[narrator] In London, England, a secret subterranean network
said to have influenced a world famous author.
[Gutierrez-Romine] It's rumored that his visits here,
inspired Q Branch's secret lair in his novels.
An epic structure in New Jersey,
where an extraordinary craft
met a tragic end.
The sight of this was unimaginably horrifying.
[Morrison] Oh, the humanity!
And an Italian country retreat designed with a dark objective.
[Dr. Nusbacher] This is a place to brainwash young people.
After a stay here,
they're all going to be fascists.
[dramatic music playing]
In the heart of London, is a clandestine facility built
to defend against a tyrannical regime during a global war.
[Gutierrez-Romine] There are shops,
and restaurants and commuters
going back and forth.
It's a perfectly typical city scene at first glance.
[Meigs] But in one nondescript service area is the entrance
to something pretty amazing.
[Gutierrez-Romine] It feels like a forgotten railway tunnel, but you notice
that it doesn't really add up to that.
[Mitchell] There are huge generators, rows of electronics,
and even office spaces.
[Gutierrez-Romine] You have to imagine that hundreds of people
were down here. But why?
[Murray] For more than 80 years, this network of tunnels
has been a key part of the protection
of the citizens of the United Kingdom.
At a time when Britain faced its darkest hour,
these tunnels housed an elite organization.
Their role was to wage a secret war against Hitler's forces
in enemy-controlled Europe.
[muffled explosion]
If they failed, the country could fall
into the hands of the Nazis.
They are also said to have inspired
a really important franchise.
[Murray] This is truly part of the life that Ian Fleming --
led that became the character
that we know to be James Bond today.
Angus Murray heads the organization that purchased
these tunnels from a telecommunications company
in 2024.
They plan to raise more than $200 million from investors
to open them up to the public.
[Murray] It's a vast network, almost a citadel,
right in the middle of Central London.
But really, nobody has seen the depth and size
of what is within this complex.
This site was first created in response to Hitler's
ruthless bombing campaign that began in September 1940,
known as the "Blitz."
[Meigs] This was not just an attack on military targets.
It was a terror attack on British civilians
in the heart of their major city.
[Gutierrez-Romine] So the British government ordered the construction
of purpose-built structures like this one.
This was a deep level air raid shelter for London civilians.
In November 1940, early in the war, hundreds of workers
began carving out two parallel tunnels by hand.
They were more than 16 feet across, 1,200 feet long,
and had space for almost 10,000 Londoners, with access shafts
leading to street level at each end.
They were completed in March 1942, but by the time they were
finished, Nazi Germany had changed its strategy.
The bombing campaign against London had lessened.
So there was no longer a need for civilian shelter.
[Gutierrez-Romine] For the next two years, the tunnels were used
as troop accommodations.
But soon, this underground labyrinth was given
a new top-secret mission.
In January 1944, towards the end of the war,
a secretive organization moved into these tunnels.
They were called the Special Operations Executive,
or "SOE" for short.
[Meigs] The SOE was a top secret group set up by Winston Churchill
to instigate all kinds of clandestine operations
on the continent against the Nazis.
[Murray] So it was an organization of very brave men and women,
nearly 13,000, of which about 3,200 people were women.
These agents were trained to do operations in enemy-occupied
territory, often parachuting in and performing acts of sabotage
and espionage, or even to aid local resistance groups.
But in order to do all of this,
they needed specialized equipment.
One branch of the SOE said to have been based here
was the Inter-Services Research Bureau.
[Meigs] They designed pistols with silencers
for discreet attacks,
suitcase radios.
They even had something they called "the exploding rat",
that was packed with explosives.
Around six months after the SOE took up residence,
they would be involved in the largest
amphibious assault in history,
D-Day.
[Murray] We believe they stayed for the entire period of 1944,
so we assume that they were heavily involved
in that particular operation.
Churchill said he wanted the SOE to "set Europe ablaze"
by that, he meant that when it finally came time
for the Allies to retake France,
the ground would already be softened
by these resistance groups
that had disrupted rail networks,
destroyed ammunition, anything they could do
to degrade the Germans' ability to respond.
