Holocaust - 3-DVD Set ( Holocaust: The Story of the Family Weiss )

Holocaust - 3-DVD Set (DVD) (*)

Out of Stock

Alternate Title: Holocaust: The Story of the Family Weiss
Screened, competed or awarded at:
Emmy Awards
Golden Globes
Other Film Festival Awards

Language Selections:
English ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )

Product Origin/Format:
United Kingdom ( PAL/Region 2 )

Running Time:
446 min

Aspect Ratio:
Fullscreen

Special Features:
3-DVD Set
Collectors Edition
Interactive Menu
Scene Access

Movie filmed in 1978 and produced in:
United States ( USA, Canada )

Directed By:
Marvin J. Chomsky

Written By:
Gerald Green

Actors:
Tom Bell ..... Adolf Eichmann
Joseph Bottoms ..... Rudi Weiss
Tovah Feldshuh ..... Helena Slomova
Marius Goring ..... Heinrich Palitz
Rosemary Harris ..... Berta Palitz Weiss
Tony Haygarth ..... Heinz Muller (as Anthony Haygarth)
Ian Holm ..... Heinrich Himmler
Lee Montague ..... Uncle Sasha
Michael Moriarty ..... Erik Dorf
Deborah Norton ..... Marta Dorf
George Rose ..... Lowy
Robert Stephens ..... Uncle Kurt Dorf
Meryl Streep ..... Inga Helms Weiss
Sam Wanamaker ..... Moses Weiss
David Warner ..... Reinhard Heydrich
James Woods ..... Karl Weiss (4 episodes, 1978)

Synopsis:

Holocaust follows each member of the Jewish Family Weiss throughout Hitler's reign in Germany. One by one, the family members suffer the horrible fate of extermination under Anti-Semetic Nazi Law until only one son remains at the end of World War II. A sub-plot follows the story of Eric Dorf, a young German lawyer with a good heart who is changed into a mass murderer by membership in the SS.

The series presented in four parts:

Part 1 - The Gathering Darkness (original airdate: April 16, 1978)

Part 2 - The Road to Babi Yar (original airdate: April 17, 1978)

Part 3 - The Final Solution (original airdate: April 18, 1978)

Part 4 - The Saving Remnant (original airdate: April 19, 1978)

Dr. Josef Weiss, a Polish émigré, is a successful general practitioner in 1935 Berlin where he lives with his wife Berta, her parents, and their three children. When his oldest son Karl marries Aryan German Inga, he is confronted by Anti-Semitism but rationalizes it and the family makes the decision not to leave the country. Erik Dorf, husband of one of the doctor's German patients, is a struggling lawyer who seeks employment and social mobility by joining the nascent but powerful Nazi Party. Within three years things have changed drastically in Germany. The doctor initially is forbidden to treat Aryan patients, and ultimately his office is closed down and his practice co-opted by an ethnic German. His home, including Berta's beloved piano, is confiscated, and son Karl is arrested. Although he pleads with Dorf to help him get his son released, he is turned down and ultimately deported to Poland to be reunited with his brother Moses. Berta, along with daughter Anna and son Rudy, is forced to live in a single room on the charity of Inga's family. Frustrated, Rudy leaves to somehow resist Nazi oppression. Daughter Anna is raped by German soldiers and sinks into a depressive, uncommunicative state. She is institutionalized and, in accordance with Nazi policy, is euthanized with other 'mental defectives.' Ultimately Berta is sent to Auschwich to be reunited with her husband. Meanwhile Erik, utilizing his skill with semantics and euphemistic terminology continues to rise in the Nazi hierarchy as the protégé of war criminal Reynhard Heidrich. He distances himself emotionally from the horrors of ethnic cleansing as the Nazis move inexorably toward solving the 'Jewish Problem' with the 'Ultimate Solutiom.'

Season 1

Season 1, Episode 1: The Gathering Darkness

Original Air Date-16 April 1978

In 1935 Berlin, the Weisses celebrate son Karl's marriage to Inga Helms. When Erik Dorf is unable to find work as a lawyer, wife Marta urges him to apply for a Nazi government job. Erik Dorf warns Dr. Weiss he should leave Germany. Karl is arrested and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp, and Dr. Weiss is deported to Poland. Erik Dorf continues to advance in the Nazi hierarchy.

Season 1, Episode 2: Part 2

Original Air Date-17 April 1978

Inga is desperate to reunite with Karl, but her parents don't want to risk hiding her Jewish in-laws. Rudi runs away from their hiding place. Erik Dorf helps Heydrich plan and execute his Final Solution. Moses and Dr. Weiss are caught when the Nazis overrun Poland. Helena rescues Rudi from a patrol. Berta joins her husband in the Warsaw ghetto. Rudi and Helena escape to Russia.

Season 1, Episode 3: Part 3

Original Air Date-18 April 1978

Rudi and Helena escape from a long procession of Jews being marched into Babi Yar. They are eventually rescued from a hayloft by a group of Jewish partisans. Erik Dorf attends a top-level Nazi conference in which Heydrich gives Hilter's orders of the final solution for all the Jews in Europe. Karl Weiss has been transferred to Theresienstadt concentration camp which the Germans use to display to the Red Cross officials and representatives of neutral countries that Jews are being treated kindly. Karl learns that his fellow artists in the camp are creating propaganda paintings by day while secretly drawing images of the brutal conditions of the camp by night.

Season 1, Episode 4: Part 4

Original Air Date-19 April 1978

Erik Dorf complains to the other S.S. leaders that the executions of the Jews are not being efficiently done. An order is placed by Erik for Zyklon B (a lethal gas) for use at Auschwitz and other camps. Inga asks Muller to denounce her and have her sent to Karl at Theresienstadt. Felscher sells four of the secret drawings done by him, Frey and Karl, which depict the brutal conditions at Theresienstadt, to a Czech gendarme, which the S.S. get a hold of. Felscher, Frey and Karl are called in for questioning and then tortured, where Karl is the only one who survives and is told he is being sent to Auschwitz. He sees Inga one last time, where she tells him she is carrying his child. Karl dies the day Auschwitz is liberated. In Warsaw, Josef is caught for setting up the clinic to act as a front to keep people from getting on the train headed to Treblinka, and him and Berta with Mr. and Mrs. Lowy are sent to Auschwitz, where soon after they are sent to the gas chambers. Moses joins the resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto and they are successful in holding back 7,000 German soldiers over a three-week period, until they are forced out via a gas bomb and are shot. In the Ukraine, Uncle Sasha's unit attempts to shoot up a convoy, but Helena is shot and killed and Rudi is knocked unconscious. Rudi wakes up in the Sobibor camp, where he learns of a breakout being planned by the other prisoners and joins with them. He survives to the end of the war and is reunited with Inga in Theresienstadt, where he learns that Inga has given birth to a son, who is two years old named Josef, after Karl's father. Rudi is asked to lead a group of Greek orphans into Palestine. Erik Dorf is placed in custody by the Americans and after a brief questioning commits suicide via a cyanide pill hidden in the hem of his pants. Uncle Kurt Dorf visits Marta, Peter and Laura Dorf and tells them what really happened to Erik, despite an unsigned letter Marta is reading commending Erik's service to the Reich. He then tells them what Erik and the other SS men really were - mechanical killers. In response, Marta tells Uncle Kurt they never want to see him again. Uncle Kurt says he will not be silent about the truth.

The saga of a Jewish family's struggle to survive the horror of Nazi Germany's systematic marginalization and extermination of their community.

This product was added to our catalog on Thursday 19 May, 2016.