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Another take on the Anne Frank story in ‘A Small Light’

Which TV shows dominate the conversation, capture the zeitgeist, have something interesting to say, or are hidden gems waiting to be discovered or rediscovered? We look forward to your weekend watch. And be warned, there are spoilers ahead.

In a time of crisis, what causes some people to fall into depravity and others into decency?

It’s a question that came to my mind while watching “A Small Light,” a National Geographic/Disney Plus drama that looks at the story of Anne Frank and her family from the perspective of the woman who helped them hide from evil for two years. the Nazis in Amsterdam.

The main character is Miep Gies, the Austrian-born Dutch woman who, along with other associates of Otto Frank, helped hide Anne’s father, his family and four other Jewish people during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands in World War II.

Obviously, we know that the story does not have a happy ending. In August 1944, less than a year before the Allies liberated the Netherlands, the Gestapo raided the annex above Otto’s office and sent the residents to concentration camps. Of the eight, including Otto, Anne, her sister Margot and mother Edith, their friends Hermann, Auguste and Peter van Pels, and dentist Fritz Pfeffer, only Otto survived.

But “A Small Light” is less of a stark watch than a poignant one.

Nazi violence is usually alluded to rather than shown. And amidst the danger and sadness, the show also portrays laughter and love.

Miep, played by English actor Bel Powley, is a lively chatterbox, a sometimes frivolous young woman who loves to joke and dance.

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But when her boss and friend Otto, played by American actor Liev Schreiber, asks her to help his family go into hiding, she says yes without hesitation. As the series progresses, the risks and strains of the venture become increasingly apparent, not only for the Franks and their friends, but also for Miep, husband Jan (English actor Joe Cole) and her colleagues at the Opekta offices.

Some of that toll is expressed in small but recognizable ways: Mrs. Frank’s desire for some butter; Mrs van Pels wistfully wonders when she will be allowed to wear a beloved piece of clothing again.

Yes, the Nazis could break open the door to the secret annex at any moment, but it’s the small, tangible things that occupy the minds of those in hiding. Miep and Jan, meanwhile, must deal with the increasingly difficult logistics of feeding their eight “friends” and helping other Jews evade the Nazis, and the toll their relationship takes.

Miep’s bond forms the core of the series: with Jan, with Otto and with Anne, who is played by the British-French actor Billie Boulet as a whip-smart, irrepressible young girl.

When Miep gives the maturing Anne an old dress of hers and an impractical but beautiful pair of red shoes, it is a beautiful expression of Miep’s dedication to her duties, but also heartbreaking because we know that Anne will never wear the clothes outside the Secret Annex.

History, it seems to me, is often more easily consumed when it is distilled down to its little picture elements. Hearing that six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust can seem overwhelming, almost impersonal. Visualizing the people behind that number can feel like a gut feeling.

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The tragedy does feel personal in ‘A Small Light’, but so does the beauty of the human connections.

I don’t know what makes some people rush to help in a crisis, while others, like the Nazi sympathizers in the series, ignore or take advantage of suffering.

But Miep, who lived to be 100 and remained close to Otto Frank until his death, helped him publish his daughter’s famous Diary of a Young Girl.

As she put it, “Even an ordinary secretary or a housewife or a teenager can turn on a little light in a dark room in their own little ways.”

“A Small Light” is streaming on Disney Plus.

A chilling documentary series

There is a scene in “A Small Light” where Otto Frank mentions that he has applied for a visa to move his family to the United States and is denied it. It reminded me of the docuseries “The US and the Holocaust,” which explores that country’s failure to help more than a fraction of the Jewish refugees who tried to escape Hitler during World War II.

The three-part series, from Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, and Sarah Botstein, debuted on PBS in September 2022 and was picked up by CBC Gem in January.

It is a typically exhaustive piece of work by those producers that lays out not only the consequences of American inaction, but also the context of those decisions, not just in the US but elsewhere, including the rise of the discredited theory of eugenics; anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiment in the wake of the Great War and Great Depression; and the rise of Hitler in Germany.

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It is chilling to see how the political climate of the 1930s reflects the anti-immigrant sentiment, anti-Semitism and racial intolerance that are on the rise today.

And Canadians have no reason to be complacent. According to the Canadian Encyclopediabetween 1933 and 1947, this country took in fewer Jewish refugees than any other Western country, only 5,000.

“The US and the Holocaust” is streaming on CBC Avg.

Debra Yeo is an editor and writer for the Star’s Culture section. She is based in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @realityeo

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