The miniseries
War and Remembrance is one that I watch occasionally. It focuses on the stories involving a fictional family during WW2, led by Pug Henry (Robert Mitchum), who plays a naval officer and has two sons in the navy. One of the sons marries a Jewish girl he met in Europe before the war, and she was with her uncle who had a villa in Italy. A major part of the plot involves focusing on the plight of the uncle and his niece, who were (at first) vacillating about leaving, since they didn't think there was that much danger. As the war raged on, they finally had to escape to Elba, then Corsica, then Marseilles (part of Vichy France at the time). But then they were caught by the Germans and sent to Theresienstadt, then Auschwitz.
It also focused on the Pacific War quite a bit, with a major part on Midway and some submarine battles.
Some quotes from the novel:
“Extremism, he says, is the universal tuberculosis of modern society: a world infection of resentment and hatred generated by rapid change and the breakdown of old values. In the stabler nations the tubercles are sealed off in scar tissue, and these are the harmless lunatic movements. In times of social disorder, depression, war, or revolution, the germs can break forth and infect the nation. This has happened in Germany. It could happen anywhere, even in the United States.”
― Herman Wouk, War and Remembrance
“... God knows I pity the Dresden women and children whose charred bodies are propped up in Goebell's propaganda photographs , but nobody made the Germans follow Hitler . He wasn't a legitimate ruler . He was a man with a mouth , and they liked what he said . They got behind him and they let loose a firestorm that's sucking all the decent instincts out of human society . My peerless son died fighting it . It made savages of all of us . Hitler gloried in savagery , he proclaimed it as his battle cry , and the Germans shouted Sieg Heill ! They still go on laying down their misguided lives for him , and the lives of their unfortunate families . I wish them joy of their Fuhrer while he lasts .”
― Herman Wouk, War and Remembrance
