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Ken Burns’ excellent new three-part documentary, “The U.S. and the Holocaust” is probably one of the most important---and timely---documentaries he has ever made. However, counter to what the title might imply, this documentary tells not just the story of Americans’ response to the Holocaust, but, this documentary, in fact, tells a larger narrative---that of the broader problem of American xenophobia more generally, and it handily smashes the myth of America as a (supposedly) tolerant, inclusive or pluralistic society. The reality was that America, for a very long time, has been just as hostile, cruel, and intolerant towards any number of populations who the majority population chose to demonize as “The Other.” It just happens to be that overtly Fascist societies such as Nazi Germany, and even contemporary Fascist societies---such as Syria under Bashar al-Assad, Hungary under Viktor Orban, or Russia under Vladimir Putin---have not been as nakedly violent towards their minorities. Their xenophobia is usually expressed in somewhat different ways. We learn about the development of the xenophobic pseudo-science of Eugenics. We learn about the rise of Nazism and other Fascist ideologies---and how Hitler admired how the U.S. killed, marginalized, and otherwise persecuted ethnic, racial, and religious minorities. We learn about how divided American Jews were regarding how much they should even talk about the persecution going on in Europe; Some believed that an alarm should be sounded, while others felt that the best thing to do was to keep one’s head down out of fear of being persecuted here in America. We even learn about the rise of neo-Fascist organizations in the United States. Throughout the DVD, Ken Burns peppers his documentary with the stories of various European Jews and their attempts to come to the U.S. and their experiences in both the U.S. as well as in their home country during the Second World War. We learn about how Hitler formed his Nazi Empire and the various countries he conquered and the various ways in which the Nazis persecuted the Jews. Viewers will also learn about how many Americans actually agreed with the Nazis’ persecution of Jews, and how many of them became some of the earliest Neo-Nazis. We also learn about how other minority groups were persecuted as well---some by the Nazis, others by the Communists, and others by other people. Viewers will learn about how the Nazis sent spies to spy on Americans, and hoe the fear of those German spies was used to justify American anti-Semitism and xenophobia. Viewers learn about how some organizations and individuals attempted to circumnavigate all the barriers put in front of Jewish refugees by the U.S. government and others. We learn about several rather famous Jewish refugees who made their way to America. Viewers learn about how, after years of persecuting the Jews in a general sense, the Nazis began to lay out the plan for the Holocaust. We learn how the U.S. government began to crack down on the very same anti-Semites and xenophobes it had tried to appease. Then, Ken Burns’ documentary begins to discuss and describe the Holocaust itself. We learn how American isolationism ends abruptly after Germany, Italy, and Japan officially declare war on the United States. Viewers learn about the internment of Germans, German-Americans, Japanese, Japanese-Americans, Italians, and Italian-Americans, by the U.S. government because the U.S. saw them as subversives by virtue of their racial and ethnic makeup. Viewers will learn how many Jews did, in fact make it to America or other safer corners of Europe and how, eventually, the American public learns about the lies American politicians had told them in order to justify American xenophobia and anti-Semitism---and to hide the reality of what was going on in the concentration camps both to prevent people from being opposed to U.S. involvement in World War II and to justify the U.S.’s own xenophobia and anti-Semitism, and how Americans only learned what happened to the Jews and others when the allies liberated the camps. The documentary ends with the Nuremberg Trials, a brief discussion of who coined the term “Holocaust,” and a discussion of the signing of the Immigration Act of 1965.
