Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein’s three-part, six-hour documentary series, The U.S. and the Holocaust, examines how the American people and our leaders responded to one of the greatest humanitarian disasters of the twentieth century, and how this catastrophe challenged our identity as a nation of immigrants and the very ideals of our democracy. After decades of open borders, a xenophobic backlash prompts the United States to pass laws restricting immigration. In Germany, Hitler finds support for his antisemitic rhetoric and the Nazis begin their persecution of Jewish people, causing many to flee to neighboring countries or America. FDR and other world leaders are concerned by the growing refugee crisis but fail to coordinate a response.

Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein’s three-part, six-hour documentary series, The U.S. and the Holocaust, examines how the American people and our leaders responded to one of the greatest humanitarian disasters of the twentieth century, and how this catastrophe challenged our identity as a nation of immigrants and the very ideals of our democracy. After Kristallnacht, Jews are desperate to escape Hitler’s expanding reach. Americans are united in their disapproval of Nazi brutality but divided on whether or how to act even as World War II begins. Charles Lindbergh speaks for isolationists while FDR tries to support the European democracies. The Nazis invade the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust begins in secret.

Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein’s three-part, six-hour documentary series, The U.S. and the Holocaust, examines how the American people and our leaders responded to one of the greatest humanitarian disasters of the twentieth century, and how this catastrophe challenged our identity as a nation of immigrants and the very ideals of our democracy. The first reports of the killing reach the United States. A group of dedicated government officials form the War Refugee Board to finance and support rescue operations. As the Allies advance, soldiers uncover mass graves and liberate German concentration camps, revealing the sheer scale of the Holocaust. The danger of its reverberations becomes apparent.

This programme contains 6 KS3 lesson starters on the topic of the Holocaust: 1. These rare home movies capture the personal lives of a Jewish family in Germany in the years leading up to second world war. 2. A Jewish woman, born in Germany in 1924, talks about her work as a musician in a concentration camp orchestra. 3. A short video about the Wannsee conference, where senior Nazi officials gathered in 1942 to plan for the deportation and extermination of European Jews. 4. A Jewish woman born in Germany in the 1920s remembers her brother who was executed by the Gestapo for supporting the resistance movement. 5. Set in modern day Berlin, a Jewish man who survived Nazi Germany describes his extraordinary personal experience of the second world war. 6. This short video focuses on the life of one of few British Jews who was deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

A moving account of Hitler's attempt to destroy European Jewry, this program offers a rare personal perspective. Diaries and poems written by men, women and children in the concentration camps help viewers comprehend the horrors of Nazi Germany-and enduring spirit of those who fought for human dignity throughout one of history's darkest chapters. Viewers hear excerpts from Nazi testimony at the Nuremberg Trial, as Eichmann, Biberstein and others give dispassionate accounts of mass death-and plead 'not guilty' to charges. The program traces a complex historical path of European anti-Semitism and examines increasingly determined persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany, including the violent turning point of Kristalnacht, and the formulation of the Final Solution.

A dark family secret from the past is revealed unexpectedly and opens an abyss between two close friends: Jennifer, a German, discovers that she is the Black granddaughter of a Notorious Nazi commander, and her life is turned upside down, while Noa, an Israeli, is doing whatever she can to prevent her life from turning.

As a young Jewish man, Freddie Knoller lived through World War Two by unusual means and in extraordinary circumstances. After escaping Vienna as a teenage Jewish refugee he spent most of World War Two living in the heart of occupied Paris with Nazi officers and Montmartre prostitutes, until the conflict eventually caught up with him. Fighting as part of the French Resistance, Freddie was betrayed and faced the horror of the concentration camps. Finally freed in April 1945, he weighed little more than six stone. Telling his own story, in his own words, Freddie draws on intense memories that have defined him as a man to reveal the incredible adventure of his early life.

ntroduction -- Ozark marshallese nuclear legacy (16:56) -- Cherokee language revival (8:53) -- Vietnamese Refugees (8:37) -- Islamic Women in the Ozarks (11:03) -- Arkansas Japanese concentration camps (8:57) -- Listening to the deaf (9:13) -- Holocaust survivor in our midst (6:75) -- Funding credit

The story of Curt Herzstark, an Austrian industrialist and concentration camp prisoner who was sent by the Nazis to an underground salt mine during the war. While in captivity, he continued his experiments with a device that would eventually become the hand-held calculator.

"None of you will be left to bear witness ..." (01:20) -- "Dear finder, search everywhere ..." (01:13) -- Testimony from Babi Yar (01:56) -- Testimony from Chelmno (06:10) -- 'Geheime Reichssache: Changes for vehicles' (03:18) -- Minutes from the Wannsee Conference (04:36) -- "Resettlement' Order for the Warsaw Ghetto (00:42) -- Testimony from Belzec (09:17) -- Testimony from Treblinka (03:41) -- Deportation to Majdanek (01:36) -- Last testament (04:13) -- The Janowska road (07:54) -- "Death fugue' (02:50) -- Warsaw diary (04:30) -- Deportation of Korczak and Jewish children's home (03:06) -- 'Night' (08:30) -- 'Ani Maamin' (01:31) -- The Stutthofers at Neumark (02:33) -- 'Shema' (01:16) -- 'Shtarker Fun Eisn' (04:36) -- Numbers killed in Nazi death camps (01:08) -- 'Death fugue' (refrain) (01:41) -- "We will bury our manuscripts ..." (00:52) -- "Will you be able to visualize ...?" (00:48).

Plunder -- Twilight zone -- We all are well known -- What can the matter be -- God be with you -- Monarchs -- No image -- The ocean -- Sinister -- Smoking room -- Lady of the birds -- The worst -- Killer moth -- Wing to wingfeather -- Crash.

Classical Music.