Submitted by s_y_s_t_e_m_i_c_ t3_xtma54 in Documentaries
Coyote has the best voice yo.
When the show started my first thought was, "Oh, yes. That's Peter Coyote." But, I think Liev Schreiber is my favorite.
He's also extremely good.
Watch this movie Everything is Illuminated directed by Liev Schrieber
The voice of gravitas.
I love the voices of Peter Coyote and David McCullough. Both have done many of Ken Burns' documentaries.
I had no idea there was a new Burns doc in the works. Shame I’m in Canada and can’t stream it right now.
It’s been all over PBS in Canada as an FYI.
Burns and Coyote go together like PBnJ
MORGAN FREEMAN is the voice of God. Literally.
If only more Americans would watch
I watched this with my stepdad. He said that the people who should be seeing this aren’t watching PBS. Unfortunately he’s right.
Yep. Unfortunately.
Unfortunately, public broadcasting in the US never really had the influence, funding, or popularity as their British counterparts did.
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I finished it last night. My first comment to my wife was how well done it was but that the people who should watch it won’t.
It also struck me we are losing the people who saw firsthand the implications of fascism and would be the strongest voices against it.
My thoughts exactly. Too bad it isn’t on all the movie apps.
News about the ongoing starvation in Yemen due to the US supported blockade? The people, including kids, being burned and blown up by US weapons?
Nah, just watch a documentary about how large scale murder shouldn't happen again. *Oh yeah, and FDR was good or something.
It's not an either/or situation. People can watch documentaries about past events that helps them to make better decisions in the present.
> It's not an either/or situation.
My point is there is no or, people go on about past atrocities, parrot "never again" and ignore the again happening right now.
We do. Your assumption that Americans don't watch documentaries is false. As is your idea that the video justifies any preconceived notions you have about Americans.
I am American. I’m not assuming they don’t watch at all. But more would be better. There aren’t a lot of young people watching PBS documentaries. Especially about the Holocaust. I see the Jeffrey Dahmer show us doing well though….
Like I said, in a previous comment, public broadcasting here isn’t really popular compared to Britain.
PBS is hugely popular here. But the watchers trend older now. And if you’re talking about BBC, in general, they aren’t comparable. Totally, different thing.
Hugely popular where? I can count on one hand the number of times I have heard anyone mention PBS outside of children's educational programming. And I've lived in the northeast and the south.
Maybe you’re listening to the wrong people ?https://pbsfoundation.bento-live.pbs.org/foundation/contact/pbs-facts/
he’s talking about maga dumb assess needing to see this, but they won’t watch cause they believe pbs will make them gay or something.
This was really well done. Watched all 3 episodes recently with my grandfather. A lot of information and photos we had never seen....very disturbing.
It was certainly a very different perspective on a topic that has been heavily studied. But then, Americans do love an unexamined heroic narrative. I knew the general info presented but appreciated how much new information I saw. My husband, who isn't a history buff, was absolutely horrified. He knew a tiny bit, but most of what Americans see is footage of US troops liberating camps, not the years they spent ignoring them.
I don't think I've ever watched anything made by Ken Burns that I didn't like. Not only is his material informative but it's entertaining as well. Always fascinated by what he makes. I love the narration as well. I dunno what it is about that guy's delivery but it just fits and is the cherry on top to an already delicious sundae.
It was an easy one to miss, but is my all time favorite Ken Burn's doc. "Horatio's Drive" i don't wan to spoil it but def give it a shot!
Horatio’s drive is my favorite as well!
I know a woman who fled Germany as part of the Kindertransport. What always seems to stick out in her mind is how awful the British were towards her, because she was a foreigner and a Jew.
One of the things the documentary certainly highlights is that it's very likely that many, many deaths which occurred would have likely been prevented by the millions of people trying to flee that were rejected by every country. Even Hitler realized that the world's public reluctance to accept Jewish refugees meant they were likely to turn a blind eye when the alternative was allowing them to immigrate.
To be totally honest I genuinely doubt that Hitler cared, though it probably factored into the decision to just try and exterminate the Jews altogether.
At the end of the day, Hitler shot himself and that lady is like 105.
Reminds you of something, doesn’t it?
Nothing to see here 👀
Full episode synopsis:
> After decades of maintaining open borders, a xenophobic backlash prompts Congress to pass its first laws restricting immigration. Meanwhile, in Germany, Hitler and the Nazis begin their persecution of Jewish people, causing many to try to flee to neighboring countries or America. Franklin Roosevelt and other world leaders are concerned by the growing refugee crisis but fail to coordinate a response.
