WATERTOWN, NY (January 5, 2023) – Leading up to International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27th, 2023, WPBS is bringing back Ken Burns’ powerful six-hour series The U.S. and the Holocaust – Fridays at 9 pm, starting January 6th, 2023. WPBS is pairing this rebroadcast with four other Holocaust-themed specials on the afternoon of Sunday January 22nd, 2023.
WPBS’s Holocaust programming line-up in January is as follows:
FRIDAY, JANUARY 6, 2023
The U.S. and the Holocaust: The Golden Door (Beginnings-1938) Part 1 (9:00 pm) The U.S. and the Holocaust follows America’s response to one of the worst calamities in world history. Nazism did not immediately mobilize a large-scale American call to action to help Jews and other persecuted groups in Germany. In the aftermath of World War I, the United States was deeply isolationist and experienced its own backlash to open-door immigration policies. There were other factors, too, like antisemitism, xenophobia, the Great Depression, and bureaucratic indifference. All of these tempered American willingness to provide a safe haven for hundreds of thousands of desperate Jews seeking to flee Nazi-controlled areas of Europe.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 13, 2023
The U.S. and the Holocaust: Yearning to Breathe Free (1938-1942) Part 2 (9:00 pm) During the 1930s, restrictive immigration policies in the United States limited avenues of escape for European Jews seeking refuge in America. But even after the horrors of Kristallnacht made headlines in the United States, these policies persisted. The series’ second episode explores the American political climate leading up to Pearl Harbor and America’s formal involvement in World War II.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 6, 2023
The U.S. and the Holocaust: The Homeless, Tempest-Tossed (1942- ) Part 3 (9:00 pm) By the time the United States formally entered the war in late 1941, the mass murder of European Jews had already begun. Episode Three of the series explores how the first reports of the Holocaust were handled by the press, and examines the public’s difficulty in grappling with evidence of these horrific events.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 22, 2023
Passage to Sweden (1:00 pm) Rescue & Escape – The film examines the unique experience of Jews in Scandinavia and Budapest during WWII where spontaneous and dramatic rescue operations were conducted to save thousands of lives. It captures the courage, compassion, and protection that Scandinavian countries and their citizens offered refugees facing persecution and is a reminder that anyone can make a difference.
My Survivor (2:00 pm) Who will tell the story when the last survivor is gone? As we approach the end of the last generation of Holocaust survivors, the world is confronted by this haunting – and sadly – ultimate question. My Survivor takes a fresh look at this inevitable reality by exploring the life-changing experiences of some of the five hundred University of Miami students who participated in a landmark educational initiative. This dynamic group of young adults learned about the Holocaust through the intimate intergenerational relationships they forged with members of this remarkable, but rapidly disappearing survivor population.
Stories of Survival (3:00 pm) In the summer of 1944, at the height of the deportation of Hungarian Jewry, Magda Brown and George Brent arrived as teenagers to the notorious Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center. Through their eyes, Final Transports, brings viewers on a compelling journey across multiple countries and camps, revealing the intensely human aspects of survival, resistance, chance, and luck in the face of Nazi tyranny.
The Lesson (4:00 pm) At age 14, every child attending school in Germany is brought face to face with the nation’s past, confronting the reality of the Holocaust for the very first time. This documentary follows four children as they experience Holocaust education in the public school system in Germany.
About WPBS
WPBS is a PBS station serving approximately 650,000 households throughout Northern New York and Eastern Ontario via cable, satellite, Internet and over-the-air distribution. WPBS is a non-profit organization whose mission is to educate, inform, and engage its two-nation region with exceptional and trusted content across multiple platforms. Its vision is to be the premier provider of extraordinary public media that instills wonder and curiosity across generations and borders. More information about WPBS, including a full channel listing, is available at wpbstv.org, or by following WPBS on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.Â
