Masters of the Air producer and writer John Orloff has revealed whether Major Rosie’s visit to a concentration camp in the show actually happened in real life. During the final episode of the miniseries, the pilot ends up observing what happened in a concentration camp during World War II. This event provided a reminder of how the war started, and what the Allied powers were trying to overcome.

Speaking with Variety, Orloff revealed that the real Rosie did see a concentration camp both in real life and during the Masters of the Air finale. The producer went on to explain why including a camp in the series finale was important to both the character and the show’s story. Check out what Orloff had to say below:

Steven’s done it twice [in “Schindler’s List” and “Band of Brothers”]. But that said, it really happened: Rosie did come across a slave labor camp and the workers were killed before [they were liberated]. That happened over and over, as I’m sure you know. All these camps, as the Nazis retreated and left them, they left them with a lot of dead bodies. And so it is a smaller version of what happens in Episode 9 in “Band” just to remind the audience what the stakes really are.

One of the things we tried to do a little bit in this show, was show Europe under Nazi occupation and try to show what the world under Fascism is like. And in some ways, the POW camp, for me, was a metaphor for this is what life is like in fascism. And Rosie is Jewish, and he had made this decision to re-up, to fight evil. He specifically made a choice and he said it so eloquently in real life, how if you see people being subjugated and powerless, you have to do something about it. If you don’t, there’s no civilization. That scene is just a reminder of that.

Why Masters Of The Air Needed To Include A Concentration Camp In The Series Finale

Throughout World War II, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party took Jewish people across Europe and put them into concentration camps. These camps involved torture through arduous physical labor and starvation, alongside the direct murder of millions of Jewish people. This form of genocide was a key factor in the war, as American and European soldiers alike liberated camps that had been torturing people for years.

While Master of the Air‘s true story isn’t detailed fully in the series, it was a necessity to showcase the full extent of the Holocaust to illustrate what the Allies were fighting against. Despite how disturbing the event was, offering a window into that history was a brutal yet necessary part of the show. Otherwise, the impact of what the 100th was fighting against wouldn’t have been as hard-hitting and historically prevalent.

By highlighting concentration camps, Masters of the Air‘s harrowing scene gave an additional layer of historical importance to the entire series. Crafting the sequence through Rosie’s eyes was also important, showing how the brutality can emotionally impact even the most experienced of soldiers. With the event presented as a historically important part of the show, it manages to become one of the most memorable parts of the finale.