I don't like most long mini series. Mini series are usually dragged out with redundant material. Part 2 is the exception. One see the progression of losing ones right to work, property, and where you can live by the state. The series is so long because their is so many details to unravel for the characters. The Weise family has a realistic son who goes on the run. The daughter after being savaged is sent to an institution and the viewer experience the beginnings of the final solution. Dad is sent off to a camp in Poland, as part of the resettlement part of the state. The mother like many others believe events will get better, because the policies sounds insane and un believable. Others think the same. The other side of the family want the daughter to divorce her Jewish husband and follow the orders of the state. Dorfman the lawyer can disassociate, in lawyer fashion, the law from Dorfman's own actions with out regret or compassion to doing an administrative job. Dorfman's has no mercy or belief in individual rights Dorfman's morality is guided by party policy. Well written and directed Part 2 un ravels the reasons, thoughts, and behaviors of the characters threw the spectrum of the times. I wonder what these character would have been like if the people lived in a different time? I wonder how bad or good many of us would be in such a crucible? 7 stars.
3 Reviews
Horrible...but appropriately so.
planktonrules28 September 2013
When the episode begins, most of the Weiss family has been disbursed. The father, Dr. Weiss, is in a Polish ghetto. The mother and her daughter are still back in Berlin--though this is not to last for long. The son, Rudi, is pragmatic and has run--living by his wits and avoiding capture. The only odd part of all this is that the conquest of Poland isn't really talked about--sometime between part 1 and 2 it occurred.
Through the show, more change occurs: The daughter is raped by a gang of German thugs. She subsequently loses her sanity and is sent to a nice hospital, Hadamar. What the family didn't know is that this is an extermination center--the place where they first carried out the so-called 'final solution' on a small scale--killing the mentally and physically disabled. While all of this was handled in a sensitive and non-sensationalistic manner, it is still difficult to watch---have some tissues handy.
Rudi is still on the run, though he picks up a girlfriend who now accompanies him. They are there to witness the invasion of Russia by the Germans--though the Russian army refuses to believe it.
Mrs. Weiss is deported to the ghetto in Warsaw and finally sees her husband for the first time in several years. However, the ghetto is being starved--and folks are dying as a result. They soon fall in with partisans on the Eastern front.
As for Karl Weiss, he's still in Buchenwald. He is moved from a job as a tailor to the rock pile after a rules infraction. He'll soon die, and really doesn't mind it, though he's moved off this murderous job after his wife agrees to sleep with an officer to save her husband's life.
The episode ends with Dorf on an inspection of the German liquidation squads in Russia. He is not pleased with the inefficiency and unprofessional behaviors of a death squad--so the commander instructs him to personally get his hands dirty and kill. So continues Dorf's slide to subhumanity.
All in all, an episode as troubling, emotional and realistic as the others--and an important reminder of our horrid past. Also note that although IMDb lists the series as having four episodes, on the DVDs there are five--so the last small portion of episode two (involving Dorf) actually occurred in episode three.
Through the show, more change occurs: The daughter is raped by a gang of German thugs. She subsequently loses her sanity and is sent to a nice hospital, Hadamar. What the family didn't know is that this is an extermination center--the place where they first carried out the so-called 'final solution' on a small scale--killing the mentally and physically disabled. While all of this was handled in a sensitive and non-sensationalistic manner, it is still difficult to watch---have some tissues handy.
Rudi is still on the run, though he picks up a girlfriend who now accompanies him. They are there to witness the invasion of Russia by the Germans--though the Russian army refuses to believe it.
Mrs. Weiss is deported to the ghetto in Warsaw and finally sees her husband for the first time in several years. However, the ghetto is being starved--and folks are dying as a result. They soon fall in with partisans on the Eastern front.
As for Karl Weiss, he's still in Buchenwald. He is moved from a job as a tailor to the rock pile after a rules infraction. He'll soon die, and really doesn't mind it, though he's moved off this murderous job after his wife agrees to sleep with an officer to save her husband's life.
The episode ends with Dorf on an inspection of the German liquidation squads in Russia. He is not pleased with the inefficiency and unprofessional behaviors of a death squad--so the commander instructs him to personally get his hands dirty and kill. So continues Dorf's slide to subhumanity.
All in all, an episode as troubling, emotional and realistic as the others--and an important reminder of our horrid past. Also note that although IMDb lists the series as having four episodes, on the DVDs there are five--so the last small portion of episode two (involving Dorf) actually occurred in episode three.
The Holocaust begins, and it's just the start.
mark.waltz20 May 2022
Warning: Spoilers
With Papa Fritz Weaver tucked away in the Warsaw Ghetto, it's only a matter of time before other Jews are sent there, and at least the audience gets the happiness of a reunions with Weaver and wife Rosemary Harris. It's not quite a happy ending for daughter Anna, played by Blanche Baker, and while the family doesn't know the truth about what happened to her, the audience gets to see it up front and it isn't presented in a sweet way. There's romance ahead for son Joseph Bottoms who meets the very independent Tovah Feldshuh. The point is made clear that the family is permanently separated and many of them will never see each other until they are reunited after death. It's apparent that Harris and her daughter-in-law Meryl Streep have become closer and that Harris's initial misgivings about her have come to an end.
A special assignment to the Russian front puts attorney Michael Moriarty in a position of power, and he gets to commit his first murder after witnessing a group of naked men slaughtered with one crying out in pain in the pile of corpses. Things are not pretty but they will get worse. As for Meryl Streep's non-Jewish in-law, she continues to deal with her anti-semitic family and makes it to the concentration camp where husband James Woods is being held. She must make sacrifices, and in her first major screen role, Streep begins to show what has made her a modern legend. So the same year she scored her first Oscar nomination she also got Emmy recognition as well, but outside of her cameo in "Julia", this is where she made her mark. The miniseries continues to mesmerize although the audience will have many shocking moments if it is their first viewing. This is my third time since watching it in its original airing on TV, and it still has the same impact on me now that it did when I was a teenager in 1978.
A special assignment to the Russian front puts attorney Michael Moriarty in a position of power, and he gets to commit his first murder after witnessing a group of naked men slaughtered with one crying out in pain in the pile of corpses. Things are not pretty but they will get worse. As for Meryl Streep's non-Jewish in-law, she continues to deal with her anti-semitic family and makes it to the concentration camp where husband James Woods is being held. She must make sacrifices, and in her first major screen role, Streep begins to show what has made her a modern legend. So the same year she scored her first Oscar nomination she also got Emmy recognition as well, but outside of her cameo in "Julia", this is where she made her mark. The miniseries continues to mesmerize although the audience will have many shocking moments if it is their first viewing. This is my third time since watching it in its original airing on TV, and it still has the same impact on me now that it did when I was a teenager in 1978.
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