The Hollywood version of what happened to Jews in the Third Reich caused argument and reflection wherever it was shown. But in West Germany, the reaction to the series was sensational.
Cautious television executives decided against ' blockbuster presentation and almost hid the American series away on the third channel. But at least half the population watched it and many thousands phoned in their comments, or wrote letters. In schools, factories and above all in homes, emotions and memories were released which many people had repressed for years.
Valerie Singleton reports on the effects of the series. She talks to Germans whose own lives were caught up in small but horrific ways with the Final Solution. And she tests the attitudes of one of the very few Jewish families left in Germany. The father was an inmate of Dachau - and still lives in the village nearby.
ProducerBILL TREHARNE JONES
Executive producer JOHN REYNOLDS
(The Holocaust series begins on Sat)