Part 5: The Liberation Holocaust : Season 1 Episode 5

Karl is sent to Auschwitz, for his role in the drawings. He is given 30 mins to meet Inga, who tells him that she is preggers. Karl begs her to have an abortion rather than let their child be born in such a cursed place. But the female artists promises Karl that they will take care of Inga and she will be fine.

Meanwhile only 50K Jews remain in the Warsaw Ghetto, and 300K have already been taken to other concentration camps. Moses and his rebels still don't have enough arms to start a revolution. Slowlym they start fighting back against the SS troops. The rebels get a shipment of landmines from the Polish rebels. On Passover, Apr 19th of 1943, Moses and the others (400 soldiers) revolt against the Germans entering the ghetto for a last action, so they can determine their own deaths. Although they have some success (The initially force the German to retreat and the Jews unfurl the Zionist flag, which later becomes the flag of Israel), the SS eventually overwhelm the defenders (the war goes on for 20 days and the rebels don't have enough resources to hold out for that long), crushing the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and burning down most of the buildings. When Moses and the other survivors surrender to SS forces, they are immediately killed by firing squads.

Rudi is shot during a raid, but Sasha saves him by performing an operation and taking the bullet out. Helena is pissed with the risks Rudi is taking. Helena insists that she will accompany Rudi on all his subsequent raids. At the next raid the Nazis were tipped off and they were prepared. Rudi's partisans are annihilated, and Helena is killed. Captured, Rudi is sent to Sobibór death camp. He meets Leon Feldhandler and Alexander Pechersky, and escapes with them during the Sobibór uprising in October 1943. He decides to try to find his family in Europe.

Josef and Berta are separated upon arrival at Auschwitz. He is put on a road crew with a former patient, Max Lowy. But he isn't physically able to keep up and the engineer in charge, Kurt Dorf, allows him to rest. Using forged passes, Josef and Max go to the women's barracks to visit their wives. Berta has brought her music case and pictures of her children. Josef is concerned that it makes her too sad to see the pictures, but Berta says it gives her strength. The next day when Josef comes to meet Berta, she is already gone.

Erik has received reports that his uncle is taking Jews from the camp to work on the roads, which is forbidden. He orders that it be stopped at once as the Jewish prisoners are marked for special handling. In contempt, Kurt says he knows what that is. Erik says that they need to keep on killing the Jews as stopping now would be an admission of guilt. Before the war can end, both of Karl's parents are killed in Auschwitz. Berta is last seen entering a gas chamber. Josef is also killed in the gas chamber (Erik is pissed with Kurt's judging attitude and reports to the higher authorities that Kurt is using Jews on road projects, against policy. The next day, the Jews are taken away from Kurt). Karl dies shortly before the liberation of the camp, found dead in his barracks, after one final sketch.

Meanwhile the Babi Yar mass grave (100K Jews) has been dug up and all corpses cremated to remove all evidence. Himmler orders the dismantling of the camps in face of the approaching US armies. Erik advises Himmler not to erase the evidence as that would be an admission of guilt. He wants to Holocaust to be remembered as Hitler's service to mankind. Erik goes into hiding but is captured by the Americans. During his interrogation, he repeats that he was merely a soldier following orders. But the US have testimony from 24 witnesses that Erik himself supervised the killings. When he is left alone for a few minutes, he swallows a cyanide pill and dies instantly. Kurt visits Marta and the children, who insist that Erik was a hero. When Kurt says that Erik was a mass murderer, he is ordered to leave and never return. Sadly he bids them goodbye. After he is gone, Marta and the children light a candle for Erik.

A celebration is in progress when Rudi arrives at Theresienstadt . He meets Inga and learns the fate of his family. Inga proudly shows off her baby son, whom she has named Josef. She and Rudi look at the drawings, which Inga and others had buried to keep safe. Karl's last drawing is among them. Inga plans to return to Berlin but only temporarily. She invites Rudi to come along but he refuses. He notices a soccer game in progress and joins in, giving the boys some tips. A man approaches him and offers him a job taking the boys, who are orphans, to Palestine. Rudi accepts and his new life begins. Karl's drawings, which had been hidden from the SS by Inga, were given to a museum in Prague as a permanent record of the Holocaust.