An opposition Iranian satellite channel based in London aired “Genocide,” the acclaimed Academy Award-winning documentary on the Holocaust produced by the Simon Wiesenthal Center. It was broadcast with Farsi subtitles on January 25.
The Wiesenthal Center coordinated the showing to coincide with International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27.
Welles, along with Elizabeth Taylor, narrated the film, which won the Oscar for best documentary feature in 1982.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has maintained the Holocaust – and the extermination of 6 million Jews at the hands of Nazis – never happened.
“It’s a payback for the Iranian regime,” center founder and dean Rabbi Marvin Hier told Fox News of the broadcast. “They want to lock society. They want to deny the Holocaust, and now their whole population can see the truth and there’s nothing the Ayatollahs or Ahmadinejad can do about it.”
Welles was the first Hollywood director to use footage from the Holocaust in a mainstream film, his post-World War II thriller “The Stranger.”
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