It's January 27th, Holocaust Memorial Day.
My Black parents, a working class couple in South Central Los Angeles, made me aware of the Holocaust before I started middle school (which we used to call "junior high school"). There was a feature about it on television one night. Mom and Dad invited me to watch it along with them because they felt I needed to be aware of that history, history which should never again happen.
Earlier, in my elementary school years, Mom introduced me to the wonderfulness of Danny Kaye. The Broadway, film and TV star recorded albums for children. Mom bought me one of those albums. He read children's stories and played all the characters. I loved those records. My love for him increased when I discovered his old movies on TV. Fabulous musical comedies from the 1940s such as UP IN ARMS, WONDER MAN and THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY. From the 1950s, I saw his WHITE CHRISTMAS, HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN and THE COURT JESTER. As a kid growing up in the 1960s, one of my favorite TV shows was his weekly musical variety show on CBS, THE DANNY KAYE SHOW.
This ultimate showman was also very moving dramatically. He moved me and educated me with his final acting role. He played a Holocaust survivor in the CBS TV movie, SKOKIE. The 1981 production was based on a real life story, one I remember hearing about in the news. Neo-Nazis wanted to march through Skokie, a heavily Jewish suburb in Chicago. Danny Kaye was Jewish, In SKOKIE, Kaye starred as "Max Feldman," a concentration camp survivor. Also in the cast and also delivering a solid dramatic performance is Carl Reiner of THE DICK VAN DYKE sitcom. Reiner played "Abbot Rosen," a man who feels the community should ignore the Neo-Nazis by employing a quarantine.
Here's a promo CBS aired for 1981's SKOKIE.
I watched SKOKIE when it premiered on the network, It's a production that should be seen. It's rooted in history, When you watch it, think of the men carrying torches through Charlottesville, Virginia during the Trump administration in 2017.
You can watch Danny Kaye and Carl Reiner with Eli Wallach, Kim Hunter and Brian Dennehy in 1981's SKOKIE for Holocaust Memorial Day. It's now available on YouTube.
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