Holocaust
The Saving Remnant
TV Flash files “The Saving Remnant” as a desk essential hour — Holocaust (1978) on NBC, season 1, episode 4, aired 1978-04-19, 140 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S01E04: listed hour 4 of 5 in the Holocaust guide, hour 4 of 5 in season 1. It aired 1978-04-19 (140 min). The listed hour before it is “The Final Solution” (S01E03). Next is “The Liberation” (S01E05).
Essential hour: “The Saving Remnant”. The Saving Remnant is the survival-language hour. Four-night structure still the point: messy, massive, the miniseries as a national argument rather than a quiet documentary slot.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Erik Dorf complains to the other S.S. leaders that the executions of the Jews are not being efficiently done. An order is placed by Erik for Zyklon B (a lethal gas) for use at Auschwitz and other camps. Inga asks Muller to denounce her and have her sent to Karl at Theresienstadt. Felscher sells four of the secret drawings done by him, Frey and Karl, which depict the brutal conditions at Theresienstadt, to a Czech gendarme, which the S.S. get a hold of. Felscher, Frey and Karl are called in for questioning and then tortured, where Karl is the only one who survives and is told he is being sent to Auschwitz. He sees Inga one last time, where she tells him she is carrying his child. Karl dies the day Auschwitz is liberated. In Warsaw, Josef is caught for setting up the clinic to act as a front to keep people from getting on the train headed to Treblinka, and him and Berta with Mr. and Mrs. Lowy are sent to Auschwitz, where soon after they are sent to the gas chambers. Moses joins the resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto and they are successful in holding back 7,000 German soldiers over a three-week period, until they are forced out via a gas bomb and are shot. In the Ukraine, Uncle Sasha's unit attempts to shoot up a convoy, but Helena is shot and killed and Rudi is knocked unconscious. Rudi wakes up in the Sobibor camp, where he learns of a breakout being planned by the other prisoners and joins with them. He survives to the end of the war and is reunited with Inga in Theresienstadt, where he learns that Inga has given birth to a son, who is two years old named Josef, after Karl's father. Rudi is asked to lead a group of Greek orphans into Palestine. Erik Dorf is placed in custody by the Americans and after a brief questioning commits suicide via a cyanide pill hidden in the hem of his pants. Uncle Kurt Dorf visits Marta, Peter and Laura Dorf and tells them what really happened to Erik, despite an unsigned letter Marta is reading commending Erik's service to the Reich. He then tells them what Erik and the other SS men really were - mechanical killers. In response, Marta tells Uncle Kurt they never want to see him again. Uncle Kurt says he will not be silent about the truth.
Viewer FAQ
Where does The Saving Remnant sit in the Holocaust guide?
S01E04 is listed hour 4 of 5 — hour 4 of 5 in season 1, season 1 episode 4.
When did Holocaust S01E04 air?
The Saving Remnant aired 1978-04-19 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…