Browse content similar to 28/11/2015. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
Now on BBC News, it's time for Witness. | :00:00. | :00:30. | |
Hello and welcome the Witness, hear from the British library in London. | :00:31. | :00:37. | |
We have another five witnesses who have given us an extraordinary | :00:38. | :00:40. | |
glimpse of history through the eyes of people who were there. This month | :00:41. | :00:44. | |
we will hear from the owner of one of the first privately run | :00:45. | :00:49. | |
restaurants in communist Cuba. And a journalist who witnessed a mass | :00:50. | :00:54. | |
march into the Sahara desert. And we retrace the steps taken by millions | :00:55. | :00:58. | |
of migrants, seeking the American dream. First, it's 40 years since | :00:59. | :01:05. | |
the death of general Francisco Franco, the fascist leader of Spain | :01:06. | :01:10. | |
who ruled the country for decades. Witness had spoken to a journalist. | :01:11. | :01:24. | |
He was the fewer in Spain. He was a friend of Hitler and Mussolini. In | :01:25. | :01:35. | |
75 he fell really sick. I remember I went to the hospital. We were asking | :01:36. | :01:44. | |
how it was going. We thought it was impossible to be free of this guide. | :01:45. | :01:57. | |
-- guy. I grew up in the civil war. Persecution was a problem. My father | :01:58. | :02:05. | |
was in the army, so I grew up in an atmosphere of fear, not telling | :02:06. | :02:09. | |
anyone what we spoke about in our house. It was like living in a jail | :02:10. | :02:16. | |
for 40 years, my God! He was an extra ordinary man, the last of the | :02:17. | :02:19. | |
Western European dictators and the only one whose power was | :02:20. | :02:22. | |
undiminished until the moment he stopped breathing. He had been half | :02:23. | :02:27. | |
dead for weeks, but nobody dared to move to replace him for fear that he | :02:28. | :02:32. | |
might recover and exact retribution. Everybody thought that the civil war | :02:33. | :02:40. | |
ended. April one, 1939. No. The dictator was killing people without | :02:41. | :02:46. | |
trial and he was torturing, fighting against the other side. There was no | :02:47. | :02:54. | |
peace agreement, never. Finally, when a got the phone call very early | :02:55. | :02:58. | |
in the morning, it was dark. He died, they told me, he died! I | :02:59. | :03:03. | |
couldn't believe my eyes, my ears. I woke up my wife, he died! He died! I | :03:04. | :03:10. | |
gave it big increase to her and she was so excited, like me, and we | :03:11. | :03:21. | |
almost cried. So much relief. We finished and we went to the newsroom | :03:22. | :03:30. | |
and we thought the Prime Minister would say something, some official | :03:31. | :03:31. | |
communication. He was crying. In the newsroom, we | :03:32. | :03:44. | |
opened champagne. The beast is dead! I went to the printing press quickly | :03:45. | :03:50. | |
to fix the front page cover story. We distributed that magazine with | :03:51. | :03:55. | |
Franco on the cover story, saying he died. Only, he died. Franco has a | :03:56. | :04:06. | |
lot of support. The Catholic Church was with him for the 40 years. The | :04:07. | :04:10. | |
army and all of the conservative people. One by one Spaniard filed | :04:11. | :04:17. | |
past the open Coughlan on a catafalque which was flanked by | :04:18. | :04:25. | |
members of his guard. -- open coffin. The only sounds were those | :04:26. | :04:31. | |
who were weeping as they filed past. Half were happy, the other half were | :04:32. | :04:40. | |
grieving and sad. It was a great moment. The civil war finished when | :04:41. | :04:47. | |
Franco died, that very day. It was the first day of peace on the 20th | :04:48. | :04:49. | |
of November. The Spanish journalist. | :04:50. | :05:10. | |
Now, that same year as Franco lay dying a quarter of a million | :05:11. | :05:13. | |
Moroccans marched into the Sahara Desert to try to claim the colony | :05:14. | :05:19. | |
