where American sifted its new citizens. Expected, classified
:11:18. > :11:23.them and if necessary investigated them. Some, this was the end of the
:11:24. > :11:32.journey. It was interesting, but a little frightening too. Because we
:11:33. > :11:35.couldn't speak English. The masses who travel are brought to the great
:11:36. > :11:40.hall on the island and then they wait. Sometimes the long months at a
:11:41. > :11:48.time, waited to know their fate. They gave us ten minutes every so
:11:49. > :11:53.often to go outside, and when we went out they countered us and we
:11:54. > :12:04.came back, we were counted again and when we ate they also counted.
:12:05. > :12:10.That's the only thing we really brought of so-called value. That's
:12:11. > :12:28.how we drank our tea. For me, it was very exciting as a
:12:29. > :12:38.youngster. And, finally, they got us the papers to leave the island. It
:12:39. > :12:50.was a beautiful sight. Beautiful. That was the greatest day of all our
:12:51. > :13:02.lives. My father became famous. He sang in all the opera companies. He
:13:03. > :13:09.sang in English and Hebrew. So many things changed in my life. I had a
:13:10. > :13:22.very happy life, with my three husbands!
:13:23. > :13:30.Isabel has since dedicated herself to preserving memory of her father
:13:31. > :13:34.and his music. Remember, you can watch Witness every month of the BBC
:13:35. > :13:37.News Channel, or you can catch up on over 1000 radio programmes in our
:13:38. > :13:47.online archive. Just go to the BBC website.
:13:48. > :13:52.In the 1970s, Jim Jones, the leader of the Christian cult called peoples
:13:53. > :13:58.Temple instructed his followers to kill themselves. In all, 918 people
:13:59. > :14:02.died. Laura Johnston call was one of the few survivors. I want to warn
:14:03. > :14:11.you, some viewers might find parts of this film upsetting. I think that
:14:12. > :14:14.Jim Jones figured out what he needed to do to manipulate it one of us
:14:15. > :14:28.into a position of being a believer. And I was a sell out. I
:14:29. > :14:32.bought it. -- zealot. I joined in 1970 after I had been pursuing
:14:33. > :14:41.social justice and making the world better. It just felt like home. It
:14:42. > :14:49.was all ages and all races and all of the people we just kind, kind
:14:50. > :14:57.people. -- were just. When I first met Jim, he was so casual. There was
:14:58. > :15:02.no presumption of I am so important you will be happy to meet me. He was
:15:03. > :15:05.very intuitive. If you were sitting with a group of people, somehow he
:15:06. > :15:12.would figure out what it was that you needed to hear. By 1975, we were
:15:13. > :15:18.looking for a refuge, a place where people could have a good life, so we
:15:19. > :15:23.started making a big investment in Jonestown. We were going to be a
:15:24. > :15:26.role model of a community that actually had total integration and
:15:27. > :15:33.good healthcare, all the things that we wanted. It did look like paradise
:15:34. > :15:36.to me. The thing that I realised on reflection was that Jim was
:15:37. > :15:43.corrupted by power and when he was in Guyana, he was in absolute
:15:44. > :15:49.control. There was no radio, no BBC, no anyway to bring in any kind of
:15:50. > :15:53.information, and if so he used our love of Jonestown as a way to make
:15:54. > :15:59.us paranoid ourselves about what was going on outside. At the end of
:16:00. > :16:07.October, Jim asked me if I would move back into the capital to start
:16:08. > :16:10.buying supplies. He got contacted by Congressmen Leo Ryan who said he
:16:11. > :16:14.wanted to come and visit. We have had some complaints and I want to
:16:15. > :16:18.verify what is going on. And so what Jim would do to tighten the screws
:16:19. > :16:21.is indoctrinate us to think that we have all of these things going and
:16:22. > :16:26.now people are threatening to take it all away. He started talking in
:16:27. > :16:33.this fatalistic way, saying that we wanted our way or nothing. What I
:16:34. > :16:36.found out is that as Jim was calling everybody into the pavilion on the
:16:37. > :16:40.afternoon of the 18th at the same time he was having a truck full of
:16:41. > :16:49.armed guards gave to the airstrip to kill congressmen Ryan. It is too
:16:50. > :16:53.late. The congressmen is dead. And then he said I will be taking care
:16:54. > :17:12.of you by having you die. And has he is talking to them, the
:17:13. > :17:19.secretary said nurses moved over to the children. He took over and said,
:17:20. > :17:26.OK, you came here for your children. They are already dead. Is not like
:17:27. > :17:29.you can leave and you will ever be the same. And they passed up the
:17:30. > :17:36.poison to everyone and people drank it. -- passed out. It was not a mass
:17:37. > :17:41.suicide that people said, OK, let us do it. It was mass murder. He
:17:42. > :17:46.completely demolished people 's will to live by telling lies. I'm perfect
:17:47. > :17:52.proof. If I had been in Jonestown, there is no question about it. I
:17:53. > :18:13.would have had that poison. But I have survived. And our final Witness
:18:14. > :18:20.this month is Juan Carlos Montez. When the Soviet Union fell, Cuba
:18:21. > :18:29.fell into a deep economic crisis. Many decided to make them and we.
:18:30. > :18:31.Juan Carlos Montez decided to open Djourou's first private restaurant.
:18:32. > :22:10.-- Cuba's first private restaurant. The Cuban restaurant owner Juan
:22:11. > :22:17.Carlos Montez with some rather tasty looking food surrounding him. And
:22:18. > :22:22.that is all from this edition of Witness. We will be back at the
:22:23. > :22:25.British library next month with another round-up of history. Thank
:22:26. > :22:53.you for watching and goodbye from me and the rest of the team.
:22:54. > :22:58.Hello, welcome to the weekend but what a wild and windy start.