While the exact role of the SOE agents working here
is still a mystery,
it's claimed their activities inspired an iconic author,
and a blockbuster movie series.
[Murray] So Ian Fleming was the Naval Liaison Officer
to the Special Operations Executive.
Ian Fleming would have been coming down to these tunnels
as we were leading up to what was obviously a naval operation.
There's no question that this location inspired him,
along with what the Special Operations Executive was doing,
to become Q Branch in James Bond.
[Meigs] In the James Bond world,
we have things like exploding suitcases,
a cigarette lighter that becomes a flamethrower,
coins that can track your location,
the kinds of things that we can imagine being worked on
or dreamed about in this underground workshop.
[mysterious music playing]
In 1946, a year after the war ended,
the SOE was disbanded.
For the next six years, the tunnels were used
to store official documents,
until they were given a crucial new objective
during an era of global crisis.
[Gutierrez-Romine] The United States had been on the brink
of nuclear Armageddon,
and this place was called into action
to make sure that didn't happen again.
2 Beneath the streets of central London are the remains
of a top-secret World War II tunnel network.
During the Cold War, they were given a new purpose.
[Murray] The whole tunnel complex was significantly expanded between
the period of 1950 to 1952 when the British government
determined it needed a deep-level
telecommunications exchange.
In a pre-digital age, a telephone exchange provided
a place to manually connect incoming and outgoing calls.
In the event of nuclear war
a secure location was needed to keep
the country's communication lines open.
This expansion was designed to do just that.
[Meigs] Telephone technology was advancing rapidly.
They needed room for switching stations, and cables
and power systems.
This massive facility opened in 1954 and had 5,000 cables
that were handling up to 2 million calls per week.
Two years later, the deep-level tunnel network
became the London terminal for the world's first
transatlantic telephone cable, the TAT-1.
This was the first time that you could carry the human voice
clearly across the Atlantic in a split second.
It was not until after the world stood on the brink
of mutually assured destruction that the value
of this transatlantic cable became clear.
[Meigs] In the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis,
the Soviet Union had installed
a battery of nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba,
basically right off the US coast.
For the US, the Soviet Union had crossed a line.
[Meigs] It was a crisis for President John F. Kennedy,
who had to find a way to force the Soviets
to remove those missiles without provoking a nuclear war.
This required delicate negotiations
with the Kremlin.
But with no dedicated connection between Washington
and Moscow, it could take as long as 12 hours for leaders
to communicate through secure diplomatic channels.
In the event a catastrophe like this happened again,
a quicker solution needed to be found.
[Gutierrez-Romine] So, after that,
a direct line of communication
was established between the United States and Moscow
using the TAT-1 cable that ran right through here.
The receivers at either end were not what you might expect.
[Gutierrez-Romine] When you think of a Cold War hotline, you might envision
a big red telephone sitting in the Oval Office,
but it was actually a teletype machine.
It was believed that a written message would be less likely
to be misinterpreted than a phone call.
For the next 30 years, the tunnels continued to handle
millions of government and civilian communications.
[Murray] But after that, this set of tunnels
is basically abandoned.
The advances in telecommunications equipment
and technology made it pretty much obsolete.
Today, the tunnels are being transformed into an immersive
tourist experience.
[Murray] The principal objective we have is to tell that story
of the men and women that sacrificed so much
to give us our democratic rights.
In New Jersey,
on the edge of the Pinelands National Reserve,
is a site of extraordinary innovation
and an infamous tragedy.
[Rose] We're in Central New Jersey,
about an hour south of New York.
It's pretty obvious this is some kind of military base.
[Selwood] As you enter the grounds, you see this structure
which looms over everything.
It's got to be longer than an entire city block
and hundreds of feet tall.
When you step inside, it opens up to this vast open space
from floor to ceiling.
[Auerbach] There's nothing in here except storage space,
but surely you wouldn't build something this big
just for storage.
