In world war ii. He arrived in june, just after dday and fought literally to the very end, some of the fiercest battles. You were in the thick of the fighting in normandy. Possibly one of the bloodiest and most costly conflicts for americans in world war ii. Of course the battle of the bulge. The film that we experienced january, 1945, 22,000 other americans killed in europe the bloodiest month of world war ii for americans. From my point of view, and having written about the gia experience from the foxhole and also from the g. I. Experience from the foxhole and also having talked to a war photographer, a very good friend of mine, i am honored and delighted to speak with you. I cannot think of anybody else who spent as long as you did in war actually taking photographs. You did not separate until you were kill until you were wounded. I want to go through the first photograph. Tony, can you see what is behind us . Tony yes. Alex can you tell us about this photograph . You are coming in toward lavelle, france. Tony it was raining and i had my raincoat. And we were not supposed to have cameras or take pictures. However, i had an american camera that i paid 47. 45 in new york city just a few years before. And to i decided i believed wars were not being photographed candidly. They should be not one picture should be posed. The world is moving in front of us and that is what we want, the world, the truth. The concept of truth came to me when i was in italy. I was born in williamsburg pennsylvania, and in 193940 hitler and mussolini i was living in italy, and i said i got to get out of here, or pretty soon i will be reaching the age where i will be drafted, put into the american Battalion Army and god knows where i would be sent to defend, so i went to the american consulate in rome and said i want to have a new passport and i want to go back to america. Hitler invaded poland the first of september, and i was really afraid that i could be drafted in italy. In any case, i received the passport. I went back to america, and i arrived november 22, 1942 in new rochelle, new york, where i lived, where the sister of my mother was living, my aunt, and took me in. Thats how i came back. Alex the irony is, tony, if you had been drafted into the italian army, you probably would have ended up in memphis or even in england. You could have run an Ice Cream Store in england. Seriously, the italian experience would have been a lot less violent than your experience as a g. I. England. Can you take us to this photograph. You were drafted in 1943 . Tony yes. This is really the first picture i took in france. Did i am in a boat going through southhampton to normandy. I did not know that we were going to normandy. And when i saw land it was raining i had my raincoat. I took one of these things in my raincoat i made it a loop bigger so it could come out. Everybody was watching. I said, at least i need one picture, one view of normandy. And i pushed self timing so the camera is working [imitates camera whirring] and i think make some noise, tony. So i Start Talking to myself. And i hear the camera going [imitates camera whirring] i hear the click and i have the picture now. And that was the first picture. The next picture, can i go on . Alex sure. Hang on a second. This is the camera . Tony yes, this is the rgc3. It was secondhand. Being an orphan, i didnt have any money. As a matter of fact, i was a wealthy man. My father left me 40,000 in 1924. That is a fortune. When i became of age to inherit this money, there was nothing left. The people who had taken me in took my money. So, i had to start from the beginning. And i decided to buy a camera, and how can you buy a camera . You are a kid. You have no family, no mother, no father. So, i found out a few minutes from me there was a club. And while talking to kids my age, i said, what do you do . Talking to kids my age i said, what do you do . Well, i carry clubs for him and i make three or four dollars a day. Oh, really . Can i do the same thing . So, for 29 days, i was a caddy. I made close to 200. That was a lot of money at that time. So, the next step was, with . 10, i took the subway, . 10 for the bus to the subway in florence, and then another . 10 in those days it was . 10 to grand central. I go out, i look for 42nd street, and there is a shop. I go to the photoshop and this is what i tell the young man. I said, mister, i want a camera with which i can go up and take a picture and not be seen, not be noticed. And he said, ive got the camera for you. I said, please, secondhand. I dont have much money. He goes into the back and brings up this camera. I fell in love with it immediately. Alex great camera. Can i ask you, tony, were you compelled to take photographs . You were an infantryman arriving in paris . Was that your plan . Tony it was my idea. Before i went into the army, i did some research. Actually before this, there is one part i plan to tell you. When i left my village in italy to go to rome and to get my passport, i needed seven days in rome for the consulate to notify washington i needed my passport and i was told i had to wait seven days. So, how you spend seven days in rome . The first thing i did was to go to the vatican and the museum of the vatican. I saw a piece of sculpture if you ever go to