Shoah

When Claude Lanzmann agreed to put together a movie on the Holocaust, he envisioned a film that would take two or three years to get to the screen. That was in 1970. The film was finally released in 1985 and Lanzmann was still adding updates in 2015. The Third Reich's objective of eliminating Europe's Jewish inhabitants was planned and executed in secrecy, and viable information was difficult to obtain. Lanzmann didn't intend to create an on-screen drama. There would be drama enough in the relating of the events.

His goal was to bring the hidden truths of the Nazi's vile exercise to the screen and to the world. The callous murder of millions of Jews, Roma (gypsies) and other 'undesirables' was now an accepted fact, but how it was accomplished was still buried in mystery. To this end he set out to find witnesses. Not witnesses to the dropping of Allied bombs nor witnesses to Nazi arrogance and cruelty, but witnesses to the actual events in the extermination camps. For the most part German witnesses weren't talking and Jewish witnesses were dead.

But there were witnesses! Some Jewish youths, young strong boys, had been selected by their captors to herd their families, friends, relatives and neighbours into the gas chambers or firing squad line-ups, remove the bodies to the crematoria or mass burial sites, then dump the remaining ashes into a river or cover the still forms with lime and soil. Until of course, beaten and starving, they either took their place in line or died on the spot.

Lanzmann interviewed half a dozen of these poor wretches who were at their posts at the War's conclusion; now men who will never erase the memories from their minds. They were located in Greece, Holland, Poland, Israel. He also interviewed a couple of highly placed Nazi officers, a French resistance officer and a number of Polish citizens who lived near the extermination camps. At no time did he try to dramatize any events with photographs or film. All photos of the camps, fields and towns where events took place are how the property looked in 1985.

Shoah was viewed on Criterion Blu-ray, three discs, 9.4 hours running time. Lanzmann originally shot 250 hours of film and has released additional footage under other titles.