Tweet

Taken from the word for ‘annihilation’, ‘Shoah’ is the term in Hebrew used to refer to the Holocaust. In 1985, professor of documentary film Claude Lanzmann traveled around the world and filmed huge amounts of material to make Shoah, a 9-hour documentary that has been described that is recognised as the the foremost film on the subject. It is a remarkable and unique achievement, and achieves the near-impossible – transforming the filmed representation of the Holocaust from an unimaginable atrocity into an actual, believable historical event.
Lanzmann's film features no archive footage (he felt that newsreel had lost its power to shock), instead using hundreds of talking heads describing the extermination process that occurred in the camps. Lanzmann is a brilliant interviewer, soberly questioning a great variety of people, including survivors, officers and locals who witnessed the transportation of the Jews to the camps. There are some grimly compelling stories captured here; some villagers confess that they were pleased that the Jews were being taken away. An SS officer, who is unaware he is being filmed, explains with shocking clarity how the gas chambers worked. A barber breaks down as he explains how he cut the hair of Jewish women immediately before their deaths (Lanzmann said of this moment: ‘I didn't do this for the pleasure of having him crack, yet there is more truth in this instant…than in all the metaphysical or idealistic reflections on the Holocaust’).
The testimonies of the survivors are, unsurprisingly, harrowing and extremely moving. A Czech Jew assigned the task of opening and closing the doors on the gas chambers gives a raw account of what happened inside the chambers. The only two Jews to survive the Chelmo liquidation speak with grim frankness about their experiences – one even goes back to the site decades later. The accounts make for disturbing viewing – how could they not? – but Lanzmann has created an astonishing piece of oral history that tells of horrendous atrocities that otherwise may never have been heard. Shoah is a necessary reminder that these stories must be told again and again.

 

Alex Davidson on 18th December 2006
View all 212 of Alex Davidson's reviews