Bringing the Germans involved in this story - The Great Escape - to justice was the number one aim of the Brits looking for war criminals when WWII concluded. Why did this get top priority? .Because 50 British airmen were "murdered in cold blood" by the Gestapo after this famous escape attempt.
Details of that prison break are given in this documentary that accompanies the two-disc Special Edition DVD of "The Great Escape."
Some of those details are very interesting but on the whole, this 51-minute "feature" can get a slow, a little dry, but if you're really into the history of what happened, you should find this intriguing enough to stay with it. Some of it, especially near the end with stories about the murdered men, are heartbreaking.
This documentary includes interviews men who were in the camp at that time and were still alive, obviously, when these interviews took place fairly recently. Relatives are also interviewed and even Germans who were involved in the massacre that followed.
It was the coldest March in 30 years and there was snow on the ground on the night of the escape but they couldn't postpone it because the fake passports were all dated, so they had to go ahead despite the weather. I mention the weather but it played a key role in everything that happened, according to some of the things I learned watching this. The coldness also cost the Allied soldiers after the escape as many had to turn themselves in or face freezing to death in the outside.
How much that cold weather influenced what happened, and a number of other facts, such as why 50 people were killed (orders from Hitler) make this a decent documentary. It's nice to know, too, that much of the movie is not made up, as so often happens in films.
Details of that prison break are given in this documentary that accompanies the two-disc Special Edition DVD of "The Great Escape."
Some of those details are very interesting but on the whole, this 51-minute "feature" can get a slow, a little dry, but if you're really into the history of what happened, you should find this intriguing enough to stay with it. Some of it, especially near the end with stories about the murdered men, are heartbreaking.
This documentary includes interviews men who were in the camp at that time and were still alive, obviously, when these interviews took place fairly recently. Relatives are also interviewed and even Germans who were involved in the massacre that followed.
It was the coldest March in 30 years and there was snow on the ground on the night of the escape but they couldn't postpone it because the fake passports were all dated, so they had to go ahead despite the weather. I mention the weather but it played a key role in everything that happened, according to some of the things I learned watching this. The coldness also cost the Allied soldiers after the escape as many had to turn themselves in or face freezing to death in the outside.
How much that cold weather influenced what happened, and a number of other facts, such as why 50 people were killed (orders from Hitler) make this a decent documentary. It's nice to know, too, that much of the movie is not made up, as so often happens in films.