The U.S. and the Holocaust

The U.S. and the Holocaust
Premiere	September 18, 2022
Finale	September 20, 2022
Network/Provider	PBS
Style	120-minute documentary
Company	Florentine Films, WETA
Episodes	3
Origin	USA

The U.S. and the Holocaust, a new three-part documentary directed and produced by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein, explores America's response to one of the greatest humanitarian crises in history.

Inspired in part by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's "Americans and the Holocaust" exhibition and supported by its historical resources, the film examines the rise of Hitler and Nazism in Germany in the context of global antisemitism and racism, the eugenics movement in the United States and race laws in the American south. The series, written by Geoffrey Ward, sheds light on what the U.S. government and American people knew and did as the catastrophe unfolded in Europe.

Combining the first-person accounts of Holocaust witnesses and survivors and interviews with leading historians and writers, The U.S. and the Holocaust dispels competing myths that Americans either were ignorant of the unspeakable persecution that Jews and other targeted minorities faced in Europe or that they looked on with callous indifference. The film tackles a range of questions that remain essential to our society today, including how racism influences policies related to immigration and refugees as well as how governments and people respond to the rise of authoritarian states that manipulate history and facts to consolidate power.

The film also looks at American policy on topics ranging from Calvin Coolidge's staunch anti-immigration ideology to FDR's Lend-Lease bill and how these fights took shape on the home front, including the emergence of Nazi sympathizers. Some of America's most well-known leaders, such as Lindbergh and Ford, were also among the most vocal antisemites. Similarly, new light is shed on many of the well-known controversies surrounding the American response to the Holocaust, including the dreadful story of the more than 900 Jewish refugees aboard the MS St. Louis, who were denied entry to Cuba and the U.S. in 1939 and forced to return to an uncertain fate in Europe, and the enduring debate over whether the Allies should have bombed Auschwitz.

Narrators

Narrator
Narrator
Peter Coyote

Episodes

#	Title			Airdate
1	The Golden Door (Beginnings -- 1938)			September 18, 2022
2	Yearning to Breathe Free (1938-1942)			September 19, 2022
3	The Homeless, The Tempest-Tossed (1942 -- )			September 20, 2022

In-Depth

• At a Glance: Additional information about the series

DVD Releases

There are no DVD releases for this show.