Holocaust is a mini - series of television, emitted in 1978 in the North American chain NBC .
Argument
It narrates the history of the Holocaust from the perspective of the Weiss , a family of German Jews as well as from the perspective of the Dorf family, one of whose members, Erik, ends up becoming SS officer.
The Weiss family consists of the surgeon Dr. Josef Weiss; The mother (talented pianist), Berta Weiss; His sons, Karl Weiss, an artist (painter) married to a German and Christian woman named Inga Helms-Weiss ( Meryl Streep ); Rudi Weiss, a rebel and independent football player and Anna Weiss, the youngest daughter, also a pianist. Throughout the series, each member of the family will experience the horrors of the Holocaust, and a terrible ending, with the exception of Inga and Rudy.
Anna Weiss, traumatized after being raped by agents of the Gestapo, is executed with carbon monoxide along with other patients of various mental and psychological ailments, according to the policy of “eugenics” applied in Hitler Germany in the late 30 ‘ Of the 20th century. The relatives had been told that she would be admitted to a sanatorium. They were then informed in writing that their death was due to pneumonia.
Rudi Weiss, the most rebellious of the family, escapes from his house one early morning, and after a long trip full of adventures, manages to survive as a guerrilla , although not his Czech wife, Helena Slomova, who dies in a gunfight with soldiers Nazis Believing her still alive, she tries to revive her, but is beaten, captured and interned in a concentration camp from which she escapes spectacularly.
Dr. Josef Weiss is sent to Auschwitz and together with his wife they end up in the gas chamber .
Karl Weiss, after passing through several concentration camps, dies in Auschwitz hours before the camp was released, because of hunger and the aftermath of the tortures to which he was subjected. Being there he managed to make many surviving coal paintings.
Inga sacrifices his freedom to join Karl in Theresienstadt where he has been charged with artistic activities. Desperately pursuing Karl through various concentration camps, such as Buchenwald , Inga only gets to hand him the letters if he agrees to have sex with an SS sergeant. When the two meet in Theresienstadt, she becomes pregnant.
Erik Dorf ( Michael Moriarty ), a lawyer from Berlin , is another important person. Not finding work, at the behest of his wife joins the SS and is transformed from a decent and honorable man into an unscrupulous assassin to command the gassing operations in the death camps. He suffers a mid-war crisis of conscience, but his wife again urges him to move on. At the end of the war he is captured by the US Army and ends up taking his life before being tried, taking a capsule of prussic acid hidden in the inner crease of his ankle, in an oversight of the American officer who interrogated him.
The series ends with images of Rudi playing football with Greek children in an already released Theresienstadt.
Cast
- Fritz Weaver : Josef Weiss
- Rosemary Harris : Berta Palitz-Weiss
- James Woods : Karl Weiss
- Meryl Streep : Inga Helms-Weiss
- Joseph Bottoms : Rudi Weiss
- Michael Moriarty : Erik Dorf
- Ian Holm : Heinrich Himmler
- Sam Wanamaker : Moses Weiss
- Blanche Baker : Anna Weiss
- David Warner : Reinhard Heydrich
- Tovah Feldshuh : Helena Slomova
- Tom Bell : Adolf Eichmann
- Hans Meyer : Ernst Kaltenbrunner
- David Daker : Rudolf Hess
- John Rees : Artur Nebe
- John Bailey : Hans Frank
- Anthony Haygarth : Heinrich Müller
- Murray Salem : Mordechaj Anielewicz
- Lee Montague : Oncle Sacha
- Robert Stephens : Kurt Dorf
- Deborah Norton : Martha Dorf
- George Rose : Monsieur Levy
- Käte Jaenicke : Madame Levy
- Michael Beck : Hans Helms
- Jeremy Levy : Aaron
- TP McKenna : Paul Blobel
- Nigel Hawthorne : Otto Ohlendorf
- Sean Arnold : Hermann Höfle
- Erwin Steinhauer : typiste de Buchenwald
- Llewellyn Rees : Père Bernhard Lichtenberg
Repercussions
Holocaust it aired in five chapters between the 16 and the 19 of April of 1978 , and reached enormous popularity, reaching an audience share of 49%. It was also followed with much interest in Europe, especially in the Federal Republic of Germany , where it was issued in January 1979 .
The series gave rise to a controversy, when accused of trivializing the Holocaust . At the beginning of the 80, National Television of Chile buys the series, however, this one is stored in the video library of the Channel and finally it is emitted in 1990, after the Arrival of the Democracy.
Awards
Holocaust won the Emmy Award for Best Series as well as Streep, Moriarty, Blanche Baker, Chomsky and Green.
Locations
The series was filmed in Austria and West Berlin .
The series in Spain
The series in Spain was broadcast between the 22 and the 29 of June of 1979, reaching, like in other countries, a great repercusion, being made with the TP of Gold to the best foreign series. The cast of dubbing was as follows:
- Vicente Vega - Löwy
- José María Cordero - Uncle Kurt Dorf
- Francisco Arenzana - Moisés Weiss
- Simón Ramírez - Reinhard Heydrich
- Santos Paniagua - Hans Frank
- Manuel Peiró - Hans Helms
- José Yepes - Dr. Heintzen
- Luis Marín - Immigration Man
- Manuel de Juan - Rabbí Karsh
- Rafael Arcos - Mr. Helms
- Juan Caraballo - Police of the Gestapo
- Eduardo Calvo - Dr. Kohn
- Julio Núñez - Zalman
- Ana Diaz Plana - Mrs. Palitz
- Luis Marín - Border Guard
- Francisco Sanz - Father Lichtenberg
- Pedro Sempson - Weinberg