The National Film Board started film research for Canada At War in December l958, and for three years, the NFB's Donald Brittain and his associates went through 10,000,000 feet of film taken during the Second World War in an effort to present Canada's role in the war. It took the NFB crew 2,000 hours to look at all the film in order to extract the six hours of prime material they wanted.
These are the men and women who saw it all. Extraordinary, powerful first-hand accounts of the Second World War. Tales from Auschwitz, Special Operations, war correspondents, resistance fighters and the Jewish Brigade reveal personal experiences of war that shatter all illusions. A British prisoner who survived Auschwitz and describes his life there. An undercover agent captured by the Nazis, whose prison camp experiences were used to indict war criminals. A British soldier tortured by the Gestapo who lived to become a dedicated Nazi hunter. A war correspondent who inadvertently stumbled on preparations for the invasion of Poland. A fighter with the Jewish Brigade, torn between humanity and army regulations. An undercover resistance fighter who time and again braved the Germans face to face. Featuring rare archival footage and photographs, these stories and others provide an intense and valuable human document of the war, unlike any seen or heard before.