The U.S. and the Holocaust

(Rochester, NY) — 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. The series airs Sunday, September 18 through Tuesday, September 20, 2022 at 8 p.m. on WXXI-TV. Each episode will encore immediately following its premiere each night. The series will also repeat in its entirety Sunday, September 25 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on WXXI-TV.

In addition to the broadcast, WXXI was awarded a grant from the film’s co-producer WETA to host a series of outreach events, which will run through spring 2023. Events are currently in the planning phase and could include screenings, discussions, and speaking engagements. These will be announced soon.

Inspired in part by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s “Americans and the Holocaust” exhibition and supported by its historical resources, The U.S. and The Holocaust 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 U.S. and The Holocaust features a fascinating array of historical figures that includes Franklin D. Roosevelt, Charles Lindbergh, Dorothy Thompson, Rabbi Stephen Wise, and Henry Ford, as well as Anne Frank and her family, who applied for but failed to obtain visas to the U.S. before they went into hiding. This unexpected aspect of the Franks’ story underscores an American connection to the Holocaust that will be new to many viewers.

The U.S. and The Holocaust features interviews with some of the country’s leading scholars on the period, including Dr. Rebecca Erbelding, a historian of American responses to the Holocaust, who grew up in Churchville, NY and graduated from Mercy High School.

The broadcast of The U.S. and The Holocaust will be accompanied by educational materials for middle and high school classrooms, highlighting recent research and perspectives. The materials, which were prepared by PBS Learning Media in collaboration with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and other leading Holocaust education experts, are available at the Ken Burns in the Classroom site. These materials include clips from the film as well as other resources that connect to its core themes, such as immigration policy, racism, isolationism, discrimination and more. International release will be explored along with translation into Spanish and other languages. UNUM, Ken Burns’s website that looks at the connections between the past and current events, will also utilize other films from the Florentine Films library to facilitate conversations about the Holocaust and other moments in history.

Local support for The U.S. and The Holocaust is provided by Bank of America in Rochester and the Ames Amzalak Memorial Trust.

Corporate funding for The U.S. and The Holocaust was provided by Bank of America. Major funding was provided by: David M. Rubenstein; the Park Foundation; the Judy and Peter Blum Kovler Foundation; Gilbert S. Omenn and Martha A. Darling; The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations; and by the following members of The Better Angels Society: Jeannie and Jonathan Lavine; Jan and Rick Cohen; Allan and Shelley Holt; the Koret Foundation; David and Susan Kreisman; Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder; Blavatnik Family Foundation; Crown Family Philanthropies, honoring the Crown and Goodman Families; the Fullerton Family Charitable Fund; Dr. Georgette Bennett and Dr. Leonard Polonsky; The Russell Berrie Foundation; Diane and Hal Brierley; John and Catherine Debs; and Leah Joy Zell and the Joy Foundation. Funding was also provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by public television viewers. 

Photo: A German policeman checks the identification papers of Jewish people in the Krakow ghetto. Poland. Circa 1941.
Credit:  Courtesy of National Archives in Krakow