Holocaust
The Final Solution
TV Flash files “The Final Solution” as a desk essential hour — Holocaust (1978) on NBC, season 1, episode 3, aired 1978-04-18, 140 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S01E03: listed hour 3 of 5 in the Holocaust guide, hour 3 of 5 in season 1. It aired 1978-04-18 (140 min). The listed hour before it is “The Road to Babi-Yar” (S01E02). Next is “The Saving Remnant” (S01E04).
Essential hour: “The Final Solution”. The Final Solution is the third-night title saying the policy aloud. Civic education as appointment drama: the German broadcast fight still ahead, the American living room already enlisted.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
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.
Viewer FAQ
Where does The Final Solution sit in the Holocaust guide?
S01E03 is listed hour 3 of 5 — hour 3 of 5 in season 1, season 1 episode 3.
When did Holocaust S01E03 air?
The Final Solution aired 1978-04-18 and is listed at 140 minutes.
Is this a documentary?
No. It is a 1978 NBC miniseries: interwoven fictional families inside historical machinery. Melodrama as civic education, not a newsreel.
In the series
Why this series still plays
NBC puts the Shoah in American living rooms as a four-night event, with Meryl Streep among the early heat and a German broadcast fight that followed. Melodrama as civic education, messy and massive. The miniseries that forced a national conversation networks usually ducked, commercials and all.
Calendar first: four nights, 1978, NBC, the Shoah in American living rooms as an appointment, commercials included. Holocaust, from Gerald Green, did not hide in a documentary slot. It booked the week. Interwoven families — Jewish victims and a rising SS officer — trace the machinery of Nazi genocide across the war years with Meryl Streep's Inga, James Woods's Karl Weiss, Michael Moriarty's Erik Dorf, Fritz Weaver, and Rosemary Harris. **Watched by tens of millions in the U.S.**, with major European impact and…
Filed against
- Meryl Streep as Inga Helms Weiss
Meryl Streep’s Inga Helms Weiss walked NBC’s Holocaust into American living rooms as a four-night event — 1970s miniseries as civic education, messy and massive, a German broadcast fight in the aftertaste. Melodrama that forced a…
- James Woods as Karl Weiss
James Woods’s Karl Weiss put NBC’s Holocaust into American living rooms as a four-night event — Shoah as 1970s miniseries civic education, melodrama massive enough to force a conversation networks usually ducked. Messy, watched, argued.…
- Michael Moriarty as Erik Dorf
Michael Moriarty’s Erik Dorf walked NBC’s Holocaust as the other half of a four-night civic dare — 1970s miniseries that put the Shoah in American living rooms, melodrama as education, a German broadcast fight in the aftertaste. TV Flash…
- Fritz Weaver as Dr. Josef Weiss
Fritz Weaver played Dr. Josef Weiss on Holocaust — NBC's four-night Shoah in American living rooms, melodrama as civic education, messy and massive, a German broadcast fight that followed. The miniseries that forced a conversation…
- Rosemary Harris as Berta Palitz Weiss
Rosemary Harris's Berta Palitz Weiss carried Holocaust into American living rooms as a four-night NBC event — Shoah as civic education, melodrama messy and massive, Meryl Streep among the early heat, a German broadcast fight that…