History Rhymes with ‘US and the Holocaust’

By ROB PATTERSON

I write this about halfway through watching the latest Ken Burns documentary series masterwork, “The US and the Holocaust.” I already have much to say; inspired to opine and make observations by the power of the film and the horrors, the damnable frustrations of seeing millions of humans striving to survive, escape, hide, maybe get to Anerica … and be tortured, abused and murdered. And bemoan how politics, bureaucracy, ignorance, fear, hatred and more associated with the nation in which I am right now a troubled and trepidatious citizen contributed to the inhuman catastrophe that befell the Jews as a result of Hitler and his Third Reich. Yet also awed by the too few Americans whose courage, pluck and basic goodness, morality and humanity in the face of true evil were able to save some (but tragically not enough) of our Hebraic brethren.

I am reminded of when I was living in 1973 in Israel on my Colgate University study group at Kibbutz Shaar Haamakim, where my socialism took firm hold (the same happened there for Bernie Sanders 10 years earlier). I was at a supermarket in the neighboring town of Kiryat Tivon purchasing a few things at the checkout counter, and saw on the clerk’s upper right arm the numbers of her death camp tattoo. The sight immediately evoked an enveloping frisson; a near-overwhelming cluster of horror and sorrow, and the dismaying shock of glimpsing real-life evidence of man’s inhumanity to men, women and children.

“The US and the Holocaust” has a similar profound effect.

United States policy regarding refugees and how the Nazi antisemitism and the Holocaust played out in the American public, political and governmental spheres provides a substantial throughline for the three episode doc. Even without it, the PBS TV film tells a thorough and deeply researched history of the Holocaust that provides new insights and opens vectors to that story that further illuminate the tragedy and outrage it was to those of us who, sadly, already know it all too well.

The doc starts with a prismatic look into a story many of us know well: “The Diary of Anne Frank.” Burns and his collaborative partners shift focus to her father, Otto Frank, frustrated that he was unable to get his family out of Germany and into the US, but then first finding refuge in the Netherlands, enhancing what those of us who have read his daughters famed writings – now among the books some right-wingers wish to ban as student reading (which is whar it was for me and so many others.

Then there’s the conundrums I didn’t know before. Britain’s codebreakers were able to crack open the rather voluminous Nazi army and police communiques detailing the mass slaughter of Jews in Eastern Europe as more territory was conquered. But UK PM Winston Churchill decided he couldn’t go public with these atrocities as it would signal to the enemy that their code was cracked; they would then change it and their key advantage would be lost.

It also shows Franklin Roosevelt’s deft tightwire dance between trying to help the Jews while American isolationists, antisemites and white supremicists, and a large part of the public, were weary and wary after WWI, and wished at first to remain as uninvolved in Europe’s travails as possible.

Which starts to bring us to the significant timing of the doc, and the obvioius parallels between then and what is happening right now in America. Back then it was, as Martin Niemöller’s “First They Came” poem illuminated, that the Jews were public menace number one. This time they may not he the first; but virtually every time a right-winger carps about George Soros, it’s also code for Jews.

“The US and the Holocaust” should be seen by every American. But alas, it won’t even come close. And those who so need to see it and learn truths outside of their ignorance and prejudices are of course those most resistant to the idea of this. Which brings us to Santayana’s observations about the doom of not heeding the lessons of history …

Populist Picks

Book: “Sleeping Where I Fall” by Peter Coyote – Similarly to the doc above narrated by this tome’s author, I’m only partway into his memoir of his 1960s times in street theater and the San Francisco counterculure, But it’s clearly an engaging gems.

Substack: “Steady” by Dan Rather – Regular missives from a man who likely needs no introductions to this publication’s readers, The last one to arrive before press time, “Why Am I Speaking Out?” prompted me to upgrade from a free subscription to paid. Find it on the web, and after reading you might well feel compelled to shell out a wee bit to my favorite TV newsman, too.

Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. Email robpatterson054@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, October 15, 2022

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