Yet, that's exactly what this aircraft hangar was built for.
What could the military be flying that could warrant
a space this big?
What passed through these doors was
a revolutionary development.
[Warrick] Anything airship-related really has its genesis here.
It was a marvel at the time, and everyone wanted to see it.
But with innovation, came great risk.
This is the location of one of the most notorious disasters
in aviation history.
This structure dates back to a time when the United States
was completely re-imagining its air power.
At this time, the navy was searching for a better way
to detect submarines off the coast
and scout ahead of naval fleets.
[Auerbach] Germany utilized the innovative technology
of rigid airships.
This was a blimp,
but with a metal interior framework.
They were called "zeppelin," and the German military
used them for aerial reconnaissance and bombing.
Their success caught the attention
of the United States,
and they initiated the Lighter-Than-Air Program.
In 1921, the navy established Lakehurst Naval Air Station.
It served as its headquarters, and its first major facility
was Hangar 1.
James Warrick joined the Air Force 37 years ago.
He now serves as the historian for this joint base.
[Warrick] The hangar was opened in June of 1921.
Hangar 1 is 961 feet from door to door.
It's 350 feet wide and about 200 feet tall.
The Titanic could fit in here.
Inside this building, naval engineers assembled
the first American-built rigid airship, the USS Shenandoah.
It made its maiden flight from Lakehurst
on September the 4th, 1923.
[Auerbach] The Shenandoah became the first Navy ship
to fly completely across the continental United States.
The journey took the crew of around 40 people 19 days.
But this feat was more than a publicity stunt.
It proved that airships were a valuable military tool.
Having the ability to loiter for a long period of time
was beneficial, especially when it comes to reconnaissance.
You know, you can stay over an area for days
if you are equipped properly.
Despite their promise, these ships were still new
and risky vessels.
In 1925, the Shenandoah ran into a severe storm
that broke the ship apart and killed 14 of the crew.
But the navy still supported the venture, in part due
to the success of the German zeppelins.
And it wasn't just the military that were interested
in these new airships.
[Rose] As one of the few airship ports in the world, Lakehurst was
a destination for new form of transcontinental travel.
In October 1928, the German airship,
the Graf Zeppelin, made the first transatlantic
commercial flight.
It flew from Friedrichshafen to Lakehurst
with 40 crew and 20 passengers.
[Auerbach] The journey took four and a half days, which was
considered blazingly fast by the standards of the time.
In 1936, the Graf Zeppelin was
eclipsed by an even bigger airship,
one that made its inaugural flight
as part of the newly established Nazi Germany,
three years before World War II began.
[Rose] At a massive 804 feet long, it became the flagship
for the fleet of transatlantic passenger airships.
This was the Hindenburg.
[Warrick] So, for the Hindenburg to come here during 1936,
it was a major achievement for Germany.
You gotta figure, for Adolf Hitler, it was a good
propaganda tool. It had the swastika on it.
For the next 12 months, the Hindenburg operated
a luxurious passenger service between Germany and Lakehurst.
On the 3rd of May, 1937, the Hindenburg took off
on its 63rd flight.
It departed from Frankfurt to Lakehurst,
carrying 36 passengers and 61 crew.
[Auerbach] What followed would be seared
into the minds of hundreds of thousands.
2 On May 6th, 1937,
hundreds of onlookers were gathered outside the hangar
at Naval Air Station Lakehurst.
They were waiting for the arrival
of the Hindenburg.
[Warrick] Well, because of the weather, the Hindenburg was
about 12 hours behind.
And the captain of Naval Air Station Lakehurst
said, "No, this weather's not conducive."
So the Hindenburg flew up and down
the East Coast a little bit.
It flew over New York City.
Since this was the airship's first flight of the season,
a reporter called Herb Morrison from WLS Radio
and film crew were also in attendance.
Behind me and to my right, over where that tree line is,
that's where, you know, Herb Morrison and those other
film crews were, you know, standing doing video.
[Morrison] It's starting to rain again.
The rain had cracked up a little bit.