the vatican, go see that museum. There is a sculpture of just the breasts. No head, no arms, no legs. It is the same sculpture who did the beautiful woman by the greek what was it called . Venus . Tony yes, venus. The sculptor was the same sculptor who did venus. This was in the vatican museum. I have seven days to wait for my passport in rome. The first thing was to go to the museum. And i see this, and i wanted to become a sculptor. So, i go to to school, and one day, the teacher Bertram Lewis i will never forget this name. Because he created my world. I tell him that i wanted to become a sculptor, and i did some sculpture very, very good. I still have some. I sculpted washington. Lincoln. Jefferson. But mr. Lewis said, sculpture is not for you, tony. [laughter] tony i have been watching your photographty, and he said, you are a born photographer. Photography had not entered my mind yet. But mr. Lewis lectured me and i realized that my future should be an photography. So, that is the beginning. Alex tell us about you as a soldier and an artist while you are taking these images . This is you in normandy . Tony we are about to enter luxembourg here. Alex this is a picture of as you say, war at its most candid. How did you feel is a very young man, focusing on these kinds of events . Tony all through this picture i was crying. All of them. I had no mother, no father. I had two sisters that were put in a monastery. My 40,000 in italy, where someone ate them, i never saw them. And i want to show that the beauty of this world, to me here we are. At a tremendous speed, we are going around this earth that gives us life. So perfect. Why are we so imperfect . Why are we so mean to each other . Why do we have wars . I tried to understand. Eventually i began to understand that wars in our heads are harming us. Here you are. I am an italian. I am not an italian. You are not hateful. Hebrew. You are not in germany. You are not french. We are just one human being. Nothing else. Those are all words. We can create billions of words. We are one family. These are our ideas that came to me then. And then i was discovering this is the entrance. One of the reasons i wanted to do photography is because photographers of world war i had not done a good job. I wanted to do it better. Alex tony, thankfully i have stopped on a photograph that perhaps shows you doing that better than anyone else in world war ii. Can you tell us how you came to take this sort of photograph i believe it is of a guy dying. Alex he just got killed. I walked about 10 yards from him. Where that camera is. The bullet could have come here and killed me instead. Sometime i believe there is someone, somewhere guarding you. It is too complex to think these things, you know . For example when a shell comes from a cannon, it makes a noise, a whistling noise , and it lands and it explodes, and one shell came very close to me and my brain says, oh, thats very far away. Shrapnel is never going to come here. And then another part of the brain says, tony, go in the hole. Go in the hole. No, it is far away. As soon as i went in the whole in the hole, i would have been cut in two. Next to me were bags of wooden cases filled with cans of wood cans filled with food. Rations. C rations, you see. And we have the case of c rations c for alex alex constipation . [laughter] tony can. Finally i jumped, and just as i move, i hear the shell coming, the fragment. And it goes through the cases of all of these cans. It went right through them. It would have cut me, too. From then on war, it could not exist. Since i have been talking to you here, we have perhaps lost 10 people, 20 people, 30, 100. Somewhere because of war. Because of words. If we did not have words, there would be no italians, no juice no jews no russians, no , germans. Those are words. Words are killing us. Alex the gentleman here was killed by a mortar. My question for you is when did you decide to to put your rifle down and pick up the camera and when did you decide to put your camera down and pick up your rifle. Tony i never took the camera off my neck. I slept with it. Alex but in terms of the roles you are playing, warrior photographer, witness how did that shift . Tony i was first a soldier to defend myself, to protect myself. Because i was not satisfied by the combat photography, it did not satisfy me. I risked my life many times. I was just fortunate i am here today. I believe in sometimes i believe there is somebody up there protecting you. Alex you will go up and you you will go up and could not leave. You could not go to the ritz hotel. Was there a time in combat where you actually risked your life for a comrade . Tony many, many times. The time of my landing in normandy, for example. The boats could not come close to land. So, they dropped me off about 100 yards from the viet beach. I arrived in europe at omaha beach. At omaha beach, they pushed me and it was 2 00 in the morning at night. And suddenly, i see that im going down. Im going down. I am below the level of the sea water. My feet bounced off the thing. I come up for air. I float again, i go down, i did this, 6, 7, 8 times. Every time i went up, the wave would push me forward. It was raining. The waves were higher than the height of this room, and after about 5, 6, 7 times i did not count. I went down, i would jump up again, get air. I could not swim. I was waiting weighing at that time, 72, 73 pounds. I was carrying 45 pounds, plus the nine pounds of the rifle. It was almost the same weight. But i made it. Alex and you made it for another 227 days. Tony and on that beach, 75,000. They did not make the beach. Alex when you landed in a normandy, how many were left other than yourself . Say from your company . Tony i cannot say there, but i can say for the whole battle for the whole war, roughly a division is 9000 or a regiment, i forgot. 