Intent on shaking up the ultimate ‘sacred cow’ for Jews, Israeli director Yoav Shamir embarks on a provocative – and at times irreverent – quest to answer the question, “What is anti-Semitism today?” Does it remain a dangerous and immediate threat? Or is it a scare tactic used by right-wing Zionists to discredit their critics? Speaking with an array of people from across the political spectrum (including the head of the Anti-Defamation League and its fiercest critic, author Norman Finkelstein) and traveling to places like Auschwitz (alongside Israeli school kids) and Brooklyn (to explore reports of violence against Jews), Shamir discovers the realities of anti-Semitism today. His findings are shocking, enlightening and - surprisingly - often wryly funny.
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.
Episode 1: The Golden Door (Beginnings-1938)
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.
Episode 2: Yearning to Breathe Free (1938-1942)
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.
Episode 3 The Homeless, Tempest Tossed (1942 - )
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.
In the wake of the deadly anti-Semitic attack at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, FRONTLINE presents a new investigation into white supremacist groups in America - in particular, a neo-Nazi group, Atomwaffen Division, that has actively recruited inside the U.S. military. This investigation shows the group's terrorist objectives and how it gained strength after the 2017 Charlottesville rally.
Born in Poland, Maryla Michalowski-Dyamant survived Ravensbruck, Malchow and Auschwitz - where she was the forced translator for the "Angel of Death," Josef Mengele. Maryla dedicated her life after the war to publicly speaking about her survival to younger generations. Alice and Serena, daughter and granddaughter, explore how Maryla's activism continues today, in a world where survivors are disappearing, and intolerance, racism and anti-Semitism are on the rise.