‘The U.S. and the Holocaust’ Aims to Improve American Understanding of the Time

Viewers are bound to be shocked while watching Ken Burns’ three-part, six-hour look at The U.S. and the Holocaust, an American tragedy that played out against a distant, victorious World War II. But the gasps may have less to do with seeing somewhat familiar concentration camp images and more with taking in historical facts uncovered through time and dogged research.

“Many of us think we understand the Holocaust,” says Sarah Botstein, who co-directed and produced the series with Burns and Lynn Novick. “But many Americans don’t understand the deep-seated seeds of American anti-Semitism and how that dovetails with…the persecution of Jews of Europe.”

(Credit: Courtesy of Library of Congress/PBS)

While the U.S. permitted some 225,000 immigrants fleeing Nazi persecution, hundreds of thousands couldn’t enter, despite images of Nazi terror in newspapers and newsreels. And why? Poll after poll showed Americans opposed more immigration. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s desire to increase the flow was blocked in government; public figures like auto magnate and anti-Semite Henry Ford spread vicious false information. Meanwhile, Adolf Hitler regarded U.S. treatment of Native Americans as a model for how to treat minorities.

As Peter Coyote’s poignant narration advances the saga, astonishing images transfix. Among them: Nazi soldiers with cameras documenting the mass executions known as “Shoah by Bullets” as casually as you would a vacation. And you’ll never think of Anne Frank’s fateful story the same way again.

Burns, who always does the “scratch narration” of the script prior to Coyote, admits, “For the very first time, I broke down several times reading this early on.” Perhaps more than anyone, the man behind The Vietnam War and The Central Park Five understood the responsibility. “Nothing in my professional career has been more important than this film — to work on and to try to get right.”

The U.S. and the Holocaust, Premieres Sunday, September 18, 8/7c, PBS (check local listings at pbs.org)

This is an excerpt from TV Guide Magazine’s 2022 Fall Preview issue. For more first looks at fall’s new shows, pick up the issue, on newsstands now.