BackTrekking returns again to look back at the real-world inspirations of classic Trek episodes!
The 20th century has been the host to an unbelievable number of genocides, across the continents of Africa, Europe, Asia, and South America and if you consider the last 50 years of the 19th century, too, you add some impressive work from North America and Australia, as well. Antarctica, thankfully, lags far behind in mass deaths. It’s foolish to believe that genocide is a modern invention, though modern weapons have certainly made it a more efficient process. But, the spread of telecommunications, journalism, and mass media has certainly made every genocide and act of atrocity more visible and more haunting. The horrors of the Holocaust stand out as almost medieval and are even more shocking when you consider that you can still email people who were victims of it. Immediately after the fall of Fortress Europe and the end of World War II, the effort began to bring the perpetrators of the Holocaust to justice, but that effort quickly became somewhat ambiguous. Many who were put on trial claimed to be “just following orders”, German citizens claimed to have no knowledge of the death camps, and the Allied authorities were more concerned with the looming Soviet menace than disrupting the lives of the Germans they would rely on to hold the line against communist encroachment.
That’s where “Judgment at Nuremberg” begins. It’s 1948 and the trials which were meant to bring truth and reconciliation to the German people and the world are quickly becoming a political liability. Former circuit judge Dan Haywood arrives from Maine ready to impartially dispense justice on war criminals, but he soon finds himself navigating a morass of resentful Germans and fearful witnesses. The opposite is true of 1975’s “The Man in the Glass Booth”, in which Mossad agents kidnap a wealthy American immigrant who was secretly Col. Adolf Dorff, the SS master of a notorious death camp during the war. He is brought to Jerusalem to stand trial, ala Eichmann, for his crimes against the Jewish people. Only trouble is, gee whiz, Dorff may actually be Arthur Goldman, a Jew and a Holocaust survivor who has taken his effort to combat Holocaust denial to the nth degree. Star Trek, which has never met a historical event it couldn’t allegorize, throws its own hat in the ring with “Duet”, a DS9 episode that features Aamin Marritza, a Cardassian impersonating *another* Cardassian, Gul Darhe’el, who was the commandant of the notoriously deadly Gallitep work camp. His purpose in doing so is presumably to call attention to the Bajoran massacre at the end of the Occupation, an event that unlike our real-world Holocaust has no concentration camp footage, no somber documentaries detailing the loss of life. It’s an event that is easily dismissed by many Cardassians and Marritza is willing to cast himself in the role of the villain in order to see his people’s crimes revealed.
On this episode, we discuss the complicated emotions present in these works, the multi-generational cast of prodigies that lent their talents to "Nuremberg", the open-ended mystery of the unhinged "Booth", the superlative work of Harris Yulin and Nana Visitor in "Duet", and how each reflects the unique views on the Holocaust from the eras in which they were made. We also discuss Young Sheldon books, judges judging judges, classic and modern acting styles, wacky '70s plays, bleeding feet symbolism, hanging with JC, boiling frogs, a lot of corona talk, empty wrestling arenas, dying over Bloodshot, gritty '80s punk Cardassians, stabby drunks, and our tech exchange takes a turn for the depressing!
We're not recording in our usual places due to quarantining, so the sound isn't perfect. Enjoy anyway!
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