Disney Presents Humanity During the Holocaust

“Maybe human beings are nicer than they think they are,” reflects Sam Waterston. “The really horrible things that people do are always reported, but good news doesn’t travel quite so fast.”

In the case of the amazing accomplishments of the Danes during World War II, it has taken more than 50 years for the story to be told.

“Miracle at Midnight,” a “Wonderful World of Disney” drama on Sunday starring Waterston, chronicles how the people of Denmark bravely banded together in 1943 to save their country’s Jewish population from extinction by the Nazis.

When word spread that the Nazis were rounding up the Jews within 48 hours, the Danes risked their own lives not only to hide their Jewish friends but also to smuggle them out of the country in fishing boats to safety in Sweden.

“The stakes were high for everybody,” says Waterston, the star of NBC’s “Law & Order” who here plays the selfless Dr. Karl Koster, one of the organizers of the rescue effort. “Though there was a place for Jews to be sent [eventually], there wasn’t when they began the thing. [The rescue] began not as, ‘Let’s spirit all of these people away to Sweden.’ It began as ‘You can’t take them.’ They went about figuring the rest [later]. That is another wonderful thing about it. The response was spontaneous and national. Nobody knew where it would end when they started it. To me it’s fantastically courageous.”

And, Waterston adds, “It stands in vivid contrast to the sort of ‘Godfather’ morality, where you do what you have to do in the wide world to aggressively advance your own interests and then you are a nice family man [at home].”

Shot last summer in Ireland, “Miracle at Midnight” also stars Mia Farrow as Koster’s wife, Justin Whalin (“The New Adventures of Lois & Clark”) as their teenage son, who also is involved in the resistance, and Nicola Mycroft as their young daughter.

Waterston finds the film well-balanced between the stories of the adults and the young people--therefore relevant to the “Wonderful World of Disney’s” family audience. “The issues that the young face are very fascinating and absorbing,” he explains. “If I was 10, 12, 16 or 18, what would I do under under this pressure?”

Executive producer John Davis, who is Jewish, had never heard of this chapter in Holocaust history until he learned about the rescue from his Danish father-in-law, who was a teenager during the Nazi occupation.

“It seemed to me that most of the Holocaust stories focus on the really horrendous things that happened, but there were sparks of humanity that also came out during this time,” he says.

The Danes’ actions “illuminated the potential greatness of the human race at the same time we were seeing the worst of it,” the producer observes. “The Danes are so unrecognized. They saved 96% of the Jews--virtually every single Jew in the country.”

Davis explains the reaction in Denmark to people putting nationalism ahead of religion: These were fellow Danes under attack. “The King wore the yellow arm band when [the Nazis] said all Jews were going to have to wear the arm band to distinguish themselves. I think they saw them as their brothers. What a great ideal!”

And when the Jews came back after the war, they discovered their businesses had been taken care of, their lawns mowed, their pets tended. “They truly did love their neighbors,” Davis explains.

The producer says it took a decade for “Miracle at Midnight” to make it to TV. “It’s not necessarily what you would call a high-concept network idea,” he says. “I think the movie succeeds because it’s about very intimate things--people as they react to this tremendous crisis. The Danes really acted extraordinarily.”

Rabbi David Baron of Los Angeles’ Temple Shalom for the Arts, co-chair of the Committee for Celebrating Righteous Deeds and Human Decency, says the Danes have kept their heroic achievements close to the vest. “They don’t boast,” he says. “It’s kind of a Scandinavian tradition.”

Denmark, says Baron, is the sole example of a country that made a national commitment to rescue Jews during World War II. “We have an example of Oskar Schindler. We have an example of a village in France [that hid its Jewish population]. But we have never had an example of an entire nation collectively organizing at risk to rescue a population.”

Other European nations, the rabbi says, “not only had a poor record of rescuing and saving Jews but, in some cases, some of the countrymen of those nations were actively involved in ferreting out Jews and turning them over to the Nazis.” That’s why this “was a remarkable example of heroism on a national level.”

Baron believes “Miracle at Midnight” is an antidote for young people who only hear in the media about “acts of brutality, drive-by shootings, random anger killings, road rage. They are not seeing examples of genuine heroism where people risk to save others.”

He acknowledges that some people feel there have been enough movies made already about the Holocaust, but doesn’t agree. The event, he says, carries an “important international message that needs to be conveyed. Horrible acts of genocide can occur in each generation unless we teach the story of the Holocaust. To me, one of the best ways to teach it is to show resistance to the Holocaust and acts of heroism.”

“Miracle at Midnight” airs on “The Wonderful World of Disney,” Sunday at 7 p.m. on ABC.