Holocaust (TV Mini Series)

Part 4: 1944-1945 (1978)

Michael Moriarty: Erik Dorf

Quotes 

• Erik Dorf : What we do we do out of necessity.

  Uncle Kurt Dorf : Stop it! Save those lies for the Jews you've been murdering. Lying to them up until the last moment. Why do you have to strip them naked? Can't you at least in the name of God let them die with some dignity? I've seen your SS louts grinning at the naked women.

  Erik Dorf : They are criminals and enemies and they are sent to the processing plant naked for sanitary reasons.

  Uncle Kurt Dorf : Jews in the Warsaw ghetto are fighting back. Think of that. Those despised unarmed people in Warsaw, defying the master race. It almost restores one's faith in Divine Providence.

  Erik Dorf : I'm told you're using several hundred Jews as laborers when there are Russians and Poles available.

  Uncle Kurt Dorf : What of it?

  Erik Dorf : You're not supposed to. Jews are marked for special handling. We'll send you a Red Army detail - strong backs, dull brains.

  Uncle Kurt Dorf : No!

  Erik Dorf : Do you curry favor with enemies of the Reich? The children of those Jewish laborers will rise to destroy Germany.

  Uncle Kurt Dorf : I should strangle you as a favor to your father! How many dead will satisfy you? A million? Two million?

  Erik Dorf : We must keep on killing them, don't you see? If we stop, it's an admission of guilt. But if we go on, we prove to the world that we had total dedication to our mission. That what we did were moral and historical necessities. Try to understand that.

  Uncle Kurt Dorf : I understand too well. Now get out of here!

• [Scene with Erik Dorf in custody by Americans] 

  Cassidy : We've got sworn testimony from 24 witnesses that you helped supervise gassing operations at Auschwitz and other camps and were present when selections and mass killings took place.

  Erik Dorf : I may have been present a few times as Berlin's representative, but I made no decisions. These came from Berlin. The Jews had to be dealt with. Permitted to rise to power again their money and influence would destroy Germany, and that is why we, unwillingly to be sure, why we had to liquidate children. The children... we had to kill the children, lest they... uhm...

  Cassidy : If I made the decisions, Dorf, I'd put a bullet in your head right now.. Since we do things in a democratic way, you'll be tried.

• [Dorf is reporting to Kaltenbrunner, with a slide-show] 

  Erik Dorf : The crematoria. We're experimenting with conveyor belts.

  [next image] 

  Erik Dorf : Burial pits for the ashes.

• Erik Dorf : Why erase the evidence? Why was it necessary four you to dig out 100,000 copses and burn them in Babi Yar. Why *dismantle* Auschwitz? Would it not be more fitting to let them stand, as monuments to our great service to mankind?

  Heinrich Himmler : Major, you misunderstand me. I...

  Erik Dorf : The Führer Himself said that we were here to complete the work of Christianity, defending Western Culture.

• Erik Dorf : We have committed no crimes. We have merely followed the logic of European history. And eminent philosophers and churchmen can be called upon to defend us

• [first lines] 

  [Dorf is reporting to Kaltenbrunner, with a slide-show] 

  Erik Dorf : Here they are lined up, undressed already. Next!

  [photo of a heap of clothing, meters high] 

  Erik Dorf : Sorting the clothing. All the laborers are Jews, special teams.

  [special teams meaning they are among the next to die]