"Zero Degree Turn" as Iranian TV Confronts Holocaust

The great irony of AhMADinejad's Holocaust "questioning" is, as this blog noted some time ago, Iran actually rescued hundreds of Polish Jews (mostly children) from the Holocaust and then helped them immigrate to Palestine. The rescue of the 1,000 or so "Children of Tehran," who were housed in camps outside Tehran, is unfortunately little remembered today.

Except now the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the hottest show on Iranian TV is a melodrama about an Iranian rescuing Jews during the Holocaust:

Every Monday night at 10 o'clock, Iranians by the millions tune into Channel One to watch the most expensive show ever aired on the Islamic republic's state-owned television. Its elaborate 1940s costumes and European locations are a far cry from the typical Iranian TV fare of scarf-clad women and gray-suited men.

But the most surprising thing about the wildly popular show is that it is a heart-wrenching tale of European Jews during World War II.

The hour-long drama, "Zero Degree Turn," centers on a love story between an Iranian-Palestinian Muslim man and a French Jewish woman. Over the course of the 22 episodes, the hero saves his love from Nazi detention camps, and Iranian diplomats in France forge passports for the woman and her family to sneak on to airplanes carrying Iranian Jews to their homeland...

[The show's producer] says he came up with the idea for "Zero Degree Turn" four years ago as he was reading books about World War II and stumbled across literature about charge d'affaires at the Iranian embassy in Paris. Abdol Hussein Sardari saved over a thousand European Jews by forging Iranian passports and claiming they belonged to an Iranian tribe...

"In this show, you notice that a new method of political dialogue is being promoted that is more in line with the modern world," says Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a reformist cleric and former Iranian vice president.

The message appears to be grabbing the public. Sara Khatibi, a 35-year-old mother and chemist in Tehran, says she and her husband never miss an episode. "All we ever hear about Jews is rants from the government about Israel," she says. "This is the first time we are seeing another side of the story and learning about their plight."

Read the whole story, as the show's message and political positioning is more complicated than the excerpt above. Also, check out a photo gallery from the show, which seems to include a large number of female characters inexplicably covering their hair in 1940s Europe.

Comments

[Ms .45]

"...which seems to include a large number of female characters inexplicably covering their hair in 1940s Europe."

Not much weirder than American shows in which women are inexplicably covering their breasts despite their culture never doing so.

Also, Shahab Hosseini is HOTT.

[Jack Spader]

This TV show is full of anti-Semitism. You should read this article that exposes the true anti-Semitic nature of this Iranian program:

http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/searchview.php?id=18343

[watch lost]

I loved the type ad commenting system very clean and very efficient.

Love to read more from you on the topic above

[Buy Viagra]

Hello friends
Very interesting stuff here. Keep up the good work.This information about Zero Degree Turn as Iranian TV Confronts Holocaust is very professional