Limited quotas would be offered even temporary shelter. And asks important questions, what did the u. S. Government and ordinary americans know about the horror . Why didnt the u. S. Take in more refugees . Have we learned the right lessons . You will not replace us. What do film makers ken burns and Sarah Botstein say now. Firing line with Margaret Hoover is made possible in part by robert, charles r. Schwab, the fairweather foundation, and by the roz lynn p. Walter foundation, the Pritzker Military foundation on behalf of the Pritzker Military and library and the mark haas foundation. Corporate funding is provided by stevens, inc. Ken burns, Sarah Botstein, welcome to firing line. Thank you. Thank you. You have, along with your director and producer, lynn novak come out with a threepart documentary series called the u. S. And the holocaust which premieres this sunday. There are at least 100 docuntaries about the holocaust so why did you need to make this film now . We decided to do this in 2015. It was a far different environment in 2015, and its taken us seven years to do it, so theres not a sense of now. Were just drawn to topics, authentically, and its not that theres 100 films or a thousand films or no films about them, its just that we have to feel like weve got an angle to pursue it. In this case, for us, it was really important to resee the holocaust through the lens of what the u. S. Involvement is in terms of when we knew and when we knew it, what we didnt know, what we did know. What we did, what we didnt do, what we should have done. All of these myriad of questions that beset us as we approach myriad other projects. The series was originally set to be released in 2023, and ken, i have heard you say i will not work on a more important film than this. I wonder, sarah, was there no urgency in moving up the date. There definitely was urgency in moving up the date, and we will put that squarely on the man to my left here who, i think, realized as we were making the film and these themes that we were exploring felt more and more urgent as things were happening while we were editing the film in realtime. He turned to us and said i think we have to accelerate the broadcast, i dont want to wait a year. We kind of gulped and were going to try to really make that happen. And he was right. The Antidefamation League has been tracking antisemitic incidents since 1979, and has noted that they have reached an all time high. Does the rising prevalence of antisemitism in our country today influence the way you approach this . No, its really important to understand that theres not a film that weve worked on and ive done more than 40 in which youre not aware while youre working on it that it has a resonance in the present. And its the responsibility of the film maker, unless youre a different kind of film maker to ignore that, and so we are trying to faithfully tell our story, not point arrows at it or neon signs, isnt this so like today, but we realized we had an obligation to the story and to ourselves and to the people, our audience to bring it up to the present, so in a very short few minute impressionistic, no narration, theres a sense of guiding, documenting the killing of the people at the tree of life synagogue, in pittsburgh, rising xenophobia and nationalist sentiment, antiimmigrant thing, the racism, the antisemitism which seems to have a new flowering. So we had obligations not so much as film makers, but as citizens to sort of say, and this is happening. Theres a moment in the film when the great holocaust scholar, debrasays the time to stop a genocide is before it happens, which i would add in my own way is the time to save is sa democracy is before its lo. Do you think were there now . I think we have had three great crises leading up to here, the civil war, the depression and the Second World War. At the end of the constitutional convention, frankly was asked what hed create a monarchy o a republic, and he said a repub public if you can keep it. Through 245 years, we have been able in the midst of those crises to keep those institutions well, that we have had free and fair elections, that wve had the peaceful transfer of power. We have had the respect for institutions, the courts have remained independent forhe most part, but right now, i think were in our fourth great crisis, and the institutions that have been the bulwark of the success of our democracy and the peaceful transfer of power are all under assault. Ive heard you say you believe this is one of the most challenging times in our history. Yes. You can understand from many people who came to know you through your series on the civil war that that lands very strongly. Is this mo important and more serious than the civil war . I dont think its more important or more serious. I think that it has the capability of being subtle enough in its manifestations that we can miss the ultimate seriousness. There was an election in the middle of the civil war, and there was a peaceful transition of power, and we got to have the second inaugural address, which is one of the most beautiful speeches in history because of that. Ken, you have said that, im paraphrasing, every film you do is about the same thing. Yeah. That its about us. Yeah. Its about us as a country, us as a people. What