Holocaust (TV Mini Series)

Part 4: 1944-1945 (1978)

Robert Stephens: Uncle Kurt Dorf

Quotes 

• Erik Dorf : What we do we do out of necessity.

  Uncle Kurt Dorf : Stop it! Save those lies for the Jews you've been murdering. Lying to them up until the last moment. Why do you have to strip them naked? Can't you at least in the name of God let them die with some dignity? I've seen your SS louts grinning at the naked women.

  Erik Dorf : They are criminals and enemies and they are sent to the processing plant naked for sanitary reasons.

  Uncle Kurt Dorf : Jews in the Warsaw ghetto are fighting back. Think of that. Those despised unarmed people in Warsaw, defying the master race. It almost restores one's faith in Divine Providence.

  Erik Dorf : I'm told you're using several hundred Jews as laborers when there are Russians and Poles available.

  Uncle Kurt Dorf : What of it?

  Erik Dorf : You're not supposed to. Jews are marked for special handling. We'll send you a Red Army detail - strong backs, dull brains.

  Uncle Kurt Dorf : No!

  Erik Dorf : Do you curry favor with enemies of the Reich? The children of those Jewish laborers will rise to destroy Germany.

  Uncle Kurt Dorf : I should strangle you as a favor to your father! How many dead will satisfy you? A million? Two million?

  Erik Dorf : We must keep on killing them, don't you see? If we stop, it's an admission of guilt. But if we go on, we prove to the world that we had total dedication to our mission. That what we did were moral and historical necessities. Try to understand that.

  Uncle Kurt Dorf : I understand too well. Now get out of here!

• [last lines] 

  Marta Dorf : [reading the notification of Erik's death]  Be assured, dear Frau Dorf, that your husband, Major Erik Dorf, died a hero in the service of the Reich. We who are his comrades will honor his memory and keep alive the great tradition he personified. It's unsigned.

  Uncle Kurt Dorf : It is also untrue.

  Marta Dorf : Untrue?

  Uncle Kurt Dorf : Marta, Erik took his own life. The Americans had him in custody as a war criminal. In all likelihood he would have been executed or given a long term in prison.

  Marta Dorf : You're lying! You always hated Erik.

  Uncle Kurt Dorf : No, not always. And I can no longer hate him. I was too involved in his dreadful business myself to pass judgment.

  Peter Dorf - teen : You get out of here! My father was a hero!

  Uncle Kurt Dorf : Peter, you must face the truth. You and your mother and Laura...

  Peter Dorf - teen : Shut up!

  Uncle Kurt Dorf : Your father was a murderer. He and his colleagues, those strutting men in black uniforms were mechanical killers. Oh, a heroic career - the shooting and gassing and torture of innocents.

  Peter Dorf - teen : Mom, make him stop!

  Marta Dorf : Kurt! Leave us! We never want to see you again. How dare you defame Erik's name! You should be praying for his soul.

  Uncle Kurt Dorf : Somebody else will have to furnish those prayers. I watched and did nothing, and believed the lies. We've got to face up to what we are and what we've done. I won't be silent. Goodbye, Marta. Goodbye, children.

  [Kurt leaves] 

  Marta Dorf : Children, we must light a candle to your father.