Iran Makes Movie About Holocaust
For a country whose leadership has worked so hard to convince their citizens and the outside world that the Holocaust in which over 6 million Jews and 6 million other innocents were murdered during WWII never took place, this movie is bound to shock viewers.
According to the AP, the mini-series "Zero Degree Turn," follows the life of a fictional Iranian diplomat who helps Jews escape Nazi occupied Europe. It even shows Jews wearing yellow stars and being loaded onto trucks heading to death camps.
Now taken alone I can see how this show might be used to play up the distinction the government often makes between its hatred of Israel and its "respect" for Jews. But in the context of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s regular Holocaust denial, I’m a bit confused. Where are they going with this one? What do you think? There must be something the AP isn’t telling us here…
It is Iran’s version of "Schindler’s List," a miniseries that tells the tale of an Iranian diplomat in Paris who helps Jews escape the Holocaust — and viewers across the country are riveted.
That’s surprising enough in a country where hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has questioned whether the Holocaust even took place. What’s more surprising is that government media produced the series, and is airing it on state-run television.
The Holocaust is rarely mentioned in state media in Iran, school textbooks don’t discuss it and Iranians have little information about it.
Yet the series titled "Zero Degree Turn" is clearly sympathetic to the Jews’ plight during World War II. It shows men, women and children with yellow stars on their clothes being taken forcibly out of their homes and loaded into trucks by Nazi soldiers.
"Where are they taking them?" the horrified hero, a young Iranian diplomat who works at the Iranian Embassy in Paris, asks someone in a crowd of onlookers.
"The Fascists are taking the Jews to the concentration camps," the man says. The hero, named Habib Parsa, then begins giving Iranian passports to Jews to allow them to flee occupied France to then-Palestine.
source, image source Tags: dumb news, iran, holocaust denial, television, mini series, wwii, ahmadinejad
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1 opinion for Iran Makes Movie About Holocaust
Ian Thal
Sep 18, 2007 at 7:04 am
What it points out is that not everyone in Iran supports Ahmedinejad’s message of Holocaust denial and antisemitism. In fact, last year’s denial conference was widely criticized by Iranian reformers and academics.
Unlike its Arab neighbors, Iran still has a sizable Jewish population and the fact is that Iran really did help Jewish refugees during the Holocaust. This is not to say that there is no antisemitism in Iran– just that it is not as powerful a force as in some other nations.
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