Family Endures Nazi Occupation in Reality Show

'Holiday in the Protectorate' raises eyebrows among critics
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted May 25, 2015 2:01 PM CDT
Reality Show Depicts Life Under Nazis
A screengrab from the show "Holiday in the Protectorate."   (www.ceskatelevize.cz)

Imagine channel-surfing one night and stumbling on a reality show about life in a crushing Nazi regime. Well, that show exists in the Czech Republic—and some people aren't too thrilled to see the Nazis turned into casual entertainment, the Guardian reports. Called Holiday in the Protectorate, the show follows three generations of a family trying to survive in a re-creation of the Nazi-ruled protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. They cope with paltry rations, German soldiers, Gestapo interrogations, blackmailers, and Allied bombing raids, but $40,000 awaits if they can last for two months, Variety reports. "When starting the project, we knew that it may provoke a discussion on how far such a genre may go," says director Zora Cejnkova.

Indeed: "Fortunately for the family, they will not be treated like the 82,309 Jews who lived in the Protectorate and were deported by the Nazis to concentration and death camps, or were killed by Czech collaborators," writes Renee Ghert-Zand in the Times of Israel. The Telegraph reports that a critic on an Internet forum quipped, "What are they going to do next? Big Brother Auschwitz?" Yet Cejnkova swears that the show—which hired historians and a psychologist for authenticity's sake—is a serious endeavor: "I tried to show that period with utter seriousness and with respect for its tragic character," he says. About 71,000 of the Protectorate's Jews were killed in the Holocaust. (Recently found: Hitler's long-lost bronze horses.)

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