Delving into horror

In the first of the panel discussions that conclude each of the six episodes of the PBS documentary series, “Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State,” host Linda Ellerbee asks her guests about “Holocaust fatigue.”

After “Shoah,” “Schindler’s List” and countless books and documentaries on the subject, are people simply worn down by it?

The two panelists, Michael Berenbaum, professor of theology at the University of Judaism, and author Melvin Jules Bukiet, whose parents were Holocaust survivors, agree that it is a grueling topic. Berenbaum believes that the Holocaust has become the “negative absolute,” the standard example of evil incarnate, and because it lacks the cathartic quality of tragedy it therefore places a “heavy burden on civilization.”

Bukiet agrees that the Holocaust is “endlessly fascinating, because it does embody the extremes of human behavior,” but also “endlessly exhausting, because it provides no reward whatsoever.”

He then raises the central problem presented by a documentary like “Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State”: the tendency “to try and impute some lesson to it. I find that incredibly dangerous. The second you find a lesson, you are moving one inch toward finding a silver lining, toward actually justifying it. And that seems as repugnant as the experience itself.”

“It may have nothing to teach us,” adds Berenbaum, “and it may have everything to teach us at the very same time.”

Whether you tune in to “Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State” to learn or in simple recognition of the gruesomely familiar events, you will likely come away with new knowledge of one of the most studied episodes in human history. Despite the utter bleakness of it subject, the series, which provides a methodical analysis of the evolution of Germany’s systematic effort to wipe out European Jews during World War II, is undeniably absorbing.

Writer-producer Laurence Rees uses archival footage, interviews and dramatic re-creations based on documents discovered since the fall of the Soviet Union to chronicle the horrific escalation of the planning and implementation of the mass murder of more than 1 million people at Auschwitz -- a number that exceeded the combined military losses of the U.S. and Britain in the course of the entire war.

Rees follows Auschwitz’s origins as a camp for Polish political prisoners and later Soviet prisoners of war through to its becoming an extermination site. Narrated by Linda Hunt, the series also reaches beyond Auschwitz to tell the broader story of how various events during the war led the Nazis to progressively more grotesque solutions to the “Jewish problem.”

The brief epilogues moderated by Ellerbee give the series its context and relevancy. The discussions bring together academics to discuss their specialties. They address not only the importance of studying the Holocaust, but also larger subjects such as the origins of genocide.

As we near the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and fewer survivors with memories of the war are still alive, new questions are taking shape. The storm last week surrounding Britain’s Prince Harry’s wearing of an armband with a swastika on it to a costume party has brought attention to the fact that, although older people may debate “Holocaust fatigue,” an alarming number of people under 30 know very little about the Holocaust. “Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State” is meant to address this, and the show’s producers have put together an extensive website (www.pbs.org/auschwitz/) that includes auxiliary materials, teaching guides and other learning resources.

The debate over whether there is anything of value to be gleaned from trying to understand the Nazis is a powerful one, but one benefit of a show like this is that it arrests our attention and thus accomplishes the one thing the experts all come back to: It keeps us from forgetting.

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‘Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State’

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Where: KCET

When: 9 p.m.

Ratings: TV-PG L, V (may be unsuitable for young children with an advisory for language and violence)

Linda Hunt...Narrator

Producer and writer, Laurence Rees