Essential viewing. Even if you think you know this history and have heard it all before, or that it's too depressing to devote 7 hours of time to, this is so masterfully crafted and has so much range that you're bound to learn something while being moved to tears. It puts the rise of fascism and what would become the Holocaust in context with attitudes in America and those around the world. The interviews, photographs, videos, etc reflect a high caliber of research; the narration and editing, a brilliant distillation. This is unvarnished, non-whitewashed history, simply stating the facts and remaining balanced. The interviews with survivors, descendants of survivors, American servicemen, and historians are simply extraordinary.
The parallel to the rising tide of hate and what may become fascism in America and other countries today is harrowing, and the filmmakers were wise to include a summary of what happened after war (hint: anti-Semitism didn't just vanish), and connect the dots to the present day. The parallel to the eugenics movement, Jim Crow, and anti-Semitism in America at the time, is incredibly damning. There is a reason Hitler simply looked to America with admiration for examples in the form of Native and African-Americans and how they were systematically killed, confined, or denigrated to second class citizens. The voices in America that not only encouraged isolationism but were outright hostile to the idea of providing aid to Jewish refugees, with officials in the State Department lying about what was known to be happening, is disheartening to say the least. On the other hand, how FDR navigated the choppy political waters, Elanor Roosevelt responded with such humanism, and how people like Raoul Wallenberg and John Pehle worked to save lives is stirring.
In a documentary filled with fantastic quotes from a wellspring of wisdom rooted in bitter experience, one that sticks me was Eva Schloss (née Geiringer) suggesting that Anne Frank would not likely have said "In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart" after she had been captured and shipped off like human cattle to Auschwitz. This is not some pre-packaged rehash of history, it's presented with thought-provoking nuance. Another example are the arguments presented for and against the bombing of Auschwitz late in the war, and there are countless others, really putting us into the minds of people at the time.
With a shockingly high percentages of people who deny or aren't educated about the extent of the horror of the Holocaust, and with MAGA being a new "America First" movement also rooted in white supremacy, the timing for this documentary is perfect. One of the bitter ironies is that despite people working so hard at the time to ensure that the world knew the extent of the atrocities, overcoming skepticism in part because they were so mind-boggling, there are now new waves of people, fed misinformation and conspiracy theories, who don't believe it happened. Ken Burns and the other filmmakers strike at the heart of the importance of history, to understand and learn from it.