And so as the Hindenburg made its approach, you know, it flew
roughly from our left to our right over our heads,
made a series of left turns before it came back
into its final configuration to land,
basically right above where we're standing now.
The awestruck crowd watched on as more than 100 ground crew
readied themselves to catch the Hindenburg's guide ropes.
[Morrison] The back motors of the ship are just holding it,
just enough to keep it from --
[muffled explosion] [Morrison] It burst into flames!
Get this Charley! Get this Charley! It's burning and it's crashing!
It's crashing terrible! Oh my, get out of the way please.
It's burning, bursting into flames and it's --
and it's falling on the mooring mast...
[Auerbach] The hydrogen gas that filled the various compartments
quickly caught fire, and in moments,
the entire vessel was aflame.
[Selwood] Within 34 seconds, the Hindenburg crashed
in the open field, just west of Hangar 1.
[Morrison] ...this is terrible.
This is one of the worst catastrophes in the world.
And oh, it's-- [indistinct]
Oh, the humanity!
[Auerbach] 13 passengers, 22 crew, and one member
of the ground staff died,
but miraculously, 62 people survived the crash.
An investigation followed.
The leading theory was that, as the Hindenburg
came into land, a structural wire broke free,
slashing open the hydrogen cells inside the ship.
Then, a static charge caused by the stormy weather
created a spark, igniting the volatile gas.
[Auerbach] The disaster of the Hindenburg really shattered the public
confidence in airship travel, and that was the end of it.
It remains one of the most notorious disasters
in aviation history.
In a tragic twist of fate, it's possible the Hindenburg's
fiery end could have been avoided if it had been filled
with the more stable helium instead of hydrogen.
But the United States controlled almost all
of the world's helium supply.
The government recognized it had certain
military applications, such as airships,
and forbid its export to Germany in 1927.
[Selwood] That meant that the Germans were forced to use
the much more combustible and unstable hydrogen.
At Lakehurst, airships continued to fly,
but strictly for military purposes through World War II.
[Rose] After the war, their importance declined,
and in 1961, the Secretary of the Navy terminated
the Lighter-Than-Air Program.
Hangar 1 is now a registered historical landmark and is open
for tours to educate the public on its unique place
in aviation history.
On England's East Coast is the remnant
of a proud enterprise, cut short in its prime.
[Selwood] Towering over these misty docks
is this industrial looking beast.
This complex is vast.
Inside is kind of a wonderland of old technology,
giant pipes and pumps and big machines.
[Bell] So clearly this is a facility that was meant for moving
and processing some kind of product.
But what that product was isn't clear.
The building's size suggests whatever was made here
was being done on an epic scale.
[Meigs] This factory didn't just serve the needs
of the surrounding area.
It was involved in an industry that spread
across the entire North Atlantic.
[Lowe] And at that time, Grimsby was the largest and busiest
fishing port in the world. So this enabled that.
The commodity being caught was cod.
In the late 1950s,
the dominance of Grimsby's industry,
of which this building was a key part,
would be drawn into a maritime conflict
over a thousand miles away.
At first, it was low level sabotage,
but tensions boiled over,
and boats literally began to ram into each other.
The situation became so tense, British Royal Navy warships
were called into action.
It ultimately led to a sweeping change
in international law.
2 In Grimsby, on England's North Sea coast,
sprawling remains chart the rise and fall
of a once vibrant industry.
Jon Lowe is a heritage consultant and part of the team
tasked with preserving the structure that helped
put this town on the map.
It's a Grade II* listed building, which means
it's in the top 4% of important historic buildings
in the country.
What it enabled was amazing.
[Meigs] When we think about the kinds of resources
upon which empires are built,
we don't usually think of fish,
but cod from the North Atlantic
was an incredibly vital resource
going back many centuries.
Grimsby's fishing port can be traced back
almost a thousand years.
By the mid 1800s, the industrial revolution
triggered a population boom,
and the fishing industry
rapidly expanded to feed the masses.
