Iranian TV series follows fate of Jews in World War II

It is Iran’s version of Schindler’s List, a miniseries telling the tale of an Iranian diplomat in Paris who helps Jews escape the Holocaust...

It is Iran’s version of Schindler’s List, a miniseries telling the tale of an Iranian diplomat in Paris who helps Jews escape the Holocaust — and people around the country are riveted, tuning in every week to catch the latest episode.

That’s surprising enough in a country where hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has questioned whether the Holocaust even took place. What’s even more surprising is that government media produced

the series, and is airing it on state-run television.

Even without Ahmadinejad’s past comments, the series would be a surprise. The Holocaust is rarely mentioned in state media in Iran, school textbooks don’t discuss it and Iranians have little information about it.

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Yet the series, titled Zero Degree Turn, is clearly sympathetic to the Jews’ plight during World War II. Scenes show men, women and children with yellow stars on their clothes being taken forcibly out of their homes and loaded into trucks by Nazi soldiers.

“Where are they taking them?” the horrified hero, a young Iranian diplomat who works at the Iranian Embassy in Paris, asks someone in a crowd of onlookers.

“The Fascists are taking the Jews to the concentration camps,” the man says. The hero, named Habib Parsa, then begins giving Iranian passports to Jews to allow them to flee occupied France to then-Palestine — a fictionalised version of a true story.

The series could not have aired without being condoned by Iran’s clerical leadership. The state broadcaster is under the control of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khomenei, who has final say in all matters inside Iran.

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The government even allowed the series to break another taboo in Iran: For the first time, many actresses appear without the state-mandated Islamic dress code. The producers wanted to realistically portray 1940s Paris, and thus avoided the headscarves and head-to-foot robes that all women must normally wear on Iranian TV.

The show’s appearance now may reflect an attempt by Iran’s leadership to moderate its image as anti-Semitic and to underline a distinction that Iranian officials often make — that their conflict is with Israel, not with the Jewish people.

Ahmadinejad sparked widespread outrage in 2005 when he made comments casting doubt on the Holocaust and saying the state of Israel should be “wiped from the map.” His government organised a conference of Holocaust deniers and skeptics from around the world in December.