Shoah

I love history. I've always enjoyed learning from and about the past...whether that’s through watching a movie, listening to a podcast, reading a book, visiting a museum, or talking to someone who experienced history themselves. There‘s a quote that is spoken often and one that pertains to our subject today. "Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” I first watched this film about twelve years ago. It was something that intrigued me as a person interested in history. So, when I heard that this film was being released by the Criterion Collection I preordered it. I knew before I bought it that it would forever be the most important film I would see and have in my collection. One that was not only important for me to watch, but to witness. It’s a film in which the director regards as neither movie nor documentary, but an experience. He is certainly right about that. It is something we experience, witness, remember, learn from, and something we should never forget.

So if you're like me and you enjoy film and the impact and emotions they convey then grab a glass of your preferred liquid and join me for the next little while. For me that’s a glass of water. So sit back, relax, and let’s talk about the love of film. Welcome to Glazed Cinema.

Welcome back to Glazed Cinema, I'm happy to see you back again. I'm excited for another season to dive into some great films together. After concluding Season One I had to start thinking of what film I wanted to open this new catalogue with. It turns out that it was a fairly easy decision for me...all I had to do was look at the calendar and I found a Wednesday that fit perfectly for the meaning of the day. However, it's not today’s date, but tomorrow's, January 27th. Unfortunately that date will go by for many people as just another Thursday. For a lot of people however it’s a day to reflect and remember those lost and those who survived to tell their stories. Stories that we should hear and lessons we should head…for they speak not only for themselves, but for the voiceless innocent lost.

Shoah means catastrophe in Hebrew and it’s the title of our subject today. It’s a film that is comprised of interviews with those who survived the unthinkable. Tomorrow is Holocaust Remembrance Day and Shoah, directed by Claude Lanzmann helps to tell the stories of those who lived through that awful time in history.

The Holocaust, otherwise known as The Shoah was the systematic extermination of Jewish peoples perpetrated by the Nazis and their collaborators. Starting in 1941 and ending in 1945 it was a genocide that took the lives of more than six million innocent Jewish people. For a long time after the war ended many people weren't aware of how terrible it truly was. However when Lanzmann's film was released it was one of the first media outlets that gave people a first hand account of what had happened.

Shoah is a film comprised entirely of interviews and includes no archival footage whatsoever. Its focus is instead on the human being, their experience, emotions, and memories. The film has two parts, which are First Era, which revolves around the early stages of the Holocaust and Second Era, which revolves around the latter part. All together these four parts total around nine and a half hours in length.

I had first heard of Shoah from an email I received from Criterion years ago. They were previewing upcoming releases for the approaching months as they regularly do and something caught my eye. If you're unfamiliar with how their announcements look, each month they announce films using their curated cover art. One of the films in this particular lineup had a striking, yet simple cover. It was a photograph taken of a railroad line, shrouded in smoke. The wood and metal cut through green grass with tree branches on both sides, with the word Shoah gracing the middle of it. If you’ve listened to previous episodes you’ll know that I love a good piece of cover art and this one is perfect in it’s own way. It intrigued me to want to know more and I knew almost immediately upon reading the description that I needed to witness this film.

Shoah is a film that was not thought of by Claude hi self, but rather commissioned by another party. Claude, a French gentleman had directed a film titled Pourquoi Israel, which was released in 1973. It was a film comprised of interviews, detailing the state of Israel 25 years after its establishment as a modern country. Shortly after its release he was approached by a man named Alouph Hareven, who was a director of Israel Department of Foreign Affairs. The government of Israel had an idea to create film about the Holocaust, but from the viewpoint of Jews. Liking the approach taken with Pourquoi Israel they pitched a two hour long film with an eighteen month timeline.

