- In 1935 Berlin, the Weisses celebrate son Karl's marriage to Inga Helms. When Erik Dorf is unable to find work as a lawyer, wife Marta urges him to apply for a Nazi government job. Erik Dorf warns Dr. Weiss he should leave Germany. Karl is arrested and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp, and Dr. Weiss is deported to Poland. Erik Dorf continues to advance in the Nazi hierarchy.—mama.sylvia
- In 1935, the Weiss family celebrate the marriage of their eldest son Karl to Inga Helms. Family patriarch Dr. Josef Weiss is well respected in the community though not everyone at Karl and Inga's wedding are comfortable with Inga marrying a Jew. Over the next several years, the conditions for Jews in Germany deteriorate considerably. Jews lose their rights gradually over these years to the point where those rights simply do not exist. Karl Weiss finds himself in Buchenwald concentration camp having committed no crime. Dr. Weiss is forbidden to treat non-Jewish patients and is eventually deported to his native Poland, despite having lived in Germany his entire adult life. Meanwhile, Erik Dorf is a bright young law school graduate who cannot find a job. He eventually applies for a government position and while he is no Nazi, he is prepared to adopt their philosophy. He soon finds himself as a junior SS officer working directly for Heydrich, the head of the secret police.—garykmcd
- Holocaust is an account of two fictional German families from Berlin, prior to, and during World War II: one is Christian, whose members become Nazis out of economic necessity, and the other is Jewish, who become their victims.
The "Aryan" Dorf family is headed by Erik (Michael Moriarty), a lawyer who struggles to find work to support his wife Marta (Deborah Norton) and two young children, Peter and Laura, during the economic hardships of the Depression in Germany. At his wife's insistence, Erik joins the Nazi Party to earn income and rapidly advances within the SS. In a short time he becomes the right-hand man of Reinhard Heydrich (David Warner) (who reports to Heinrich Himmler (Ian Holm)), the top-level Nazi and one of the engineers of the "Final Solution". Coordinating mass murder bothers Dorf at first, but he grows more merciless as he discovers that ideological fervor gains him prestige. This backfires after a feud with SS field officers who resent his orders and they send an anonymous letter to Heydrich, accusing Dorf of having Communist sympathies. These accusations stunt his career. After Heydrich is assassinated in 1942, Dorf is put in charge of major extermination operations at Nazi death camps. Dorf continues to follow orders, and commits further war crimes as well as covering them up.
The series also follows the Weiss family; a group of moderately wealthy German Jews, headed by Dr. Josef Weiss (Fritz Weaver) a Polish-born general physician settled in Berlin. His German-born wife, Berta (Rosemary Harris), a talented pianist, is descended from a "Hoch-Deutsch" family whose ancestors were ethnic German "court Jews." They have three children-Karl (James Woods), an artist who is married to a Christian woman named Inga (Meryl Streep); Rudi, (Joseph Bottoms), a football player; and preteen daughter Anna Weiss (Blanche Baker). Other family members are also featured. Inga has a brother named Hans Helms (Michael Beck), who is serving in the German infantry. Holocaust begins in 1935 in Berlin, with the wedding of Karl Weiss and Inga Helms. The unemployed Erik and his sickly wife Marta consult with Dr. Josef Weiss who diagnoses her with a heart murmur. They learn the doctor had treated Erik's parents and even him as a child. Later, unable to find decent employment, Erik applies for a job with the Nazi Security Service and is interviewed by Reinhard Heydrich, deputy head of the SS.
This miniseries spans the period from 1938 to 1945 and covers the unfolding of the Holocaust, the events from Kristallnacht to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and the Sobibor death camp revolt, and ultimately the end of World War II and the liberation of the camps. It portrays the crimes of the Nazis, including the "Action T4" euthanasia murders of the disabled, the Babi Yar massacre, the deportations to and imprisonment in the ghettos, and the murders of millions in the death camps. Throughout the series, each member of the Weiss (and Palitz) family suffers hardships and ultimately meets a terrible fate.
Within three years (1936-38) things have changed drastically in Germany. Hitler has come to power and implements his racial agenda. The doctor Josef is initially is forbidden to treat Aryan patients (the order is delivered by Erik himself, who advises Josef to leave Germany while he can), and ultimately his office is closed down and his practice co-opted by an ethnic German. The family decides to leave Germany, but its too late as the US stops accepting German Jews, but Berta wants to stay as she thinks Hitler will eventually stop. The Kristallnacht attacks in November 1938 were ostensibly in retaliation for the assassination of Nazi official Ernst Vom Rath by Jewish 17-year-old Herschel Grynszpan. Much was staged and supported by the Nazis, as part of their economic and political persecution of Jews. So too it was, for the fictional Weiss (and Palitz) family. In a night of state sponsored brutality, Jewish synagogues and businesses were burnt and as many as 30K Jews arrested. Berta's father got caught up in the violence when his book shop was burnt and Rudi just managed to save him from the marauding mob.
Josef's home, including Berta's beloved piano, is confiscated, and son Karl is arrested and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp. Heinrich Palitz (Marius Goring) (Berta's dad) and his wife are forced to move in with their daughter, Berta, son-in-law Josef Weiss, and their two younger children still at home. Josef visits Erik Dorf, seeking his intervention, despite Dorf's previous warning against that. Dorf refuses, and turns Josef away. Heydrich is worried that the Gestapo and SS is getting bad press because of uniformed officers burning Jew properties. Erik advises him to have officers remove their uniforms and pose as ordinary German citizens. Erik is promoted to Captain.
A few days later, Dr. Josef Weiss, already prohibited from treating "Aryan" patients, is deported to Poland as a foreign Polish citizen (but his family is ordered to stay behind and they cant leave with him), along with Jewish patients Franz Lowy (George Rose) and his wife Chana (Käte Jaenicke). Josef's brother, Moses Weiss owns a pharmacy in Warsaw, and finds a place for the couple to stay. Josef starts working as a doctor in the Warsaw Ghetto hospital. In Berlin, Berta, and their children are forced to "sell" (leave) their home and Josef's clinic. Berta's parents kill themselves as they cant bear the humiliation. Berta and her family are forced to move into their daughter-in-law Inga's apartment, relying on her and her reluctant, even hostile, Nazi-supporting family for their survival. Meanwhile Erik meets Major Adolf Eichmann (Tom Bell), who has recently been transferred to the SS and is in charge of mass extermination program of the Jews in Poland. Adolf says that Heydrich is under scrutiny as he has a Jew in his family. Adolf gets Erik to work for him..
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What is the broadcast (satellite or terrestrial TV) release date of Part 1: 1935-1940 (1978) in Australia?
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