Anne Frank Television Program

On the late-February night before the ABC miniseries on the life of Anne Frank was to in shooting scenes of her family's leaving Holland and arriving in Auschwitz, it snowed in Prague. The city awoke to 8 inches of white draping every tree and soot-blackened Baroque statue. It was beautiful.

Television dramatizes history mostly in isolation. No context, driftwood in a vast ocean. So viewers have an unusual opportunity this weekend, if a painful one. Saturday brings HBO's "Conspiracy," an uncomfortably real, brilliantly understated reprise of the Jan. 20, 1942, gathering at which arch criminals Reinhard Heydrich, Adolf Eichmann and 13 other important Nazis coldly addressed the problem of "the Jew."

Television dramatizes history mostly in isolation. No context, driftwood in a vast ocean. So viewers have an unusual opportunity this weekend, if a painful one. Saturday brings HBO's "Conspiracy," an uncomfortably real, brilliantly understated reprise of the Jan. 20, 1942, gathering at which arch criminals Reinhard Heydrich, Adolf Eichmann and 13 other important Nazis coldly addressed the problem of "the Jew."

Ben Kingsley wasn't inclined to do another Holocaust-related movie when he was approached about playing the part of Anne Frank's father, Otto, in ABC's two-part miniseries "Anne Frank." After "Schindler's List" and "Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story," another one, he said, seemed "simply much too painful." But he was eventually convinced, he said, after realizing that the ABC production treated its subject matter with "extreme maturity, honesty and passion."

Just one week before ABC airs its four-hour movie on the life of Anne Frank, the network appears close to resolving its dispute with the young girl's last living direct relative, who had voiced strong opposition to the film. ABC executives and Buddy Elias, Frank's cousin and the chairman of the Basle, Switzerland-based Anne Frank-Fonds, met in Paris Friday for a screening of the film, which airs May 20 and 21 and is called simply "Anne Frank."

Ben Kingsley wasn't inclined to do another Holocaust-related movie when he was approached about playing the part of Anne Frank's father, Otto, in ABC's two-part miniseries "Anne Frank." After "Schindler's List" and "Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story," another one, he said, seemed "simply much too painful." But he was eventually convinced, he said, after realizing that the ABC production treated its subject matter with "extreme maturity, honesty and passion."

Just one week before ABC airs its four-hour movie on the life of Anne Frank, the network appears close to resolving its dispute with the young girl's last living direct relative, who had voiced strong opposition to the film. ABC executives and Buddy Elias, Frank's cousin and the chairman of the Basle, Switzerland-based Anne Frank-Fonds, met in Paris Friday for a screening of the film, which airs May 20 and 21 and is called simply "Anne Frank."

On the late-February night before the ABC miniseries on the life of Anne Frank was to in shooting scenes of her family's leaving Holland and arriving in Auschwitz, it snowed in Prague. The city awoke to 8 inches of white draping every tree and soot-blackened Baroque statue. It was beautiful.