9000 or so. So, when the war was over, we have lost 29,000, that means three divisions died. Alex 300 turnover. Tony to survive. Alex did you think when you were taking photographs at any time anyone would see them . You mustve thought it was very unlikely you would make it out of this war. Did you think you would live . Tony no, but i was careful in doing the following i prepared myself to develop my own film. And then, to be my own editor, i would go to the film, i would see the negative that hit me pictures have to hit you. If they dont hit you, you are not a photographer or whatever. I would take that negative, and then i would hide it, so nobody could look and say, oh, thats a photograph, you know . So, i had to outsmart the army alex censors . Tony yes, i had two outsmart them. I would have lots of paper theres. I would check with the light. 35mm has all of those holes. You will ruin the negative. By sisters would receive everything. I had no mother, no father. I had two sisters. One older and one younger. When the negative, when the war was over, i went home. I had thousands. I could have done a book with just the negatives that i had. Alex tony, tell me about this photograph. I do not want to dwell too long on these images. Some of these images but i think are very, very beautiful, apart from this one but tell me about this. Tony you see this thing here . Alex fragments. Tony these were redhot. The flames what happened here is this. I went back after the war. I took him here. Exactly the spots. When i saw this and i went up to take the picture, i hear a machine gun hitting the tank and i went down. I had one quick instant to take this picture and then i hear a machine gun. Apparently they saw me from far away, and you know. The bullets, the bullets from this machine gun, the german machine gun were so fast that literally, our machine gun went like this there is went light which is like 100 bullets in a split second. They would have got me in two. As a matter of fact, as soon as i click this picture, i hear the i went down and i realized but if i had not gone down, i would have been cut in two. Alex where was this photograph taken . It is late in the war. Tony march. Alex one of 350,000 german soldiers in march of 1945. This is towards the end of the war. Alex this is towards the end. This is the forest. It was awful. I snapped this picture because this guy had hitlers mustache here. [laughter] alex carry on, tony, carry on. Tony when i arrived in berlin i went directly to i arrived in berlin twice. One day the reason officers took me in their jeep, i had three officers, three jeeps at my disposal, and the reason they gave me was i would take their pictures and they would send them to their family home or to the newspaper, and so the camera , in a way, saved my life. Because i was not an infantry man walking all the time. I was with colonel mcdonald, the jeep of captain captain i am beginning to forget. There were three officers. I had three jeeps at my disposal. Alex can we look at this image here . I have to say it is my favorite image. Tony mine too. Alex perhaps this is a way for you to look now back on the war and think about how the camera protected you from some of the horrors. Now you can look at the evidence of this immense joy you brought to the people, that you were a liberator. You have an image, a memory, that you were able to share the beauty of that journey. Host tony this was taken at 10 00 in the morning. I arrived in the village at 4 00 in the morning. And there was a house that i could have slept in, except hundreds of other g. I. s had the idea before me. They had all found some place to sleep, but there was no place left for me. So, i said, well, why dont i go to the village by myself . If you take this road, go this way, it is called it is a village in brittany. You go for about 300 yards, and i end where the street begins and i go through the street and then there were four german soldiers in the middle of the square right about here. Talking among themselves. I keep looking, i keep looking. 