New Holocaust Feature on The American Experience Online
Posted on April 14, 1999
To commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Ha'Shoah), The American Experience Online has launched America and the Holocaust: Deceit and Indifference, a new website that accompanies the re-broadcast of The American Experience documentary of the same name airing Monday, April 12, at 9pm on PBS.
The 90-minute documentary and the website examine a painful chapter in American history -- a period marked by strong anti-Semitic sentiments -- by following the struggles of Kurt Klein, a German Jew. After emigrating to America in 1937, Klein spent years wrestling with a tangle of United States bureaucracy as he attempted to get visas for his parents and free them from persecution in Europe. The State Department not only delayed action, but suppressed information and blocked efforts that could have resulted in the rescue of many thousands of people.
The content-rich website offers valuable resources to promote a better understanding of the US government's bureaucratic delay, including a teachers' guide with suggestions for leading classroom discussion on this material. The site also contains an enhanced program transcript, complete transcripts of interviews in the program, and a bibliography.
