Is anyone else watching Ken Burns' US and the Holocaust?
I watched the first segment last night and was impressed, but not wowed compared to some of his other films.
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monte3 · 70-79, M
I did watch and all in all it is good. I kind of knew most what was said, but it’s still good be reminded. It stressed the degree that America was isolationist and FDR knowing what needed to be done and also that it was politically impossible. Also the degree that it was being communicated that Hitler was moving against his Jewish population, but that no one cared.
@monte3 I also felt like I'd heard a lot of the stuff covered especially with FDR, although I hadn't seen the Nazi dependancy on the US presented so persuasively before.
I'm curious as to other people perceived it and looking forward to seeing what they do going forward.
I'm also curious as to the impact this might have on the whole Nazis were socialist angle, and whether "leftist" documentaries might make an impact. So far, honestly, I'm a little disappointed with Burns presentation, and, this morning, am just noticing, I don't remember a musical score to this one, like I did with the Civil War and others.
I'm curious as to other people perceived it and looking forward to seeing what they do going forward.
I'm also curious as to the impact this might have on the whole Nazis were socialist angle, and whether "leftist" documentaries might make an impact. So far, honestly, I'm a little disappointed with Burns presentation, and, this morning, am just noticing, I don't remember a musical score to this one, like I did with the Civil War and others.
monte3 · 70-79, M
@MistyCee there is a book by Eric Larsen “In the Garden of Beasts”, about the American ambassador to Berlin. It worth reading for a sense of how much of Hitler’s intentions were understood. And the moral terribleness of the State Department, which FDR at least realized.
I don’t think anyone blaming the Nazis on leftists is watching this or any Ken Burns show. 🤷♂️
I don’t think anyone blaming the Nazis on leftists is watching this or any Ken Burns show. 🤷♂️
bijouxbroussard · F
I was going to, but ironically I watched an episode of Finding Your Roots that featured Mandy Patinkin. He discovered that a large number of relatives on one side had perished in one camp. The family members who knew had never told him. He wept when he saw documents stating the date and time they had been gassed. I really didn’t want to watch the Ken Burns after that. 😞
@bijouxbroussard Ya know, I love Gates' show, but haven't seen a Holocaust feature and
am not sure how i'd react to it as a Jewish American whose known relatives all got out of Europe before the 20s.
My own grandparents were born in this country from immigrant parents, and there's what seems like a huge barrier between the old country and America, because my grandparents seem to have been really interested in melding in during those years, and their parents may well have been conflicted in terms of political action here in the US, but it didn't carry down to me or even to my parents.
My grandmother was a talker about politics (and everything else really or that matter), but her father had come over in the 1800s and her mother's family were Italian/French immigrants from the 1860--70s, so I largely got only her limited perspectives on the 30s from when she was a teenager, and she really didn't like her in laws, who might have still had traceable family and or connections to Jews in either the Soviet Union or Eastern Europe.
I liked the show, not so much because it gave me new information as much as new perspectives on what I'd heard.
FWIW, I like Mandy Patinkin, but he's a whiner, and Burns' magic in part seems to never go quite that far.
I'm not sure, though, where hell go next. The first part didn't deal with extermination, as opposed to political stuff and political persecution.
am not sure how i'd react to it as a Jewish American whose known relatives all got out of Europe before the 20s.
My own grandparents were born in this country from immigrant parents, and there's what seems like a huge barrier between the old country and America, because my grandparents seem to have been really interested in melding in during those years, and their parents may well have been conflicted in terms of political action here in the US, but it didn't carry down to me or even to my parents.
My grandmother was a talker about politics (and everything else really or that matter), but her father had come over in the 1800s and her mother's family were Italian/French immigrants from the 1860--70s, so I largely got only her limited perspectives on the 30s from when she was a teenager, and she really didn't like her in laws, who might have still had traceable family and or connections to Jews in either the Soviet Union or Eastern Europe.
I liked the show, not so much because it gave me new information as much as new perspectives on what I'd heard.
FWIW, I like Mandy Patinkin, but he's a whiner, and Burns' magic in part seems to never go quite that far.
I'm not sure, though, where hell go next. The first part didn't deal with extermination, as opposed to political stuff and political persecution.