CNN
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Adding to Ken Burns’ historic legacy for PBS, “America and the Holocaust” is a documentary film with a purpose, a three-night production that directly connects the undercurrents of American society that influenced the featured decades to lingering strains of white supremacy. and anti-Semitism. It’s fascinating as a story, but thought-provoking as it is topical.
Directed by Burns and frequent collaborators Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein, the over six hours meticulously connects the isolation and xenophobia of the United States to the barbarism unfolding in Europe, with historians detailing – to borrow a well-worn phrase. – what Americans knew and when they knew about Nazi atrocities.
For President Franklin Roosevelt, humanitarian concerns were certainly an issue. Yet they were relegated to the back burner in the more pressing fight against Hitler, first in his quiet support for England, and later with America’s entry into the war.
To understand the role of the United States during the Holocaust, one must go back, contemplate the anti-immigrant sentiment that ran through the 1920s, the virulent anti-Semitism of auto magnate Henry Ford, and his interest in eugenics and racial superiority. As historian Timothy Snyder notes, Hitler expressed admiration for the brutality toward Native Americans in seizing their land, seeing it as “the way racial superiority is supposed to work”.
Divided into three chapters, the first encompasses the pre-war period, the second 1938-42 and the third the conclusion of the war and its consequences.
American sympathy for the Jews went no further. After the violence of Kristallnacht in 1938 made it clear there was little hope for those left in Germany, Congress still rejected a proposal to admit more refugees, including calls to take in 10,000 children per year.
At the same time, the filmmakers detail stories of Americans and government officials who worked to help Jews escape Nazi persecution, saving thousands of lives in the process.
As is customary with Burns productions (again written by Geoffrey Ward and narrated by Peter Coyote), cleverly curated clips – such as Charles Lindbergh speaking in support of his America First program, or footage from German concentration camps – are rounded out by top speaking actors for key historical figures, with Liam Neeson, Paul Giamatti, Meryl Streep and German filmmaker Werner Herzog among those lending their voices to the effort.
What really stands out, in the end, is how complicated the story is – a mixture of heroism and callousness, horror and hope – and the need to tell these stories, the warts and all, at a time when how to teach US history is really the subject of debate.
“Even though the Holocaust physically took place in Europe, it’s a story Americans have to reckon with as well,” says historian Rebecca Erbelding.
The filmmakers powerfully bring this message home at the end, incorporating footage from the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, as well as the January 6 uprising, and an image of a participant wearing a “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt. .
Touching on such modern examples, historian Nell Irvin Painter talks about a current of white supremacy and anti-Semitism that ran through US history. “It’s a big creek, and it’s still there,” she said. “Sometimes it bubbles up, and it shocks us, and it gets slapped. But the current is still there.
Few have done more to make such a story commercially viable than Burns, whose expansive contributions to public television – including more focused projects recently devoted to Benjamin Franklin, Ernest Hemingway and Muhammad Ali – have continued with astonishing regularity. since “The Civil War” in 1990. .
While that kind of impact is elusive these days, perhaps above all else, “America and the Holocaust” (which will be accompanied by a student outreach program) underscores the importance of chronicling history with all its complexity and disorder. As Snyder says, “We must have a view of our own history that allows us to see what we were.”
“America and the Holocaust” airs September 18, 20, and 21 at 8 p.m. ET on most PBS stations.