Ken Burns: ‘We are forgetting every aspect of our history, and that includes the Holocaust’
As one of America’s most renowned story tellers who has made a name chronicling this nation’s past, the good, great, the bad and the truly terrible, Ken Burns does not buy one accepted truth about the history.
“History has never repeated itself,” Burns said in a recent phone interview with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
It is a line that scholars, preachers and men and women alike have spouted for years, but Burns rejects the often repeated phrase with the hesitation of lightning.
“There may be similarities, but history never repeats itself,” he said. “Mark Twain supposedly said, ‘History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes.’ Maybe.
“If you go to Ecclesiastes, which is the old testament of the Bible, it says, ‘What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.’ So Mark Twain and Ecclesiastes are having a good conversation. Human nature doesn’t change. We see rhymes, and hear themes and motifs that perpetually happen. It’s difficult to say anything other than you study the past to know where you are.”
Burns will be in Texas this week where he will be honored by the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum. He will participate in a moderated Q&A on Thursday evening at its Hope for Humanity event in the Omni hotel in downtown Dallas.
He spoke to the Star-Telegram about why this award is special, his life’s craft, and why we are forgetting the Holocaust.
Star-Telegram: Your films often include unsettling images and clips. The types of clips that are now readily available on our phones 24/7; are people numb to them now and no longer react to ‘horror?’
Ken Burns: People react to a good story. There has always been hand wringing about the upcoming generations about this sort of thing. I was told no one would watch ‘The Civil War.’ I know people react to distractions, like a cat batting a ball of yarn. That’s human nature.
But there is a power to story telling. Most of the exposure to story telling is fiction, but I have been trying to say the same laws about story telling that applies to Shakespeare apply to me, I just can’t make it up. I think you can get people’s attention with a good story without bludgeoning people with facts.
S-T: You have received numerous awards for your work, but this is a humanitarian distinction for your 2022 film, ‘2022 film, The U.S. and the Holocaust.’ Does that make it any more meaningful?
KB: This is particularly special and I am deeply honored to receive it because it affirms there is a role in story telling in illuminating the complex human dramas we are engaged in. What could be more complex and difficult than the Holocaust?
If I made a film today about Americans reacting to immigration and allowing non-citizens into this country by the millions, you might say I am making a film about the Tea Party in 2011. All of this same stuff was all true during Prohibition. It was true. It’s these things that are consistent with human behavior.
The only time I refuse to do this is with the Holocaust. It’s important to honor the lives of those people, the singularity of that event to tell a complex story, that it doesn’t exist in vacuum.
S-T: Considering the black and white nature of the Holocaust, where six million people were murdered because they were Jewish, explain how you mean ‘complex?’
KB: This should resonate with all humans. I am not Jewish. The black and white is pretty obvious; there is an obvious evil here. There is right and wrong. Nature is not that binary but we end up with complexities.
One of the questions we wanted to address in that film is what did Americans know and when, and what should we have done? We can all agree the Holocaust is evil. The thing is not just the event itself it’s how we tell ourselves of what we think took place. As generations pass it’s more subject to denial, interpretation and re-interpretation.
I remember making (his film), ‘The War,’ and in it is a part about the Holocaust. And people came after (former President) Franklin Roosevelt. I wanted to know. There were Americans who wanted to find that FDR was the villain, and it’s just not there. The nuances to this are really important.
S-T: Scholars and survivors alike have expressed concerns that we are forgetting the Holocaust. Do you agree?
KB: We are forgetting every aspect of our history, and that includes the Holocaust. We haven’t forgotten it but it’s been manipulated so much. The Holocaust is very much on our minds, but what we forget to ask the basic questions of what actually happened? What is the basis of antisemitism?
It’s complicated. In my editing room at my house, I have a neon sign in cursive that says, ‘It’s Complicated.’
I gave the commencement address at Brandeis University in May when, at the time, the campus was in turmoil (because of the conflict between Israel and Palestine). I said, ‘Three great religions, their believers, all children of Abraham, each professing at the heart of their teaching, a respect for all human life, each with a central connection to and legitimate claim to the same holy ground, violate their own dictates of conduct and make this perpetually contested land a shameful graveyard. God does not distinguish between the dead. ‘Could you?’
I don’t want to explain it because explaining it is to argue about it. There is no argument about this. Tens of thousands of people have died, and that is a tragedy.
S-T: Thanks for your time, congratulations on your award and we look forward to your next project.
KB: Thanks so much. I enjoyed the conversation.
This story was originally published December 3, 2024 at 2:34 PM.