did you learn about us in making this film. Its very hard to put your finger on it quiterecisely, i think it is the fact that we have with the holocaust conveniently hid behind the skirts that we didnt know anything. And that therefore we are disconnected by an ocean and a continent from these events that took place. When, in fact, we knew, and we chose not to do more to help the people who were throughout the 30s and then into the 40s to esca this cataclysm and that is on us, i think. You go into this long tradition of xenophobia and frankly also isolationism, but you deal with our treatment of indigenous groups and black americans as a starting point for that, and then you dive into how hitler himself was inspired by doctor chapters in american history. Sarah, tell me more. Now, as painter says, we have to confront native american genocide to understand our history, but hitler understood that about us, and he said, you know, our mississippi must be the volga, so he wants to move east and what is in his way are these populations of jews. The film really dives into how hitler took inspiration from the american legal system and how it treated black americans in the context of our jim crow laws. I think hitler admired most our ability to subdue and sort of eliminate the native population and to isolate them into reservations, read concentration camps. German jurists did study our jim crow laws to fashion the first discriminatory laws against jews, and in fact, they were less harsh than ours. After that happens, theres a hue and cry about many of the things hes done and protests against them, and you know, the invariable answer to our protests against the treatment of the jews in the developing 30s is mississippi, the scholar peter hay says in our film, you considered these people inferior and you passed laws to limit their a abilities. We consider these people inferior, and thats all were doing, how dare you talk to us about it. Public opinion in the United States was often not in favor of helping the jewish people and, you know, the actions of the United States federal government led by president Franklin Delano roosevelt often reflected that public and popular opinion, so by the end of the holocaust, the United States had admitted 225,000 jewish refugees, more than any other sovereign token. But still only a fraction of the 6 million jews who perished, why did the u. S. Not do more, ken . Theres rampant antisemitism in the uted states. Its been fired up by authoritarian figures in the media, not dissimilar to today. And father coghlan, the radio priest preaching hatred about jews to more. Bought a newspaper and republished the most vile, the protocols of the elders of zion, people dislocated by the depression who are sus ceceptib to scapegoating. There are racists in the state department who slow walk. If we had just followed the quota system, the restrictive quota system, we could have let in five times as many jews and we didnt. People would change the rules. We start the film with otto frank, anne franks father. He spends most of the 30s trying to get into the United States. Most peoples entrance is through the story of anne frank which we think we have no responsibility but the fact that she could be living among us today, that her children could be here, and we didnt want them in there. There is a higher kind of moral place that we could have arrived at. Fra Franklin Roosevelt could be been more vociferous in his opposition. Could have rid the state department of antisemihits, and we could have yelled louder about what was happening at the time and we did not do that, and because of that, we failed. Had we let in five times as many people, i suggest we still would have failed. One of the utterly tragic incidents that you recount in the film is that of m. S. St. Louis, the ship that was carrying the 900 jews that left hamburg, germany, and was not permitted into the canada or the United States. 254 of its passengers later perished in the holocaust. Some scholars have argued that fdr, there are things he could have done and that it was apathy towards the jewish condition, the jewish refugees that came to characterize his approach to jewish refugees generally, fair or not fair . So the st. Louis happens before the Second World War has begun. Its the spring of 1939. Were not in the war. The war in europe hasnt happened. Do i think the United States could have done more around the st. Louis and it is on our country and the Roosevelt Administration that we didnt . Absolutely. I dont feel comfortable, i think, saying that its a symbol of some kind of larger apathy. I think roosevelt is extremely complicated when it comes to this subject, and one of the things we have to always remember is the circumstances that were happening here. So he understands that we have an army smaller than that of bulgaria at this time. That he has a humanitarian crisis that is real and he needs to deal with, and the st. Louis is a symbol of that. He also has a huge world war brewing. I think its completely unfair, and unfair for a lot of reasons. This is a person who is named more jews to his administration than any other president before him. The scholar peter hayes in our film says we think in retrospect, the humanitarian issue would be the most important thing