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"The cure for cancer that was never discovered. The symphony not written. The garden not tended." [1]
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Date: 2022-09-07
“The Little Girl in Red” in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 movie, "Schindler’s List.” Even though she doesn’t speak a single word, just her presence is a powerful reminder of the barbarity of the Nazi crimes and “drives home the tragedy on a deeply personal level.”
The PBS Series
Ken Burns will debut a new series on PBS on Sunday, September 18th from 8:00-10:00 pm Eastern Time. Part 2 will air on Monday, September 19th, and Part 3 on Tuesday, September 20th.
The three-part series will delve into numerous issues examing the American response to the Holocaust.
Holocaust prisoners are shown at Birkenau concentration camp, the largest of the 40 camps and sub-camps that comprised the Auschwitz complex. Source: Pinterest. The U.S. and the Holocaust — A new documentary by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein [It] is a three-part, six hour series that examines America’s response to one of the greatest humanitarian crises of the twentieth century. Americans consider themselves a “nation of immigrants,” but as the catastrophe of the Holocaust unfolded in Europe, the United States proved unwilling to open its doors to more than a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of desperate people seeking refuge. Through riveting firsthand testimony of witnesses and survivors who as children endured persecution, violence and flight as their families tried to escape Hitler, this series delves deeply into the tragic human consequences of public indifference, bureaucratic red tape and restrictive quota laws in America. Did the nation fail to live up to its ideals? This is a history to be reckoned with. Read more about how the character of “The Little Girl in Red” in “Schindler’s List” affected Oscar Schindler in the movie and changed his life. You can see brief clips from the Ken Burns series here on PBS.
Those atrocities have been documented in great detail since World War II ended in 1945. The PBS series focuses primarily on the American response — what more could have been done and why wasn’t a more significant effort made to save lives.
The Lost Potential
Millions suffered in European concentration camps under brutal conditions during the Holocaust in the 1930s and 1940s. Two out of three European Jews were systematically killed by the time World War II ended in 1945. Of the victims, as many as 1/4th or 1,500,000 were Jewish children. In addition to the obvious loss of human life on a staggering scale, Burns provides an excellent summary in a wide-ranging interview with the Daily Beast of what else was lost during the Holocaust.
Two Children at Auschwitz: One Experienced Adulthood, the Other Never Had a Chance
Elie Wiesel (left) in 1943 when he was fifteen years old. He is in his sixties in the photograph on the right. Soucre: Holocaust Matters.
To elaborate on the point being made by Burns about the lost potential of children who died, one only has to consider the examples of two young Jews — Elie Wiesel was sixteen years old while Anne Frank was only fifteen in early 1945. One survived the Auschwitz concentration camp and became a Nobel Prize-winning author and academic; the other perished but once her diary was published, became famous around the world as an inspirational symbol.
Nobel Laureate and Romanian-born American Elie Wiesel wrote eloquently in his autobiographical account, Night, when the last flicker of hope in captivity seemingly was about to be extinguished. His choice of melancholy and dark language reflects his loss of faith in humanity and shame at his inability to help his father while Wiesel was a teenager in the concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald from 1944-1945.
Growing up to become a distinguished scholar and humanitarian, Wiesel’s many honors and accomplishments included the 1984 Congressional Gold Medal and the 1992 Presidential Medal of Freedom — something quite unimaginable for him compared to the night in January 1945 when he lay helplessly in his bunk bed at Buchenwald while his father was being beaten and tortured.
First published in 1960, Night is “a compelling consideration of the darkest side of human nature and the enduring power of hope.” "Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never. — Elie Wiesel, Night, p. 32
Anne Frank wasn’t as lucky. The series reveals a previously-unknown fact: the Frank Family had tried to emigrate to America (see my comment down below). They were not successful.
Born in Germany, Anne and her family moved to the Netherlands and hid from the Gestapo in Amsterdam for two years, during which he kept a diary. Outed in 1944, the Frank family was taken by the Nazis to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Among her family members, no one survived except for her father, Otto Frank. Two years after the war ended, Otto was finally able to find a publisher in 1947 for his daughter’s diary.
To this day, her diary remains a source of great inspiration to people all over the world.
Margot and Anne Frank (right) before their family fled to the Netherlands. Bad Aachen, Germany, October 1933. Unlike Elie Wiesel, neither teenager survived Auschwitz. What they might have blossomed into as adults, we can only wonder. That's the difficulty in these times: ideals, dreams, and cherished hopes rise within us, only to meet the horrible truth and be shattered. It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet, I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy. I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn. I've found that there is always some beauty left — in nature, sunshine, freedom, in yourself; these can all help you. No one has ever become poor by giving. — Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl Read more about Anne Frank's Diary, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Otto Frank lived a long and productive life until he passed away in 1980.
How Past Lessons Are Relevant to Our Lives
The series offers little to no consolation to those who believe that yesterday’s "challenges posed by nativism, antisemitism, xenophobia, and racism are buried deeply and permanently in the past." What lessons, then, does the series offer to us? The New York Times connects the dots.
Two young children are depicted at a concentration camp. Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
What is difficult to comprehend and honestly assess is the lost potential of those exterminated during the Holocaust — especially children. How are we to know that ordinary people couldn’t have had extraordinary accomplishments? If a sixteen-year-old boy by the name of Elie Wiesel could make major contributions after surviving Auschwitz, who is to say fifteen-year-old Anne Frank, had she lived, wouldn’t have done the same?
The sad, undeniable fact is that we cannot — and do not — really know. All we can do is guess and wish that we knew with some degree of certainty. Conjecture, however, is neither fact nor reality. Even for the living, life can be one, long string of uncertainties. And most of us, even at our best, just muddle through life for decades, sometimes aimlessly, hoping we come close to realizing our potential.
At times, some end up succeeding. The ones who do are the lucky ones.
If you have liked previous PBS films or series by Ken Burns, let us know which ones you have and why in the comments section.
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