Ken Burns’ documentary, “The U.S. and the Holocaust” is divided into six episodes. Episode 1 deals with America’s response to Jewish immigration---and, really, foreigners more generally---before the Second World War. The reality is that before the late 1800’s, what we now call immigration law did not exist, and people could come and go as they please. Yes, there was intolerance, yes, there was racism, slavery, and lots of other issues, but generally, before the late 1800’s, Americans had no problem with immigration. It was only later that this type of xenophobia developed. Ken Burns masterfully shows how the ways in which anti-Semitism---and xenophobia in general---were propagated---and put into action---in Nazi Germany were very similar to how ethnic and religious minorities were treated in the U.S., except for the fact that in Germany, any violence was government-sponsored, while in the U.S., it was not. I found it interesting, ironic, and a bit surprising that even American-born Jews were hostile to foreign-born ones in the early days. When one of those historians talked about people’s fears that because many of the immigrants were poor, sick, disabled, disadvantaged, and so on that their problems---the problems and issues that they were facing---would somehow “infect” mainstream American society sounds a lot like the xenophobic rhetoric that one hears from people like Tucker Carlson on Fox News when he accused immigrants of making America “poorer and dirtier.” Ken Burns’ own discussion of what we now call the Great Replacement Theory---the silly, ridiculous, delusional, bigoted---and dangerous---myth propagated by many on the right today such as Tucker Carlson in the United States and Hungary’s leader, Viktor Orban, the head of the Fascist Fidesz Party---and it is a Fascist party---Marine Le Pen in Fraance, and Italy’s new Fascist leader, Giorgia Meloni, among others. I was surprised that the last sterilization laws was only repealed in 2014. I also see a lot of parallels between why the extreme far right was allowed to take over established conservative parties in Germany in 1933 and how they have done the same with America’s own conservative movement. I also found it interesting---and, frankly, kind of surprising---that in the early twentieth century, the positions that Democrats and Republicans had on immigration are quite literally the exact opposite that they have today. I have also seen---sadly---these kinds of attitudes come to be absorbed into America’s own Republican Party---and the Conservative Movement more generally. In hindsight, it seems that under former President Donald J. Trump, those very same barriers that anti-immigration hawks in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s were, in fact, reinstated. In some ways, I find it ironic---and, frankly hypocritical---that FDR pretended to be fearful of the growing tide of pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic views in the U.S., when many of those very xenophobic views were promoted by people in FDR’s own administration. I was surprised at how much of the racist and xenophobic aspects of the Nazis’ ideology was, in fact, influenced by a lot of the very same racist, xenophobic views of American politicians and thinkers. It is interesting that the very same whataboutism that various contemporary dictators often use against us when we challenge their human rights abuses was also the way the Nazis often deflected criticism of how the German government treated minorities during the World War II era. I was surprised at how chummy America was with the Nazis before we entered World War II. Those sham referenda that the Nazis held to justify the annexation of various parts of Europe sounds a lot like the fake pseudo-“referendum” that are being used to justify Vladimir Putin’s takeover of Ukraine. The fact that you needed entry and exit visas sounds a lot like how---even today---in many of the former Soviet Republics that have remained dictatorships (e.g. Belarus, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Russia, etc), you also need special documentation both to enter and to leave. I was surprised that Spain, who was an ally of Nazi Germany actually offered refuge to many Jews. When I had first learned this in a biography of Spain’s Fascist dictator, Francisco Franco, by a friend of his, Roberto De La Cierva, I was skeptics and initially thought it was another lie made up to cover up the brutality of a dictator by an ardent supporter; yet as Ken Burns points out, Franco did, in fact, take in several Jews. I feel that FDR’s treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., was right, when he accused anti-immigration and anti-Semitic elements in the government were, to some extent, complicit in the murder of the Jews due to their own refusal to take people in. At the same time, I was a bit surprised that the U.S. government---and the American public at large---continued to be hostile toward immigrants and immigration even after seeing the results of the Holocaust. I am not surprised that there were bigots, xenophobes and racists back then---there still are people like that in this country today---but what I am surprised by is how people continued to harbor these views even after seeing what the Nazis had done. It is also ironic that former Nazis were also allowed into the United States after World War II solely because thet were anti-Communist---but then again, the U.S. has propped up other Fascist governments for those very same reasons---the government of Augusto Pinochet in Chile, the government of Juan Perón in Argentina, the government of Saddam Hussein in Iraq (who, by the way, we actually put in power---both because the Baathists were anti-Communist but also later, during the Iran-Iraq War, because they were secular and anti-Iranian). I also thought that it was interesting that it was, in fact, a Holocaust survivor, Raphael Lempkin, who actually was the first to actually call it “The Holocaust” and was also the first to coin the term “Genocide” as well.
This is probably one of the most fascinating, important, and timely documentaries that Ken Burns has ever made. Everyone should watch it.
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Top reviews from other countries
Andre Pelletier
Un autre chef-d'oeuvre documentaire de Ken Burns
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on January 28, 2023
GERALD
One of best doc's I've every seen.
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on November 3, 2022ontario customer
excellent historical film.
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on January 9, 2023
