Iranian TV series sympathetic to plight of Jews

Gaining understanding
State media have said the series, which began in April, is popular. It has been a revelation for some Iranians and has pulled them away from more popular satellite channels, which are banned but which many watch anyway on illegal dishes. The fare on state TV is usually dry.

"Once, I wept when I learned through the film what a dreadful destiny the small nation had during the world war in the heart of so-called civilized Europe," said Mahboubeh Rahamati, a Tehran bank teller.

Kazem Gharibi said he watches the series every Monday on a TV in his grocery store.

"Through this film, I understood that Jews had a hard time in the war — helpless and desperate, as we were when Iraq imposed war on us," he said, referring to the eight-year Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

The series began with a love story between Habib, the embassy employee, and a French Jew, Sara Stroke, in the early 1940s. Viewers say the love story pulls them in as much as the history.

After Paris is occupied by the Nazis, Habib decides to forge Iranian passports for many French Jews to save them from the Holocaust — starting with Sara and her family. The German government accepts his embassy's claim that the passport holders are from an Iranian tribe and lets them leave France.

Habib is imprisoned by the Nazis for espionage after his forgeries are discovered. He then is released and returns to Tehran, where he is jailed again for forging passports.

Eight episodes remain in the series, and viewers drawn by the love story are on edge as they await the finish.

"I have watched the series from the beginning," said Sedigheh Karandish, a housewife and mother of two. "It's pulling me in to see what these two people do at the end. Hopefully, it will be a happy ending."

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