20 August (2009-08-20) – 22 September 2009 (2009-09-22)
Apocalypse: The Second World War (French: Apocalypse, la 2e Guerre mondiale) (2009) is a six-part French documentary by Daniel Costelle and Isabelle Clarke about the Second World War. The music of the documentary was composed by Kenji Kawai.
The documentary is composed exclusively of actual footage of the war as filmed by war correspondents, soldiers, resistance fighters and private citizens. The series is shown in color, with the black-and-white footage being fully colorized, save for some original color footage. The only exception to the treatment are most Holocaust scenes, which are presented in the original black and white.
It was first aired in 2009 from August 20 and 27 and September 3 on the French-speaking Belgian RTBF then on August 23 and 30 and September 6 on the French-speaking Swiss TSR and finally on September 8 to September 22 on France 2 channel. It was narrated in French by actor/director Mathieu Kassovitz. The documentary was shown on the Smithsonian Channel in the United States, where it was narrated by actor Martin Sheen,[1] on the National Geographic Channel and Channel 4 in the United Kingdom, where it was narrated by actor Jonathan Booth, Canada, the Netherlands, Poland, Australia, Romania[2] and Asia,[3]onYLE Teema in Finland,[4]onRete 4 in Italy, on IBA, the national public channel in Israel,[5]onRTP2, the national public channel in Portugal, and on La 2, the national public channel in Spain.
Rose Gowlland – A British child who was a year old when the war broke out.
Gaston Sirec – A French truck driver who was imprisoned in a stalag when the Germans defeated France.
Lt. August Graf Kageneck – A German Tank commander who personifies a typical Wehrmacht soldier as he writes in his journal or to his mother.
While a lot of males are mentioned in this documentary series, cell block guards and nurses who were female also contributed to WWII. A novel by Elizabeth Wein displays some of this torment done in women concentration camps.