Claude accepted and the rest as they say is history. He began by calling people and having phone conversations. Some were unwilling to speak about that time in their lives. For those who were willing he developed a relationship with them and eventually asked to be a part of his film. Once he began interviewing survivors however his idea for the film got larger and was an ever evolving project. There are around eighty people captured on footage in Shoah's entirety. Thirty of those people provided key testimony, from many different perspectives. By the end of the project he had more footage than he knew what to do with and out of it spawned numerous other titles that would come after Shoah, each covering different subjects. There are a few reasons why Claude was drawn to this project and so passionate about it once he started. To understand why however I wanted to know more about his background.

Claude was born in Paris in the year 1925. His family was Jewish and therefore went into hiding when the enemy came knocking at the country’s borders. As a teenager however he joined the French resistance and smuggled arms while fighting against the Axis Powers. After the war he studied philosophy and later lectured in Berlin while in his early twenties. At that time he also snuck into East Germany to undertake his own journalistic investigation of their experiences. Seemingly drawn to the tougher subjects he also travelled to other places like the USSR, Mao’s China, and North Korea to partake in other journalistic ventures. He always gravitated toward the difficult subjects, flirting with danger, and having luck on his side throughout.

In learning about his past it made me understand more about the man behind the film. We can see that previous experience during his interviews, trying to help survivors speak on their experiences, respecting the difficulty, but knowing the importance. There are other times in the film when his risk takin side comes out. No more than when secretly interviewing former Nazis to get a look into their perspective. I always wondered how much nerves he must have had conducting those interviews with a camera concealed in a briefcase, capturing the Devil's details. One of these men in particular gives a great level of detail including pointing to maps and describing things he and others had done, which are reprehensible. There are those who don't agree with these tactics, however, I respect the fact that Claude took the risk in his approach. I feel like with them included we get a true look at the Holocaust through hearing from all sides.

Through its thirty key witnesses we hear from many different viewpoints. Of those viewpoints are those from non-Jewish townspeople that lived through the war. Claude interviews them to understand what it was like to witness these events from a bystander's perspective. Through these people we hear about the Jews being marched onto trains and what their town was like prior to the war. One of the most memorable of the townspeople interviewed is a man who was a train conductor, forced into transporting people to and from camps.

There also the survivors who ae interviewed, who bare witness to the atrocities they endured and lived through. Their witness testimony includes those from a number of camps including Treblinka, Chelmno Vilna, and Auschwitz, and some of the ghettos like Warsaw. Their stories are indescribable and heart wrenching. The fact that they survived at all is a miracle in itself. All of them show great courage to speak on their experiences. In doing so however they also speak for the millions who were robbed the right to do so. I will not describe anything for them as I feel it is not my place to do so. Their stories are worth us hearing and such an important documentation on both a historical and humanitarian level.

One of the final viewpoints we hear from are those who play an alternate role. Among them is a historian, a messenger from the Polish government, and a prosecutor during the 1960 Treblinka trial. These points of view provide details about how Nazi parties were punished, the historical implications, and how word was sent to outside countries about what was happening to the Jewish population in Poland. One of these men, Jan Karski is also the subject of another film from Lanzmann, titled "The Karski Report". In it Karski describes meeting with world leaders, visiting the ghettos, and so much more

Shoah is the first of its kind. Lanzmann insisted on not explaining the why, but instead the how. It's a film that is a historical document, which contains absolutely no archival footage. Though in his research prior to conducting interviews he himself used archives to learn more, he used no such documents in the actual film. He did this for one simple reason and fundamental belief. That the horror cannot be represented. It is the unimaginable, unthinkable, and unrepresentable. Using archival footage would do a disservice to the witnesses and survivors. The entire nine and a half hours is entirely made up of video interviews and onsite footage. In total it took eleven years to complete, which included five years of editing. The finished product is undoubtedly one of the most important works in cinematic history.

Shoah plays on a few of the things I firmly believe in. Those things being that knowledge empowers us all, ignorance breeds the worst in humanity, and that history is not something to be trifled with.

Shoah is an emotional watch as you might expect and the telling of memories is hard hitting. Each survivor who speaks shows incredible courage and fortitude as I'm sure it was not easy to divulge their truth or relive their memories. There's one thing I'd like to note about Shoah that I'm really appreciative of, but I can only speak to the version I've seen, which is Criterion's restoration of the film. That is the subtitle placement.