PBS webpage for the documentary, listing the other episodes.
Would it be to optimistic to expect anything but a whitewash when the doc discusses the US role in relation to the Holocaust?
Many aren't aware that the NYT only published six stories that clearly identified Jewish geocide. That only 12 of the 500 Presidential press conferences during WWII did a journalists ask about the Jews. Or that the Nazis used the Southern US as a model when creating the original racial laws. They thought America was too extreme.
[Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law] (http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=1143E3E4FF767A913B58AC2806315EE4)
[The Cambridge History of the Second World War: Volume 2, Politics and Ideology] (http://library.lol/main/65E173CE2B5B5B61F02CF0ADB361D4FC)
[They Thought They Were Free] (http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=BB1197CDD90D41BDB7B50CCEC0F47BC2)
News of the Holocaust: Why FDR Didn't Tell and the Press Didn't Ask -- Can't get the link to work but a search on google should return a result.
[Post documenting WWII policy planning, revealing that the motivations were entirely pragmatic and/or imperialist in nature] (https://old.reddit.com/r/theoryofpropaganda/comments/smysv8/this_is_excellent_a_dissertation_from_columbia/)
[Declassified US Psy Evaluation of Adolf Hitler that correctly predicted he'd kill himself] (https://ia800607.us.archive.org/21/items/B-001-003-894/B-001-003-894.pdf)
> Numerous appeals for bombing the gas chambers, or the rail lines and bridges leading to them, were sent to U.S. officials by American Jewish organizations throughout the spring, summer, and fall of 1944.
> Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy was designated to reply to the requests. He wrote that the bombing idea was "impracticable" because it would require "diversion of considerable air support essential to the success of our forces now engaged in decisive operations." He also claimed the War Department's position was based on "a study" of the issue. But no evidence of such a study has ever been found by researchers.
> In reality, McCloy's position was based on the Roosevelt administration’s standing policy that military resources should not be used for "rescuing victims of enemy oppression."
Did you watch the documentary? Because it explicitly discusses the Nazis using US Jim Crow laws as a model.
Maybe I wasn't clear but I thought my first sentence indicated that I had not. I realize people love Ken Burns but his accounts of the Civil War and Vietnam are absolute disasters; they're obviously master films created by a true craftsmen but it doesn't follow that we should treat him as Thucydides or something.
Your first sentence sounds like a condemning of the documentary as a white washing.
I see what you mean now.
They literally discussed the Nazis using Jim Crow as a model, discussed with experts and survivors about the topic of the US not bombing the concentration camps when they had gotten very detailed information about them, in addition to discussing Breckinridge Long’s involvement in denying Jewish refugees (and lying about it) and followed the timeline throughout the 3 episodes about both how the US didn’t allow many refugees and how reported/underreported the genocide was by media in America at the time.
I'm glad to hear that. I never would have imagined they'd see the light of day given the accounts of his previous 2 war films. Maybe my impressions were incorrect, I appreciate the edification.
But it was surely reasonable to be skeptical when the myth of the lost cause has been documented to the point of nauseum. And Vietnam is exactly the propaganda one would expect in an account where most know nothing of the actual conflict other than that it was unpopular. That's not to say they aren't entertaining or that they don't contain aspects of interest. When one proclaims to offer truth value in regards to the most significant events in modern history you have a tremendous moral duty to the elevation of historical memory; when such claims are accompanied by mere shadows you have only reinforced the dominate illusions.
what specifically led to your critical appraisal of ‘The War’ and/or ‘The Civil War’?
do you have the same opinion of all of Burns’ documentaries?
I read this thread and it makes me feel that your fellow redditor hasn't watched ANY of the documentaries in question. It appears that they are making their decision based on accounts shared with him. So other people's opinions but not his own
The Civil War gets a lot of criticism for heavily featuring Shelby Foote, who is controversial at best.
I'll try and answer through a couple questions. What impression do the documentaries create in relation to the reason the Civil War or the Vietnam war occurred? What is the essence of US policy with regards to South East Asia? Why did the Civil War occur?
From the opening:
>It was begun in good faith by decent people out of fateful misunderstanding; American overconfidence, cold war miscalculation...
