s director of the Netflix series Hitler and the Nazis: Evil 
on Trial, Joe Berlinger is preparing to take information 
about the six-part film to educational programs around 
the country.
The series, which uses colorized archival footage along with 
reenacted scenes and scholarly commentary, delves into the trau-
matic history about what happened before, during and after the 
Holocaust. 
There are scenes from the horrific acts, words of American 
journalist William Shirer as he witnessed the atrocities, mammoth 
crowds listening to Hitler and a search for some kind of justice 
through the Nuremberg Trials.

The series is available with no closing date through Netflix access.
“I felt the need to give a history lesson, particularly to the 
younger generation because their millennial knowledge about the 
Holocaust is unfortunately not great,
” said Berlinger about the ori-
gins of the film.
“This whole thing started because I saw a study from the 
Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. There 
was a very recent study about millennial awareness, and two-thirds 
of millennials didn’t know what Auschwitz was. 
“Fifty percent of them couldn’t name a single concentration camp 
with some 40,000 concentration camps once in existence. One in 10 
millennials thought that Jews started the Holocaust.
”

Netflix documentary aims to educate young people about the horrors of the Holocaust.

SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

50 | JULY 25 • 2024 
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