Shoah is almost entirely interviews and most of people with whom Claude speaks with do not speak Claude's native tongue of French and therefore require a translator. To film the interviews with the survivors depicted Claude and his translator travelled all over the world. This included countries like Germany, Poland, Israel, and America with numerous languages spoken. I'd like to shift to something that may seem minor, but enhanced my viewing experience and that is the subtitle placement.

You might expect the subtitles to appear when the person being interviewed is speaking, however that is not the case here. Instead the subtitles appear when the translator is speaking to Claude. I appreciate a few things about this approach. For one, this let me truly hear and see the person speaking. I got to catch their mannerisms, tone, emotion, and cadence without my attention being pulled to the bottom of the screen while the interviewee was speaking. I also feel that this gives the necessary respect to survivors telling their stories because we are fully present while they speak. For a lot of them Shoah was the first time they had spoken publicly about their experiences and I am appreciative that they were able to do so as it is important for us to remember them and those whose lives were taken. Again, I can only speak for Criterion's restoration, but I wanted to praise how the subtitles were done.

I can only speak to my experience, but when I learned about the Holocaust in school I thought I understood how horrific it was and how cruel and callous human beings can be. It became evident very quickly however in watching Shoah that I knew very little.

Before watching Shoah I made sure that I had the time to do so and planned on watching one half. I was shocked and aghast with each interview. Each person’s story was challenging and the fact that they lived through what they described is incredible. another day I watched the second half of the film and was equally shaken. I learned so much from watching this film and I feel so privileged that I've been able to hear the stories of these survivors, told by them.

Shoah made an incredible mark on society. People were exposed to truths that they had previously only scraped the surface of. It brought renewed awareness to antisemitism and also gave other survivors the strength to tell their stories too. Since Shoah we have learned much more given all of the newer witness accounts from survivors. Unfortunately the number of survivors of the Holocaust decreases each year, but films like Shoah help ensure that their stories are never forgotten and that we and future generations can continue learning from them for years to come. Hopefully in listening to these tales we can help prevent future genocides from happening.

If you're interested in educating yourself on the Holocaust I recommend visiting the United States Holocaust Museum's website at ushmm.com. As their website’s top menus say it's a great place to Learn about the Holocaust, Remember Survivors and Victims, and Confront Genocide and Antisemitism. On their website you'll find countless resources including over 80,000 pieces of video, audio, testimony, and documentary along with podcasts, images, articles, and so much more.

Another great resource is the Yad Vashem website, Israel’s official memorial to Holocaust victims. Their website can be found at yadvashem.org and there you can find countless resources including video, audio, and written documentation. There is also a growing list of victims’ names rescue stories, and much more.

There are certain atrocities like the Holocaust that we as humanity must confront and ensure don't happen again. Unfortunately there have been more genocides since then like the ones in Rwanda and Cambodia. However, I firmly believe that by educating ourselves we can ensure that we can help prevent future genocides from occurring.

If you'd like to watch Shoah you can find it on Prime Video. On Prime you can watch the film in its entirety with either an in app subscription to another service or for $4.99 to rent. Apart from Prime Video you can also find it on Vudu for $3.99 to rent.

I‘d also like to recommend buying the Criterion release of the film if you have the funds to do so. Criterion does a fantastic job on all of their releases and treats each film they release with respect and Shoah is no exception to that trend. Their release includes the restored original film in its entirety along with three other films included in its supplements, which are equally eye opening and important. If you like history, a collector of film, or both then it’s well worth the investment of either $69.99 for DVD or $99.99 for the Blu-ray edition.

If you like this podcast tell your friends or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Each week there will be new content including hints about episodes before they air. If you'd like to learn more about the podcast visit our website at glazedcinema.com. There you’ll find info about the show and a place to submit ideas for future episodes. For film fans who are hearing impaired our blog page features each episode in written form as well. As always, thanks for listening and I hope to see you next time with another beverage and another fine film on Glazed Cinema.