This simple assertion is so far removed from reality as to operate in another universe. The origins of the Vietnam war date to the late 1930s and 1940s when America was crafting massive studies of the probable post-WWII world; and the foreign policy that would guide US foreign policy to the present. A key component to the stability of the world economic system is the absorption and integration of Japan; whose economy is heavily based on having South East Asia as a market for exports, raw materials, etc. If Vietnam successfully nationalized their economy, US planners understood, as early as 1942, that Japans economy would likely collapse (in the model that was being constructed at the time). This is the real origin of the 'domino' theory. Furthermore, the idea that the US lost the Vietnam war or somehow didn't achieve its objectives is nothing short of a complete fabrication of historical fact. The US had always regarded a stalemate (preventing the Vietnamese people from gaining power outside of Western frameworks) as not only highly desirable but likely. So the invasion of Vietnam was carried out, an act which the Nuremburg Trials regarded as the most egregious and flagrant violations of international law, human rights, and human decency: the preparing and launching of a war of aggression. The greatest possible war crime a state can commit.
This is the kind of shit you'd find if you watched a documentary in China about their history with Japan or in Nazi Germany concerning Poland or whatever. That people don't fall over from laughter at the complete absurdity of such propositions and that what follows in that film is regarded as 'history' reveals all one need know about the complete elimination of historical memory.
>Or that the Nazis used the Southern US as a model when creating the original racial laws.
No, they didn't. You really expect anyone who has ever read any history about Central Europe from the 6th Century to the 20th to actually believe that it was "The Americans" that inspired a nation in a region where persecutions and eliminations of unwanted people was the norm to do what it did? Gods, the Euros are desperate to claim innocence at all times.
I linked a historical scholar who goes piece by piece through the creation of the Nazi laws. They openly discussed US race law in the policy discussions. This isn't speculation, we have the documents. Mere doctrinal dismissals have no bearing when the historical record is clear.
It wouldn't make sense if the Nazis didn't study its machinations. They also learned about modern propaganda through studying American and British techniques. None of this should be controversial but all countries without exception don't contain anything that could be called 'history' its mythology and symbol management. It's rather easy to see this when we look at other countries but near impossible to notice operating in daily life precisely because its so familiar.
There's certainly more detailed analysis of the subject that exist than the following but it remains rather insightful.
“The US is the most deeply racist society in world history.” There’s no good reason to interject your biased conjecture in the middle of your historical analysis. I was onboard until you decided to write that; it shows a serious lack of knowledge regarding other nations history while simultaneously making you appear entirely amerocentric.
Also, the swift backlash against expressing such ideas and the emotional reactions they elicit is at least antidotal evidence in itself. Genuine errors and completely incorrect ideas rarely have the power to even elicit words of correction. If I held a parade proclaiming 2+2=3 it would get no serious consideration, nor deserve none.
>antidotal
Think you mean 'anecdotal'
That's fair, I removed it. I would maintain that's its accurate nonetheless. If I had taken more time, I'd probably have reworded it as 'the most powerful, systematic, and enduring racist society in world history.' Sentiments don't easily translate into quantifiable research variables and it was sloppy to include them.
I have in mind overt public displays of horror inflicted on individuals in countries outside the US; these are often implicitly regarded as evidence of their power but the opposite is the case. Similar to public execution and torture in European feudalism was always a sign of a weak state. My impression is that you might already be familiar with this line of reasoning but for those who have not, such claims will appear to take off from the planet.
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> I linked a historical scholar who goes piece by piece through the creation of the Nazi laws. They openly discussed US race law in the policy discussions.
OK, and does that meant the US laws were the basis of all of their policies? Answer: it doesn't, may have offered some info.
There's enough blame to go around.
I’ve finished the series already and it was very well done as usual. I didn’t realize antisemitism was THAT bad in the US back then. I mean politicians were just open about it. I also didn’t know that the death camps were known before they found them, or that the British had the knowledge of all the executions of Jewish poles/Russians during the initial blitz. The fact that they were worried about the war being viewed as “being fought for the Jews” is disturbing as well.
It just shows (again) that the old “we didn’t knew” is BS at best. Of course they knew. They just chose to make it someone else’s problem.
I’m on the third episode. It’s so good!
Ken Burns was very deliberate in how he framed the entire series with the closing scenes. From my understanding, he pushed to have this production completed & broadcast before the 2022 midterm elections in the US so that (hopefully) people would understand the ramifications of doing nothing when faced with evil & atrocity. Appeasement never works on fascists.
Oh really? That interesting! I’ll keep an eye out. And I hope people do get that message. Especially with republicans moving more authoritarian and other countries moving more towards nationalism. History is doomed to repeat itself.
