“How the Holocaust Came to TV” Film and Discussion with filmmaker Alice Agneskirchner, Tovah Feldshuh, Hannah Lessing and Dr. Michael Berenbaum

Classrooms Without Borders, in partnership with Rodef Shalom Congregation, Liberation 75, the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage and Germany Close Up, is honored to welcome filmmaker Alice Agneskirchner, with award winning actor Tovah Feldshuh and Secretary General Hannah Lessing to convene this post screening discussion moderated by Dr. Michael Berenbaum.At the beginning of 1979, after more than 30 years of collective repression, a dramatized and emotional US television miniseries ensured that the German population was suddenly reminded of the terrible Nazi crimes against the Jews. What is now expressed with the hitherto unknown word Holocaust, hits many millions of people in the heart. The unexpected echo and the audience reactions were fierce. Even before the TV broadcast neo-Nazis blasted in vain transmitting towers in Germany to prevent this. From the creation and the shooting over the broadcast to the tremendous reactions, documentary filmmaker Alice Agneskirchner tells the story of this emotional television event, which led to a paradigm shift in the perception of German Nazi crimes.

Tovah Feldshuh, top left, Meryl Streep and Hannah Lessing, bottom, in ‘Holocaust,’ the 1978 series that changed how Germany perceived its disturbing history. (Screenshots)

In her documentary film “How the Holocaust Came to TV”, the director Alice Agneskirchner reconstructs the special production conditions and the tremendous social echo of the American family saga “Holocaust”. The four-part original series was screened on German television in 1979 under the title “Holocaust – The History of the Weiss Family”. It heralded a turning point in dealing with National Socialism and sparked a heated controversy. In the run-up to the broadcast in Germany, there was already passionate debate in the media about the production. Critics feared the trivialization of history.

The documentary traces the difficulties that the “Westdeutscher Rundfunk” (WDR) and in particular its head of television at that time, Günter Rohrbach, had to get the series on TV in Germany. The film also shows numerous excerpts from the original series as well as the reactions of the audience, which exceeded all expectations: viewing figures of nearly 40 percent, tens of thousands of calls during the night and piles of mail from the audience. Director Marvin J. Chomsky and producer Robert Berger, both of Jewish descent, talk about the stressful atmosphere during the shooting. The actresses of mother and daughter Weiss, Rosemary Harris and Blanche Baker, meet again for the first time after the shooting and they talk about the importance of the work for them. Other actors, including Michael Moriarty and Erwin Steinhauer, return to the filming locations, such as the gas chamber of the former Mauthausen concentration camp.

The series portrayed – in a highly emotional way – the fictional stories of two families: that of the assimilated German-Jewish doctor family Weiss, who lives in Berlin. And parallel to that, the family story about the lawyer Erik Dorf, who adapts to the new political conditions and rose to the position of an adjutant to SS leader Reinhard Heydrichs in a short time. Concerning the Weiss family, the audience witnessed every stage of the initial exclusion and disenfranchisement of a respected family of doctors, right up to their deportation and murder in the gas chamber.

Never before, films or television programs had portrayed the genocide of the Jews so vividly from the perspective of the victims. The American TV series brought the term “Holocaust” to Germany and Europe. With its meaningfulness, it also entered the debates of the German Bundestag, which in 1979 finally discussed the statute of limitations for Nazi war crimes. The Society for the German Language elected “Holocaust” 1979 as word of the year. Today it is used as a synonym for the systematic extermination of the Jews in Nazi Germany.

The broadcast of the series triggered intense discussions in many families about the responsibility parents and grandparents had during the Nazi era. The film explores the questions, feelings and effects that still play a role today. The 1970s were characterized by a rigid family and social system, the post-hippie era, two oil crises and the left-wing terrorism of the RAF (Rote Armee Fraktion). “Holocaust” hit a sensitive nerve, led to reflection in all social classes and for the first time – 34 years after the end of the war – enabled a kind of emotional catharsis.

