Frases de Bill Downs

Blood at Babii Yar - Kiev's Atrocity Story (1943)
Contexto: At the wide shallow ravine, their valuable and part of their clothing were removed and heaped into a big pile. Then groups of these people were led into a neighboring deep ravine where they were machine-gunned. When bodies covered the ground in more or less of a layer, SS men scraped sand down from the ravine walls to cover them. Then the shooting would continue. The Nazis, we were told, worked three days doing the job. However, even more incredible was the actions taken by the Nazis between Aug. 19 and Sept. 28 last. Vilkis said that in the middle of August the SS mobilized a party of 100 Russian war prisoners, who were taken to the ravines. On Aug. 19 these men were ordered to disinter all the bodies in the ravine. The Germans meanwhile took a party to a nearby Jewish cemetery whence marble headstones were brought to Babii Yar to form the foundation of a huge funeral pyre. Atop the stones were piled a layer of wood and then a layer of bodies, and so on until the pyre was as high as a two-story house. Vilkis said that approximately 1,500 bodies were burned in each operation of the furnace and each funeral pyre took two nights and one day to burn completely. The cremation went on for 40 days, and then the prisoners, who by this time included 341 men, were ordered to build another furnace. Since this was the last furnace and there were no more bodies, the prisoners decided it was for them. They made a break but only a dozen out of more than 200 survived the bullets of the Nazi tommy guns.

This I Believe (1951)
Contexto: My favorite story on this subject is the one that was being whispered in Moscow when I was assigned there for CBS back in 1943. It concerns a hapless individual, running down the street in a Russian village, his clothing flung over one arm and a loaf of bread tucked under the other. "Pavel," a friend calls, "where are you running to?" "Haven't you heard?" Pavel replies. "Tomorrow they're going to sterilize all kangaroos." "But there are no kangaroos in the Ukraine," the friend declares. "Yes," answers Pavel, "but can you prove that you’re not one?" I am personally ashamed that men have to prove that they are not “kangaroos.” When bigots attack a colored man, I ashamed that my skin also is white. During the War, in Amsterdam, I felt shame because a starving mother wept over a can of beans for her child. I was ashamed of my fat. And on D-Day, and again later in Korea, I had a sense of shame at being alive when so many around me had to die. When this kind of shame is banished from the Earth, then perhaps we will have that civilization man has been striving for, for so many centuries.

Blood at Babii Yar - Kiev's Atrocity Story (1943)
Contexto: At the wide shallow ravine, their valuable and part of their clothing were removed and heaped into a big pile. Then groups of these people were led into a neighboring deep ravine where they were machine-gunned. When bodies covered the ground in more or less of a layer, SS men scraped sand down from the ravine walls to cover them. Then the shooting would continue. The Nazis, we were told, worked three days doing the job. However, even more incredible was the actions taken by the Nazis between Aug. 19 and Sept. 28 last. Vilkis said that in the middle of August the SS mobilized a party of 100 Russian war prisoners, who were taken to the ravines. On Aug. 19 these men were ordered to disinter all the bodies in the ravine. The Germans meanwhile took a party to a nearby Jewish cemetery whence marble headstones were brought to Babii Yar to form the foundation of a huge funeral pyre. Atop the stones were piled a layer of wood and then a layer of bodies, and so on until the pyre was as high as a two-story house. Vilkis said that approximately 1,500 bodies were burned in each operation of the furnace and each funeral pyre took two nights and one day to burn completely. The cremation went on for 40 days, and then the prisoners, who by this time included 341 men, were ordered to build another furnace. Since this was the last furnace and there were no more bodies, the prisoners decided it was for them. They made a break but only a dozen out of more than 200 survived the bullets of the Nazi tommy guns.

Speaking about the Korean War to Murrow when Murrow arrived in Tokyo, as quoted in A.M. Sperber's Murrow: His Life and Times.

Broadcast from liberated Hamburg (1945)

Challenging a reluctant Murrow to take on Senator Joseph McCarthy on his new television show See It Now (1953 or 1954), as quoted in A.M. Sperber's Murrow: His Life and Times.

CBS radio broadcast from Berlin on March 2, 1949

This I Believe (1951)

Describing his frustration with his treatment by the new CBS management (1962), The Murrow Boys: Pioneers on the Front Lines of Broadcast by Stanley Cloud and Lynne Olson.

Broadcast from liberated Hamburg (1945)

Broadcast from Normandy (1944)

Quote recalled by Walter Cronkite while ducking in the trenches to avoid heavy mortar fire, from Douglas Brinkley's Cronkite.

The British Crisis (1948)

Downs to Governor of Connecticut Abraham Ribicoff at the 1960 Democratic National Convention after being literally shaken down by the man due to his anger over Murrow's criticism of Joseph McCarthy, as quoted in A.M. Sperber's Murrow: His Life and Times.

Broadcast from liberated Hamburg (1945)

In discussing the Ivy Mike thermonuclear tests in an appearance on See It Now, November 2, 1952

A Cake of Soap (1948)

CBS News Mid-Century Roundup (1950)

Stated on "Edward R. Murrow with the News" on December 26, 1952.

Describing the Allied assault on the Nijmegen bridge during Operation Market Garden in 1944

Broadcast from Normandy (1944)

Commentary on the Communist revolution in China.
Years of Crisis (1955)

Blood at Babii Yar - Kiev's Atrocity Story (1943)