Yup state socialism sucks
Meanwhile, UC Berkeley just declared Jew-free spaces. You were saying?
That is not true. Nowhere at UC Berkeley are there “Jew-free spaces.” It was a gross misrepresentation of what some student groups were calling for, which stated that they did not want speakers, who spouted pro-apartheid policies in Israel. The Dean said this was not acceptable policy and only 10, out of 100 student groups adopted such policies. Now if you want to talk about Liberty University’s policy on Muslim speakers then we can talk about that.
Muslims in the SS means I don't care.
What? Dude stay in the point. You lied about UC Berkeley.
What happened to the student group pushing this? UC Berkeley is anti Israel, and only tolerates Jewish people who enable their progressive agenda.
Telling lies is a bad look dude at least admit you were mistaken lol
https://nypost.com/2022/09/30/uc-berkeley-blasted-for-creating-jewish-free-zones-with-pro-israel-speaker-ban/
Still won't look it up? Here, since you insist on being spoon fed.
Unless they reversed themselves in the last few days, in which case I will gladly delete my comment. Even then, that they would cave in to a handful of student groups is reprehensible.
> The University of California, Berkeley, was slammed Friday for creating “Jewish-free zones” after nine student groups adopted a rule forbidding pro-Israel speakers at events.
That’s not a Jewish free zone where does it say Jewish people aren’t allowed? You’re still lying
Oh boy the New York Post? Man you are stupid. It was never “Jewish-free.” It was a policy or by law that SOME student groups adopted about pro-apartheid Israeli speakers not be allowed on campus. The dean said this was not acceptable for students groups to do. This they were struck down.
I don’t know? Do you think they should be banned for using their First Amendment rights?
No they are not. They are extremely pro-Israel. Plus idk why you would support a country with some of highest abortion rates in the world.
This is the weirdest take on Israel I've seen
People have been "warning" about (non-existent) rise of fascism for decades. It's not happening. We're closer to 2045 than 1945. Stop living in the past.
Ummmm? Hungary? Italy? Le Pen? Poland? Putin? If that’s not fascism then you truly are naive.
Literally the only one who comes close is Putin, and even then his rise to power was only made possible by the downfall of the communist state (Soviet Union) that also carried out imperialist policies for decades.
Also, speaking of Israel and "apartheid" in the same sentence is a gross misrepresentation.
For some reason, I felt the horror of the holocaust really hits home in this series. We all know about the 6 million Jewish deaths during WWII, but the sheer immensity of the killing is made clear in this series. Germany collectively lost its mind and were killing thousands on a daily basis. Just horrifying.
Buried by the Times: The Holocaust and America’s Most Important Newspaper > An in-depth look at how The New York Times failed in its coverage of the fate of European Jews from 1939–45. It examines how the decisions that were made at The Times ultimately resulted in the minimizing and misunderstanding of modern history's worst genocide. Laurel Leff, a veteran journalist and professor of journalism, recounts how personal relationships at the newspaper, the assimilationist tendencies of The Times' Jewish owner, and the ethos of mid-century America, all led The Times to consistently downplay news of the Holocaust. It recalls how news of Hitler's 'final solution' was hidden from readers and - because of the newspaper's influence on other media - from America at large. Buried by The Times is required reading for anyone interested in America's response to the Holocaust and for anyone curious about how journalists determine what is newsworthy.
All the News That’s Fit to Print
Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law
This was excellent!
Where can one watch this outside of the USA?
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The whole program is a tour de force. I couldn’t binge it, it was hard to finish a whole episode. It should be required civic training for every high school graduate.
I just watched it myself and I had no idea! It should be required viewing in all American high school history classes. I knew we were mostly isolationists at the time, but wow.
This documentary was gold the whole way through. So glad it highlighted the truth of Americans as an people and our institutions were so isolationist at the time. Plus the xenophobia around taking Jews. The hypocrisy of Jim Crow America was also well highlighted.
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Burns was inspired to do this doc because of Trump and his Haters
Cabt watch it in Luxembourg any suggestions for being able to do so?
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Canadian here, unfortunately I can't watch :(
Oh cool, another attempt to blame the US Immigration Act of 1924 for the deaths of Jews in the Holocaust. As usual, it ignores the fact that German Jews (i.e., those presumably most aware of the bad things the Nazis were doing) were largely unaffected by the law and still didn't choose to emigrate to the United States.
Does Ken Burns go into how IBM developed the system Germany used to track and manage the Holocaust?
Does he go into how NYTimes his the Holocaust from the public?