[Bell] Demand was exploding, and any fish caught out at sea
had to be kept cold and preserved.
And in an era before refrigeration,
the only way to do that was on ice.
But where are you gonna get the ice?
Well, the answer is shockingly simple.
[Bell] Boats headed for Greenland
and the edge of the Arctic Circle
literally carved ice off of the glaciers
and brought it back to Grimsby.
By the late 1800s, Grimsby's fleet of trawlers
had grown so large, it was impossible to keep them
supplied using the ice harvesting method.
If the fishing industry was to continue to prosper,
an answer needed to be found.
This is the Grimsby Ice Factory,
opened in 1901.
[Meigs] This was an ice plant, on a scale
never before imagined.
For a time, it was the largest ice factory in the world.
[Lowe] So we're in the compressor house.
which is the beating heart of the factory.
This is where ammonia gas was compressed,
converting it from a gas
to a very high-pressure, high-temperature vapor.
And then, when that pressure is released, it's cold.
[Meigs] They use that cold to chill down vats of brine.
When you add a lot of salt to water, it gets a much lower
freezing temperature.
Into these vats of super-chilled brine,
they would lower canisters of fresh water.
It's lowered into the brine, and over 24 hours,
those big tanks of water get frozen into essentially
very large ice cubes.
[Selwood] The ice went up through elevators to conveyors,
which took it out to the trawlers.
The trawlers contained insulated holes to stop the ice
from melting while the vessels were out at sea.
[Lowe] That means the trawlers can go further afield.
They can stay at sea for longer.
The catch stays fresher.
The catch can travel longer distances to market.
It enabled Grimsby to become the biggest fishing port
in the world.
Demand for ice continued to grow, and by 1931,
the factory was producing a staggering 1,100 tons a day.
This was enough to fill three and a half
Olympic swimming pools every week.
But the fishing trawlers, the factory supplied,
were headed for dangerous waters.
[Meigs] As these boats could go out farther and catch more fish,
they were beginning to impinge on the interests
of other fishing nations, in particular Iceland.
[Bell] Fishing was absolutely crucial to Iceland's economy,
and they felt increasingly threatened by larger
foreign fleets over-fishing in their waters.
Throughout the 1950s, '60s, and early '70s,
Iceland worked to ban foreign vessels
from fishing off their coast, first by expanding
their three mile limit to four miles,
then 12, and then 50.
In 1975, they went one step further.
Tensions peaked as Iceland unilaterally extended
their fishing limits to 200 nautical miles.
[Meigs] The UK was not gonna take that sitting down.
They told their fishing fleets to go ahead and fish
where they wanted, and the UK would back them up.
[Lowe] But it became almost a dare for the English trawlers
to break and breach into the forbidden waters,
as it were. And things got quite nasty.
[Bell] The Icelandic coast guards chased British trawlers
and ripped up their nets.
[radio recording] You are interfering with lawful fishing
on the high seas. Over.
In some cases, ships were ramming each other,
which could be fatal out in the open ocean.
The violent conflict became known as the "Cod Wars."
[archive recording] The target of the gunboat was the Grimsby trawler, Carlisle.
She could only stand helplessly by as Baldur and Diomede
continued the skirmish, which ended in yet another
Cod War Collision.
The British responded by sending out Royal Navy ships
to protect them.
The North Atlantic was turned into a battleground.
In total, Britain deployed 37 warships
to escort the country's fishing fleet,
protecting a UK industry worth over a billion dollars
a year in today's money.
Iceland's Coast Guard and fishing trawlers
were no match for the strength of the Royal Navy.
But the Icelandic government had a secret weapon
in their armory.
[Selwood] These waters were critical to international security,
and Grimsby's fortunes were caught in the crossfire.
2 In the English port of Grimsby, are the ruins
of an ice factory that supercharged
the town's fishing fleet.
But when Iceland banned foreign fishing within 200 miles
of their coast, it sparked an international conflict
dubbed the "Cod Wars."
The UK sent out the Royal Navy to patrol the contested waters
and protect its fishing vessels.