but hes trying to revoke the neutrality acts and if he hadnt revoked the neutrality acts, we might, this is me speaking, be speaking german, and hasthats not a jok. The other thing is this is a red herring, a posthumous, looking back at roosevelt to try to find an american villain in this. The antisemites and antiimmigrationists called him frank d. Rosenfeld, they called his main program the jew deal. He helps give the go ahead to the single most important creation of the United States which is the war refugee board which will save more human beings than any other agency in the crse of their war. Later to be sure, not enough, to be sure. I already said theres a failure, but our film is calle the u. S. And the holocaust. It could easily be us and the holocaust. Weave to realize that the main agent of this incensesensitivite the American People in their totality. He is aware of that. He knows what he can and cannot get. Hes not perfect by no stretch of the imagination, and we dont let him get away with stuch, and we hold his feet to the fire bh appropriate, but this wholesale person thats sympathetic to the situation is unfair. He could have let them in. He could have spent a great deal of Political Capital and let the st. Louse in, what he might have had to sacrifice in order to do that might have been the difference in revoking the neutrality acts, which i would suggest trump all of that. Your film lays out what americans did and didnt know about what was happening to the jews in europe in the early 1940s. American newspapers had reported that jews were doing deported to ghettos in poland and labor camps in the german occupied soviet union. But their readers had no way of knowing that the nazis are already begun the mass murder of jews, that they were actually determined to eliminate all the jews of europe and that they had found a new, more efficient method of doing it. Gas. I was shocked to learn that 3 4 of Holocaust Victims were murdered in a span of 20 months before a single u. S. Troop got to europe. Thats right. And thats one of the powers of the film is to put this in Chronological Order for us. How much did americans actually know in the early 1940s . Once hitler invades the soviet union and they want to move east, they murder in a span of 20 months known the show by bulle bullets, mostly shooting jewish men, women, children, elderly people into pits. There is some reporting in 1942 about that, but a lot of it happens in secret, and we dont know all of the information and roosevelt actually is quite careful, once the information is out, because he is worried about american antisemitism and sending an entire jews of t europe. So he is wrestling, but he did undetand that american antisemitism was real. European antisemitism was real, and had to be very careful how he messagethat. There are parallels throughout the film between antisemitism and prejudice that fueled the holocaust and antiimmigrant and pro authoritarian sentiment. Take a look at this clip from your series. By 1910, new york would be home to more than a million jews, more than a quarter of the citys population, far more than any other city on earth. The anxieties about urbanization, about unlettered, untutored, relatively uneducated peoples coming in in large numbers. The sense that disease was a problem. All of these worries were amalgamated into a belief that immigrants caused these problems. And thus immigration should be held down. Many white protestant americans came to fear they were about to be out numbered and out bread by the newcomers and their offspring, that they were being replaced. You say that you try to avoid contemporary motivations in your film, but its hard to miss references from the 20th century that resonate really strongly in this century. Theres a speech from a senator about building a wall around the United States. Theres Charles Lindberghs involvement in the isolationist America First committee, a phrase we have heard over and over in the last six years. How do you explain these resemblances . The ecclesiastes, the old testament, what is again will be done again. Theres nothing new under the sun. History has never repeated itself, never ever repeated itself, but there are things that human beings continually do, good and bad, and this film, as we were working on it, we began to realize as the adl has noted that the increase in antisemitic incidents is off the charts, you know, they think its back to the level of the 1930s. I think the rhetoric that seems shocking to us when you watch the film is not only not shocking to audiences today, i think its much more acceptable. M ment sarah, your father, Leon Botstein appeared on the original firing line with William Buckly jr. More than a dozen times. He debated against a resolution that stated all immigration should be drastically reduced and in that debate brought up one of the central themes of your film. Take a look. In 1933, if you had given a poll of americans whether they should open the doors or in the late 30s, 1938, to the jews of europe, would you have thought that was an adequate answer that they didnt want more jews in the United States, and therefore our restrictive quota policy led indirectly to the death of millions of jews. This is called the st. Louis gam butt. Im a descendant of one