Some Reflections on NBC's Film Holocaust

Abstract

NBC's Holocaust, first broadcast in April of 1978 in this country, then in January of 1979 in West Germany, and rebroadcast in the United States during the fall of 1979, is event which has claimed both widespread popular attention and the particular attention of American Germanists.' Although it neither aspires to high literary or cinematic art, nor contributes much that could be called new to our understanding of the consequences of National Socialism, the film has had a significant impact and seems certain to play at least a temporary role in German studies. According to the postscript shown after the rebroadcast, this mini-series was seen by 222 million people in fifty countries. In America it was seen by more people than any program besides Roots. In West Germany it reached astounding forty-one percent of the television audience. At last report it has been dubbed into eight languages. The film has been sharply criticized. Allegations of hoax by revisionists from the extreme right were of course predictable. More serious critics lament the trivialization of perhaps the most somber chapter in human history. Comparisons to conventional soap opera and Bonanza-style family sagas seem unavoidable. Elie Wiesel, Chairman of the President's Commission on the Holocaust and one of the most articulate survivors of the concentration camps, has called the film an insult to those who perished and to those who survived.2 Given the nature of television as a popular medium, other critics seem willing to forgive some of the many cliches, but were deeply disturbed by the constant interruption through commercial advertisements. The juxtaposition of Babi Yar and a pitch for toothpaste or feminine hygiene products seemed insensitive and unnecessary at best, and the ads for dog food, or a laundry product which could magically whisk away a bright yellow stain worn over the left breast, or worse yet featuring a toasted cracker being served out of the dancing flames of a brick oven, were appalling examples of bad taste. Defenders of the series point primarily to its enormous impact and have won even a concession from the German press, that on balance die Summe des Wahren Holocaust ist grof3er als alle Verfalschungen.' As a measure of this impact it was reported in the NBC postscript to the rebroadcast that visitor attendance at Dachau is up sixty percent since