Product Description
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An original TV dramatization of one of the most monstrous crimes
in world history--the slaughter of 6 million Jews by the Nazis.
Dramatically and definitively, the story covers an entire decade,
the eventful years from 1935 to 1945. Holocaust focuses on the
tragedy and triumph of a single family--the Weiss family. Their
story is told in counter-poise to that of another fictional
family, that of Erik Dorf, who portrays a Nazi aide to Germany's
infamous Heydrich. Starring a brilliant international cast and
filmed on location in Berlin and Vienna.
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The 30th anniversary edition of Holocaust marks the first time
this remarkable, nine-and-a-half-hour television miniseries has
been released on DVD. Originally broadcast on NBC as part of an
ongoing TV phenomenon in the 1970s called "The Big Event,"
Holocaust was an original story written by Gerald Green, who
later scripted Kent State and Wallenberg: A Hero's Story, the
latter another Holocaust-era tale. Holocaust narrowed the
enormous story of the Nazis' systematic destruction of Jews by
focusing on one family living in Berlin. Fritz Weaver plays Dr.
Josef Weiss, a Pole with a longtime family practice. Weiss
debates with his wife, Berta (Rosemary Harris), the wisdom of
moving out of Germany with their family. She insists they should
not be chased away by Hitler, and by the time she thinks
otherwise, it's too late for her, her parents, Josef, and the
three Weiss children: Karl (James Woods), Rudi (Joseph Bottoms),
and Anna (Blanche Baker). Holocaust begins with the marriage of
Karl to Inga (Meryl Streep), a Christian, an arrangement already
frowned upon by the rising Nazi regime in 1935. In time, Karl, a
harmless artist, is dragged off to the concentration camp at
Buchenwald, leaving Inga vulnerable to a predatory camp officer
who passes notes between the husband and wife. Poor young Anna
meets a grim e that reveals something of the way Hitler was
determined to eliminate the mentally ill along with Jews,
gypsies, sexuals, and other groups of people. The rebellious
Rudi ends up fighting the Germans from a different front, while
Josef is deported to Warsaw, eventually joined by Berta. There,
Holocaust details the plight of the walled-in, so-called Warsaw
ghetto, and the despair of the people within. Meanwhile, the
destiny of another important character, a rather effete lawyer
named Erik Dorf (Michael Moriarty), offers a peek into the
internal workings of the Holocaust machinery. Dorf takes a
much-needed job as an aide to Reinhard Heydrich (David Warner),
Gestapo head and chair of the 1942 Wannsee Conference, which
finalized plans for the extermination of European Jews. Holocaust
was criticized at the time of its broadcast for allegedly
cheapening genocide by shrinking the dimensions of the Nazis'
organized evil for commercial television. But as a story free to
extend into different aspects of the war on Jews, Holocaust is a
real eye-opener. Tom Bell, Ian Holm, Robert Stephens, and Sam
Wanamaker are also featured in the cast. --Tom Keogh