But Iceland had an ace up its sleeve.
They threatened to close the strategically vital
NATO base at Keflavik.
Keflavik was positioned on Iceland's southwest coast
and played an important role
monitoring Russian nuclear submarines
in the North Atlantic.
[Bell] This caused serious alarm among western Allies,
especially the United States.
[Meigs] At the time of the Cold War, it was a very, very tense
environment, and every piece of information was critical.
The British government, under pressure
from the United States and other NATO allies,
was forced to negotiate.
The UK chose to back down in 1976 and accepted
the 200 mile limit.
British fishing fleets were granted limited access
to the waters, but with severe restrictions on catches.
This had a devastating impact on the UK's long distance
fishing industry and the Port of Grimsby.
Essentially, the fishing industry was decimated
almost overnight.
by the cessation of fishing as far afield as Iceland.
Soon, most countries around the world
adopted the 200-mile limit.
By the late '80s,
the value of fish caught by Grimsby's trawlers
had dropped from around $35 million per year in 1974
to just $1 million.
In 1990, the ice factory was forced to close.
[Lowe] It was a status symbol.
It represented so much to the community,
and it still does today.
I think a new chapter in its life is needed.
[Meigs] Today, the port of Grimsby is finding new life
in a new resource push,
which is offshore wind power.
This is another installment in the life of one of the great
port cities of the UK.
The old ice factory is set to be a part
of Grimsby's regeneration.
Josephine Waugh is a member of the team
working to revive the building.
[Waugh] There is an existing legacy here
of cutting-edge technology.
And so the intention through the redevelopment of this space
is to have this be a center and a hub for research
and development into renewable energy.
In northern Italy, 20 miles from the city of Genoa,
a secluded forest conceals
a story of vengeful retribution.
[Dr. Nusbacher] There's a clearing, and we can see a massive structure.
It's got wings, it's got a clock tower,
and it's not the kind of thing you expect to see
in the Italian countryside.
[Bell] The location is stunning, so you might guess it was
some kind of sanatorium or a hotel, even.
Exploring deeper, the rest of the building
is entirely bare.
Many of the hints of its past life stripped away.
[Mitchell] Some rooms have the remains of showers, toilets,
but the facilities feel far more functional
than you'd expect in luxury accommodation.
The biggest clue, though, as to its origin
is the style of the architecture.
[Bell] The design is typical of the 1930s,
and that means only one thing.
It was built during the reign of the fascist dictator,
Benito Mussolini.
This was a site intended to indoctrinate
and secure the loyalty
of the next generation of Italian children.
But during the Second World War,
it was taken over and used
against the regime it was designed to protect.
In the woods around this place, rumor has it that there are
hundreds of soldiers in unmarked graves,
buried here in the name of freedom
and revenge.
Giuseppe Isola is the mayor of Rovegno.
When he was young, this was a scenic getaway
that had moved on from its unsettling beginnings.
[Isola, translated] Apologies, I'm a bit emotional.
A lot of people have been happy here.
It's been an important part of the history of our valley.
It was needed to prevent a phenomenon that afflicted
youth at the time, rickets.
But the building's original function was not
to treat a condition that affected children's bones.
It was to shape their minds.
[Isola speaking in Italian]
[Isola, translated] These camps were built because we must acknowledge
that at that time, the regime focused a lot on youth.
Fascism took root in Italy at the end of World War I,
when great poverty affected the country.
[Dr. Nusbacher] In March of 1919.
Benito Mussolini creates the Fascist Party
and he's going to recruit unemployed war veterans
and he's going to put them all in black shirts.
[Bell] For the next two years, Mussolini used his own personal
army to terrorize political opponents until eventually
he was invited to join a coalition government.
By 1925, he'd taken complete control.
Mussolini relied heavily on propaganda to spread
his fascist gospel to the masses.
An often used slogan was, "Mussolini is always right."
[Bell] One other way he promoted his fascist ideals was
to set up holiday camps all over Italy for young people,
particularly from deprived neighborhoods.