To date, “Holocaust” is one of the most successful TV productions worldwide, it has won eight Emmy Awards and has been sold in over 50 countries. Media and history studies have dealt with it again and again since then. Now, it has been over 40 years since the first screening. What significance does the series have for our present time? In what way did the series “Holocaust” and the resulting social debate shape us?

Alice Agneskirchner

Alice Agneskirchner was born in 1966 and raised in Munich, Bavaria. In 1988, after completing her basic studies at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in political science, theater studies, and German and comparative ethnology, she went to the Landestheater Salzburg as an assistant director. In 1989 she was invited to study directing at the “Konrad Wolf” Academy of Film and Television in Potsdam-Babelsberg and graduated in 1995. Since 1995 she has been working successfully and continuously as a writer and director for documentary films and series of various lengths and genres. From 2003 – 2007 she was a lecturer at the Film Academy Ludwigsburg. Since 2012 Alice Agneskirchner is an elected member of the German Film Academy. In 2018 she presented her film „ON HUNTING – WHO OWNS NATURE?“ in more than 150 cinems in Germany. In 2019 her film „KIDS IN THE SPOTLIGHT“ had it’s premier at the BERLINALE – The Berlin Film Festival. In 2020 she received the GRIMME-TV-Award for her documentary film “HOW HOLOCAUST CAME TO TV”.

Tovah Feldshuh

TOVAH FELDSHUH is a six-time Emmy & Tony nominee and has been awarded three honorary Doctorates of Humane Letters. Additionally, for her theatre work, she has won four Drama Desks, four Outer Critics Circle Awards, three Dramalogues, the Obie, the Theatre World, and the Helen Hayes and Lucille Lortel Awards for Best Actress. She has just been twice nominated as Best Actress in a Drama in Los Angeles for her work in the play Sisters-in-Law, in which she originated the role of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

On the Page: Ms. Feldshuh has just been nominated for the prestigious Audie award for her narration of The Gift by Holocaust-survivor, Dr. Edith Eger. Tovah’s first memoir, Lilyville: Mother, Daughter, and Other Roles I’ve Played has just been published by Hachette Book Group and can be purchased on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target, Indie Bound and more. See www.tovahfeldshuh.com/lilyville for more information and to order.

GREAT NEWS! Lilyville, is making its debut at the fantastic Atlanta Book Festival this April 15th at 8:00 PM EST. All are invited to join! Here is the link: https://www.showclix.com/event/tovah-feldshuh-lilyville
On the Stage: Broadway: Yentl, Cyrano, Rodgers & Hart, Dreyfus in Rehearsal, Sarava!, Lend Me a Tenor, Golda’s Balcony, Irena’s Vow, and the show stopping, trapeze-swinging Berthe in Pippin. Off-Broadway and around the country: Dozens of productions playing everything from three queens of Henry VIII and Tallulah Bankhead to Yussel “The Muscle” Jacobs, nine Jews from birth to death in Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh! and, most recently, Holocaust denier Brenda Goodsen opposite Ed Asner in The Soap Myth. In the pre-COVID summer, she starred in the world premiere of Wade Dooley’s The Prompter directed by Scott Schwartz, where she played Irene Young, a legendary diva making her Broadway comeback after a 40 year absence. Immediately on the heels of The Prompter, she filmed Clifford for Paramount Pictures, traveled to the Sing-Sing in New Guinea, and flew from there to Los Angeles to star as RBG in the LA Premiere of Jonathan Shapiro’s Sisters-In-Law.

On TV: Deanna Monroe on “The Walking Dead”, Danielle Melnick on “Law & Order”, POTUS Pauline Mackenzie on “Salvation”, and Naomi Bunch on “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” where Feldshuh can be seen singing the dignified showstopper: “Where’s the Bathroom!” In February of 2021, she completed filming Scenes from a Marriage for HBO playing Oscar Isaac’s mother, Miryam.