of the few survivors. At that point in time or even today we cannot accept everyone who wants to come here. I mean, its sort of incredible, actually, i had not seen that clip. You know, my father came here in 1949 on the u. S. S. America as a 3yearold boy to the bronx. I think my family, my grandparents, their friends, the people that i knew all took great advantage and contributed and, i think the refute to him is that i think our immigrants and our refugees have made this country a place worth living in. I cant not get your take on this. In china, there are millions, millions of muslim ethnic minorities, including the uyghurs, who are being detained, placed in internment camps where they are beaten, prohibited from practicing their religion. The United States state department did declare the treatment of the uyghurs a genocide. The term genocide as your film notes was coined in 1944, the Biden Administration has taken some executive action on the matter. But do you see any indication that our leaders or our country have learned fro genocides in the past . I dont see how we can be positive in this regard. We said at the end of the Second World War about the holocaust never again, and we have had genocides in rwanda, and bosnia and herzegovina, weve had them in syria. Weve had as you pointed out in china, about the rohingyas in southeast asia, its a perpetual human thing. Were in the midst of a war in ukraine, covering the same territories, the same towns in our film, and you find human beings back as ecclesiastes recognized millennia ago, that theres nothing new under the sun. Your film ends with a montage of imagery, including charlestons emanuel shooter, dylann roof, kneonazis in charlottesville, trees in pittsburgh after the tree of life, synagogue shooting and scenes from january 6th. Have a look at this clip. We have seen the nadia of human behavior, and we have no guarantee that it wont recover. If we can make that clear and graphic and understandable, not as something to imitate but as a warning of what can happen to human beings, then perhaps we have one shield against its recurrence. Sarah, do you see this film as a warning . I do think that the film can be a warning, that human beings are capable of doing horrendous things to each other, so bad that while theyre happening, theyre cant believe its happening. That democracies fall quickly. That institutions crumble quickly, and for me, that is the thing to push against, that i still believe, having made this film and worked with ken for as long as i have that america is a very special country. It is a great land of opportunity, that we are very privileged to live in a pretty much working democracy. And that we can push against use the system to make it better. Ken, you said in a recent interview, quote, theres so mu capacity for evil. Human nature doesnt change. What gives you hope, then . Ll, i think that we are still the nation of immigrants, right, even though we are also a nation that does not believe in that, and so for me, its about the acceptance of using facts to telec tell complex stories in which the thing and the opposite of a thing could be true at the same time, that you could contain with the Franklin Roosevelt someone disposed to help and unable and unwilling, perhaps, to help. This is what we like. Big huge complicated sagas in which nobody is perfect, and at the same time, out of that, in this film, which we havent talked about are all the heroic individuals who sacrifice life and limb to save other human being, we have turned the number 6 million into an opaque figure that means nothing. It is important as we have tried to do in this film to personalize and dissolve that opacity by making real the individuals. Thats the important thing about the holocaust, and at that time, americans cared or they didnt care, but the important thing is to remove the opacity from the 6 million and make those people an amputated limb that we still feel. What curious were not discovered because theyre not here. What symphonies werent written. What gardens werent grown. What children werent raised well. Thats the only thing that really really matters, and so i think im optimistic in that these stories all have as broad relief, the positive things that we human beings do and still can do and ill say again that the time to save a democracy is before its lost. The series is u. S. And the holocaust. It starts this sunday. Congratulations to you both, and thank you for the contribution. Thank you for having us. Firing line with Margaret Hoover is made possible in part by robert greiner, charles r. Schwab, the fairweather foundation, the asnes family foundation, and by the roslyn p. Walter foundation, the pritzker foundation, on behalf of the Pritzker Museum and library, and the mark haas foundation. Corporate funding is provided by stevens inc. Hello, everyone. Welcome to amanpour and company. Heres whats coming up. As briltain prepares to say farewell to Queen Elizabeth ii, i spoke to bar baybados that red the head of state. The archbishop of york shares his reflection on faith ahead of offering a prayer at queens funeral on monday then. Russia is leaving death behind everywhere. Zelenskyy pushes forward as putin admits allied china has concerns about the ukraine war. We get insight fro