5 00 in the morning, 5 30, 6 00. Someone says move away, and i drove to this town. And the reason is the third house from me, there is a frenchman in the house and an American Flag. And i said, well, lets go in, so i go in, and i arrived in the square right there. It is a cafe. Cafe bernard. There is another man. It is not bernard. He sees an american. The germans will wait. A single american soldier is in the middle of the square. He was playing music. He has a loud speaker. He is speaking to the americans [speaking foreign language] the american i was all alone in the middle. [laughter] alex what does this image signify to you . What does it mean to you . Tony when i saw it, this is what came to mind the picture, oh, what is his name. He is a friend of mine, a photographer. Alex john loenfeld . Tony yes, its a wonderful picture of the three or four american they were american indian. They are digging in the American Flag for the war in the south pacific. This is the war in europe. And when i saw this, i thought my god, this will be the name in europe as the symbol of the struggle that we had in europe. Alex and tony is being very very modest. This is a symbol shown throughout europe. It is a definitive symbol of liberation of europe. Were running out of time, tony. I know some people have questions. Before we going to questions, i just have to say on behalf of the museum here, and certainly on behalf of europe, im grateful to you. We owe you an anonymous debt. Thank you so much for your service, sir. Tony thank you. [applause] alex does anybody have any questions . Im going to scroll through the photographs. When he landed at normandy at omaha beach, how did your camera and film not get destroyed by the water . Tony in those days, plastic had not been discovered yet. However, there was cellophane. However, cellophane is very brittle. What i did was, i took i would say 40 layers of cellophane. I put the camera there. And i tied it with a string and that is how i landed in the water. So, as soon as 6 00 in the morning came up and we were to go elsewhere, i removed the cellophane and began to take pictures in europe. I did it with cellophane. Cellophane we had cellophane. How many rolls of film did you have . Tony i was carrying with me 20 rolls. The equivalent of 20 rolls. What i actually did was to buy a can for a real of a movie, a movie reel that they showed. I went into a Movie Theater in new rochelle. I thought this out before. And i asked a friend of mine if he could give me a can. You know, where they had reels of the movies. So, i went in the back of the movies. And then i got one of those and i carried it with me throughout the war. I still have it. Hi. Thanks for sharing your story with us. Hi. Anyway. Thanks for sharing with us. You said the people that took you in took all of your money and stuff, so how much did it cost you to go back to america with that passport from italy . [indiscernible] how much was a to get to america . Tony my mother and father i have to Say Something very quickly about them. I was born december 20, 1922 in pennsylvania. I lost my mother when i was between three and four and my father when i was five and six. So, i was an orphan. And i did not know what was going on. But later on when i came through the war, i went back to italy. I find the papers, that this was what took place when i was a baby, a child. My father had left at the bank in italy, where he was from originally 40,000. , 40,000 in 1925, i could have bought the empire state building. This was in frankfurt, i believe. So, i was but then i realized , it is history, you are alive you can do miracles. , alex i think we have time for one more question. One more question, yes. It is not a question. I just want to say thank you. You have an incredible heritage that will never die. Thank you for sharing your view, not just the things that we see in the movies, but when you spoke about the human race and all of the things that are beauty, in your pictures, these are the moments they could not think about this because you are thinking about saving your life, but also saving those moments so that future generations could think we should start with that because we are all the same and i feel honored and privileged to have heard what you have to say. Thank you. [applause] tony thank you. Just a p. S. I have not finished yet. [laughter] tony im not done yet. Mankind will have a surprise before i kick the bucket. [laughter] thank you all. Thanks so much. Tony be positive. Be positive. [laughter] alex thank you so much, tony. [applause] you are watching American History tv. All weekend, every weekend on cspan 3. To join the conversation, like us on facebook. On cspans road to the white house or president ial hopefuls announce their run for president. Today live on cspan, Hillary Clinton will kick off her campaign, live from the fdr freedom park in york city. On monday afternoon at 3 00, we are live from Miamidade College were former governor jeb bush will officially announce his kedzie. And on tuesday, Businessman Donald Trump will announce whether he makes a bid for presidency at the trump tower. Cspans road to the white house 2016. President Richard Nixon had the opportunity to fill for seats on the u. S. Supreme court. Up next on American History tv, author Kevin Mcmahon discusses the strategy behind the president and the influence he had on the courts. Judge Anthony Scalia makes introductory remarks. Good evening. My name is don air. I am a lawyer in washington and the chairman of the Supreme Court historical societys publication committee. I was lucky to serve on the Selection Committee for the griswold prize and i am pleased to welcome you to the 2015 Erwin Griswold prize lecture. Before we proceed, giving the profoundest, given the surroundings i have to ask , everyone to make sure your cell phones, smart phones, tablets are turned off. They tell me if you do not do that the sound system may not