which the Spanish had there. Our next witness went with them. | :05:20. | :06:14. | |
The king of Morocco has brilliantly exploited this idea of a peaceful | :06:15. | :06:20. | |
invasion. Both to achieve the bloodless takeover of the Spanish | :06:21. | :06:25. | |
Sahara and as a sly device to muzzle his own internal political | :06:26. | :06:29. | |
opposition by obliging them to rally patriotically behind the march. | :06:30. | :09:09. | |
One of the highlights of his career. | :09:10. | :09:16. | |
Next, we're off to New York to retrace the journey taken by | :09:17. | :09:19. | |
millions of migrants. More than 8 million passed through a processing | :09:20. | :09:26. | |
centre on their way to a new life in America. Our witness was one of | :09:27. | :09:30. | |
them. My father was a singer. His voice was very beautiful. Very, | :09:31. | :09:46. | |
very beautiful. My father had a lot of charm. He could charm anybody. | :09:47. | :09:57. | |
Not only women, who adored him, but men too. I was ten years old, ten, | :09:58. | :10:09. | |
11. He sang in the Opera in Russian. We lived in one room. It | :10:10. | :10:18. | |
was difficult. Some Americans visited our town and they heard him | :10:19. | :10:29. | |
sing and they invited him to come to America, which was also very unusual | :10:30. | :10:37. | |
for a Jew. Everybody wanted to come to America. A relative was able to | :10:38. | :10:53. | |
get us on a beautiful boat. That was some journey. It was cold, we had | :10:54. | :11:01. | |
nothing to wear and everybody was freezing. Finally, we came through. | :11:02. | :11:12. | |
This is where American sifted its new citizens. Expected, classified | :11:13. | :11:17. | |
them and if necessary investigated them. Some, this was the end of the | :11:18. | :11:23. | |
journey. It was interesting, but a little frightening too. Because we | :11:24. | :11:32. | |
couldn't speak English. The masses who travel are brought to the great | :11:33. | :11:35. | |
hall on the island and then they wait. Sometimes the long months at a | :11:36. | :11:40. | |
time, waited to know their fate. They gave us ten minutes every so | :11:41. | :11:48. | |
often to go outside, and when we went out they countered us and we | :11:49. | :11:53. | |
came back, we were counted again and when we ate they also counted. | :11:54. | :12:04. | |
That's the only thing we really brought of so-called value. That's | :12:05. | :12:10. | |
how we drank our tea. For me, it was very exciting as a | :12:11. | :12:28. | |
youngster. And, finally, they got us the papers to leave the island. It | :12:29. | :12:38. | |
was a beautiful sight. Beautiful. That was the greatest day of all our | :12:39. | :12:50. | |
lives. My father became famous. He sang in all the opera companies. He | :12:51. | :13:02. | |
sang in English and Hebrew. So many things changed in my life. I had a | :13:03. | :13:09. | |
very happy life, with my three husbands! | :13:10. | :13:22. | |
Isabel has since dedicated herself to preserving memory of her father | :13:23. | :13:30. | |
and his music. Remember, you can watch Witness every month of the BBC | :13:31. | :13:34. | |
News Channel, or you can catch up on over 1000 radio programmes in our | :13:35. | :13:37. | |
online archive. Just go to the BBC website. | :13:38. | :13:47. | |
In the 1970s, Jim Jones, the leader of the Christian cult called peoples | :13:48. | :13:52. | |
Temple instructed his followers to kill themselves. In all, 918 people | :13:53. | :13:58. | |
died. Laura Johnston call was one of the few survivors. I want to warn | :13:59. | :14:02. | |
you, some viewers might find parts of this film upsetting. I think that | :14:03. | :14:11. | |
Jim Jones figured out what he needed to do to manipulate it one of us | :14:12. | :14:14. | |
into a position of being a believer. And I was a sell out. I | :14:15. | :14:28. | |
bought it. -- zealot. I joined in 1970 after I had been pursuing | :14:29. | :14:32. | |
social justice and making the world better. It just felt like home. It | :14:33. | :14:41. | |