Does he go into how Ivy League schools praised Hitler and how the US Eugenics movement influenced hitlers plans for the Holocaust?
The US internment camps are bad, but minor compared to other actions prior to us getting into war.
He does. You should watch it.
He does discuss the eugenics laws and some about American praising Hitler. But he talked a lot about him crow laws and how that influenced laws against Jews in Germany
There were laws in European nations restricting the activities of Jews long before there were Jim Crow laws.
How about you watch it.
Even better, does he talk about how much Hitler was influenced by America's "Manifest Destiny" in the mid 19th century, and used it as a justification for the calls for Lebensraum, or "Living Space", for Germans?
Hitler saw no marked difference in the multi-decade long genocide of native "savages" by the US government to expand it's borders, resources, and strength, and his own plans to do the same to the Slavic "subhumans" that inhabitated the Eurasian continent he planned to take over via extermination and enslavement with General Plan East beginning in June 1941.
Was he wrong? Is there really a difference?
>does he talk about how much Hitler was influenced by America's "Manifest Destiny" in the mid 19th century, and used it as a justification for the calls for Lebensraum, or "Living Space", for Germans?
Probably mentions it but knowing that Burns isn't some shill for the "Europe never does anything wrong" crowd he probably also mentions the centuries of persecutions of Jews and minority groups in all of Europe.
Is there a difference? A natural conflict between two cultures that results in the near elimination of one versus the systemic and planned genocide of an entire people. Uh duhhhh I don't know /s. The propaganda is strong with Reddit today.
>Is there a difference? A natural conflict between two cultures that results in the near elimination of one versus
Natural conflict?
> the systemic and planned genocide of an entire people. Uh duhhhh I don't know /s. The propaganda is strong with Reddit today.
I'm not going for a derr America bad take, I'm honestly saying that when you dig down into what the US did and what Hitler planned, it's pretty similar. Distinction without a difference
He was very much influenced by US academia and intellectuals at the time that saw genocide of natives as a template to then do this to blacks, Italians, Irish, etc in the early 1900s as a means for Germany to create their empire.
The NYT? Can you please elaborate?
There was effort to keep the concentration camps and plight if Jews out of the US news. Likely for a myriad of reasonz.
Most in the US didn't learn of any of it until after the war.
Within Europe, many new Jews were going to camps. Knowledge of the horrors wasn't as widespread. Considering most European countries only tolerated the presence of Jews, I could see some of the apathy on the news Germans were rounding up Jews in camps.
Related to the NYTimes, which set the news cycle in the US at the time, much of their reporting was propaganda from the FDR administration. There may have been noble and underhanded reasons for it.
Lest we forget: Shireen Abu Akleh: Al Jazeera reporter killed by Israeli forces… 1000’s of Palestine’s children imprisoned without trial and/or Shot In the Head
You should watch this documentary, it would be good for you.
Maybe Zionists and American evangelicals should watch this too and compare it to what Israel is doing to the Palestinians and the propaganda being spread across the world.
Sure, I think many people can benefit from watching this documentary as it is produced very well from an information and entertainment standpoint, and shows sides of the Holocaust many people likely haven’t heard. However, bringing up Israel on a post about the Holocaust like this is most certainly not done with humanitarian intentions, and it just goes to show how much the pro-Palestinian movement is influenced by antisemitism.
Oh no, i said something about apartheid Israel, i must be an anti semite. GTFO
If you honestly don’t see what’s antisemitic about bringing up the Israel/Palestine conflict randomly in a conversation about the Holocaust, you’re either lacking in education or simply hate Jews. I hope you are the former. Here’s a comparison for you.
In a post about the history of slavery in America, if someone comments about how gun violence is rampant in the black community with the obvious intention to push the narrative that black people are a danger, is that racist? I would say emphatically, yes. It’s a form of demonization and thus, racist bigotry.
That is what we see here in the comment I replied to.
the OP said let's not forget the reporters and kids murdered by Israeli forces either and you said they should go and watch the video. So basically what you're saying is we should only watch the suffering of jews. But if anybody reminds apartheid Israel to learn from their own tragedy and not do the same to others, they are anti semite. Basically at this point, calling everybody an anti semite is a bullshit excuse to stop everybody from speaking a word. Keep on spreading the propaganda.
You completely ignored their point lmao
Smithy2232 t1_iqqk317 wrote
Another excellent documentary by Ken Burns. Peter Coyote narrates it, which adds to the richness of the program. Many interesting stories I had not heard before. Highly recommend.