On Film: Kissing Jessica Stein, (Golden Satellite Award), A Walk on the Moon, Brewster’s Millions, Just My Luck, Daniel, The Idolmaker, and most recently, Ms. Feldshuh’s award-winning performance as Prime Minister Golda Meir in Golda’s Balcony has been made into a film entitled Golda’s Balcony The Film which has won 20 out of 20 Audience Choice Awards. Before the pandemic, she completed filming Edith Hagigi’s BLEECKER with Ben Stiller.

Her concert, Tovah: Out of Her Mind!, was voted Best One Woman Show of the Year by the BOSTON GLOBE. Her other one-woman shows, “Tovah is LEONA!” and “Aging is Optional” enjoyed sold-out engagements in New York, San Francisco, Boca Raton and Delray. She’s the wife of New York attorney, Andrew Harris Levy, the mother of Brandon, married to Jami, and Amanda, married to Joel, and the grandmother of Rafael, Sidney Mei, and Camille Willa. Follow Tovah’s pre-pandemic travels around the world on Instagram @tovahfeld. www.tovahfeldshuh.com

Hannah Lessing

Hannah Lessing has been Secretary General of the National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism since 1995. She has also headed the General Settlement Fund since 2001 and the Fund for the Restoration of the Jewish Cemeteries in Austria since 2010 – three Funds carrying out their work in remembrance of the victims.

Hannah Lessing is Co-Head of the Austrian delegation to the “International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance” (IHRA). Since March 2011, she has been Austria’s representative on the International Committee of the Auschwitz Foundation and Member of the Board of the Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance.

In 2001, as a member of the Austrian delegation headed by Ambassador Sucharipa, Hannah Lessing participated in the negotiations on compensation issues conducted by Under-Secretary of State Stuart Eizenstat, which led to the signature of the Joint Statement in Washington in 2001. Following this Agreement, the General Settlement Fund for Victims of National Socialism was established in 2001 in order to achieve a comprehensive resolution to open questions of compensation for victims of National Socialism.

Established in order to express the moral responsibility of the Republic of Austria towards victims of National Socialism, the National Fund carries out a range of activities related to matters of restitution and compensation and the conveyance of historical awareness.

Hannah Lessing has lectured extensively on the work of the three Funds, as well as in connection with national and international commemoration activities regarding the Holocaust.

Dr. Michael Berenbaum

Dr. Michael Berenbaum is a writer, lecturer, and teacher consulting in the conceptual development of museums and historical films. He is director of the Sigi Ziering Institute: Exploring the Ethical and Religious Implications of the Holocaust at the American Jewish University, where he is also a Professor of Jewish Studies.

He was the Executive Editor of the Second Edition of the Encyclopedia Judaica that reworked, transformed, improved, broadened and deepened, the now classic 1972 work and consists of 22 volumes, sixteen million words with 25,000 individual contributions to Jewish knowledge. For three years, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation. He was the Director of the United States Holocaust Research Institute at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Hymen Goldman Adjunct Professor of Theology at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. From 1988–93 he served as Project Director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, overseeing its creation. He also served as Deputy Director of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust, where he authored its Report to the President.

Berenbaum is the author and editor of twenty books, scores of scholarly articles, and hundreds of journalistic pieces. His most recent books include: Not Your Father’s Antisemitism, A Promise to Remember: The Holocaust in the Words and Voices of Its Survivors and After the Passion Has Passed: American Religious Consequences, a collection of essays on Jews, Judaism and Christianity, Religious Tolerance and Pluralism occasioned by the controversy that swirled around Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion. He was the conceptual developer on the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Educational Center and played a similar function as conceptual developer and chief curator of the Belzec Memorial at the site of the Death Camp. He is currently at work on the Memorial Museum to Macedonian Jewry in Skopje, the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum, and the Holocaust and Humanity Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.