was all ages and all races and all of the people we just kind, kind | :14:42. | :14:49. | |
people. -- were just. When I first met Jim, he was so casual. There was | :14:50. | :14:57. | |
no presumption of I am so important you will be happy to meet me. He was | :14:58. | :15:02. | |
very intuitive. If you were sitting with a group of people, somehow he | :15:03. | :15:05. | |
would figure out what it was that you needed to hear. By 1975, we were | :15:06. | :15:12. | |
looking for a refuge, a place where people could have a good life, so we | :15:13. | :15:18. | |
started making a big investment in Jonestown. We were going to be a | :15:19. | :15:23. | |
role model of a community that actually had total integration and | :15:24. | :15:26. | |
good healthcare, all the things that we wanted. It did look like paradise | :15:27. | :15:33. | |
to me. The thing that I realised on reflection was that Jim was | :15:34. | :15:36. | |
corrupted by power and when he was in Guyana, he was in absolute | :15:37. | :15:43. | |
control. There was no radio, no BBC, no anyway to bring in any kind of | :15:44. | :15:49. | |
information, and if so he used our love of Jonestown as a way to make | :15:50. | :15:53. | |
us paranoid ourselves about what was going on outside. At the end of | :15:54. | :15:59. | |
October, Jim asked me if I would move back into the capital to start | :16:00. | :16:07. | |
buying supplies. He got contacted by Congressmen Leo Ryan who said he | :16:08. | :16:10. | |
wanted to come and visit. We have had some complaints and I want to | :16:11. | :16:14. | |
verify what is going on. And so what Jim would do to tighten the screws | :16:15. | :16:18. | |
is indoctrinate us to think that we have all of these things going and | :16:19. | :16:21. | |
now people are threatening to take it all away. He started talking in | :16:22. | :16:26. | |
this fatalistic way, saying that we wanted our way or nothing. What I | :16:27. | :16:33. | |
found out is that as Jim was calling everybody into the pavilion on the | :16:34. | :16:36. | |
afternoon of the 18th at the same time he was having a truck full of | :16:37. | :16:40. | |
armed guards gave to the airstrip to kill congressmen Ryan. It is too | :16:41. | :16:49. | |
late. The congressmen is dead. And then he said I will be taking care | :16:50. | :16:53. | |
of you by having you die. And has he is talking to them, the | :16:54. | :17:12. | |
secretary said nurses moved over to the children. He took over and said, | :17:13. | :17:19. | |
OK, you came here for your children. They are already dead. Is not like | :17:20. | :17:26. | |
you can leave and you will ever be the same. And they passed up the | :17:27. | :17:29. | |
poison to everyone and people drank it. -- passed out. It was not a mass | :17:30. | :17:36. | |
suicide that people said, OK, let us do it. It was mass murder. He | :17:37. | :17:41. | |
completely demolished people 's will to live by telling lies. I'm perfect | :17:42. | :17:46. | |
proof. If I had been in Jonestown, there is no question about it. I | :17:47. | :17:52. | |
would have had that poison. But I have survived. And our final Witness | :17:53. | :18:13. | |
this month is Juan Carlos Montez. When the Soviet Union fell, Cuba | :18:14. | :18:20. | |
fell into a deep economic crisis. Many decided to make them and we. | :18:21. | :18:29. | |
Juan Carlos Montez decided to open Djourou's first private restaurant. | :18:30. | :18:31. | |
-- Cuba's first private restaurant. The Cuban restaurant owner Juan | :18:32. | :22:10. | |
Carlos Montez with some rather tasty looking food surrounding him. And | :22:11. | :22:17. | |
that is all from this edition of Witness. We will be back at the | :22:18. | :22:22. | |
British library next month with another round-up of history. Thank | :22:23. | :22:25. | |
you for watching and goodbye from me and the rest of the team. | :22:26. | :22:53. | |
Hello, welcome to the weekend but what a wild and windy start. | :22:54. | :22:58. |