Construction on this one began in 1934,
and took just five months to complete.
It was called the Colonia di Rovegno.
[Isola, translated] The camp was open during the summer.
Children would come in shifts throughout that period,
about 500 at a time.
[Bell] The idea was to show these young people
a different way of life
to what they were used to, to build character,
and to show them the fascist future
of which they would be part.
[Isola, translated] My father told me that during gatherings,
they received specific information about behavior,
education, respect, conduct, on how to talk to others.
[Bell] But perhaps more worryingly, they were indoctrinated
to believe in the regime and to see Mussolini
as a father figure who would always provide for them.
[Isola speaking Italian]
[Isola, translated] The fact that the fascist regime did this to its own
advantage and raised a generation that would be
welcoming to this regime, that cannot be denied.
But only six years after the site opened,
its function would be transformed.
[Mitchell] On June 10, 1940,
Mussolini declared war on France and Great Britain,
forming part of Hitler's Axis Powers
during the Second World War.
The Colonia di Rovegno was drawn into the fighting.
2 In Italy, is the ruin of a building
built by Mussolini's Fascist regime
to indoctrinate thousands of local children.
After Italy sided with Germany during the Second World War,
it would be taken over by retaliatory force.
In 1943, it all goes wrong for the Italian Fascists.
The allies are about to invade.
[Mitchell] In September, the new anti-fascist government signed
an armistice with the Allies,
but the fighting was far from over.
[Dr. Nusbacher] Hitler is not going to allow the allies to take all of Italy
and to be just the other side of the Alps
from Germany and Austria.
And so begins the Third Reich's bloodthirsty reign of terror
in Italy.
[Dr. Nusbacher] Any Italian who is suspected of siding with the Allies
is ruthlessly tortured and executed.
[Bell] The population was brutalized, and the time had come
to fight back.
From the winter of 1944, an intense partisan movement
gathered pace in northern Italy.
These resistance fighters vowed to violently oppose
the German occupation and fascist loyalists.
[Isola speaking Italian]
[Isola, translated] They had a headquarters here.
Now there are roads, but at the time, there was only
one road going up, and it was very, very hard to reach,
so it became a stronghold.
[Bell] It was the perfect base to hide out from Nazi soldiers
and organize guerrilla attacks.
It was also used to detain Italian fascist loyalists
and German prisoners of war.
Hundreds of these prisoners were routinely executed
by partisans and buried in the woods around the camp.
[Isola speaking Italian]
[Isola, translated] In those moments, of course, lines were crossed.
It happens everywhere in the world.
Judgments were summary, and justice was violent.
And it's a sad part of the history of Italy.
But you can't ignore the role partisans
played in the conflict.
They fought doggedly to win back their homeland.
[Dr. Nusbacher] The Italian partisans forced the Germans
to get into a close-fought
counterinsurgency campaign in Northern Italy.
And that is a massive suck on German combat power.
On April 26, 1945, the Italian resistance movement
freed the city of Genoa from German troops.
This was the first time during World War II that an army corps
surrendered to civilian partisan forces.
[Dr. Nusbacher] When a German commander has got to surrender to partisans,
Nazi Germany is humiliated.
[Bell] Four days later, Adolf Hitler
committed suicide in his Berlin bunker,
and the war in Europe was effectively over.
After the war, the Colonia di Rovegno
went back to being a camp for children,
this time to help those suffering
from a vitamin D deficiency
that weakens the bones,
called "rickets."
Exposure to sunlight was one way to treat it.
[Bell] It became a happy place for the children of Genoa
to enjoy the countryside, to learn new skills,
and most importantly, to get access to sunshine.
[Isola, translated] Imagine what it must have looked like
with all the sunbeds,
all these 500 children here.
[Bell] But by the 1970s, the funding had started
to dry up, and it was also no longer needed.
It became abandoned.
All over Italy are a number of these deserted colonies
which occupy beautiful locations.
[Bell] These are places potentially worth millions,
but the authorities struggle to muster the political will
to either bring them back to life
or knock them down.