Shoah (1985)

Director:

Claude Lanzmann

Release Date:

November 1985 (USA)

Genre:

Documentary

Plot:

Claude Lanzmann directed this 9 1/2 hour documentary of the Holocaust without using a single frame of archive footage...

Plot Keywords:

Nazi Officer | Nazi Collaborator | Nazi Retaliation | War Crimes | Collaboration With Nazis

Awards:

13 wins

Cast

Simon Srebnik	...	Himself
Michael Podchlebnik	...	Himself
Motke Zaidl	...	Himself
Hanna Zaidl	...	Herself
Jan Piwonski	...	Himself
Itzhak Dugin	...	Himself
Richard Glazer	...	Himself
Paula Biren	...	Herself
Pana Pietyra	...	Herself
Pan Filipowicz	...	Himself
Pan Falborski	...	Himself
Abraham Bomba	...	Himself
Czeslaw Borowi	...	Himself
Henrik Gawkowski	...	Himself
Rudolf Vrba	...	Himself

Runtime:

USA:503 min | Sweden:544 min (25 fps) | UK:566 min

Country:

France

Language:

English | German | Hebrew | Polish | Yiddish | French

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

South Korea:12 | Australia:R | Sweden:11

Filming Locations:

Auschwitz, Poland

Company:

Historia

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Dieu est grand, je suis toute petite (2001)

Beyond belief

This documentary tells the story of the Holocaust from a particularly human and "everyman" viewpoint. Claude Lanzmann realized that the victims of this horror were gradually dying off and took the initiative to search out the innocents who had these hidious tattoos on their arms and just talk to them. Not all wanted to be a part of the picture, but Lanzmann had a very unique ability to coax and sometimes browbeat the experiences out of these ordinary people who were subjected to unspeakable horrors. This is a long and extremely painful film to watch. Make no mistake. At the end is a better understanding of man's capacity for cruelty to his fellow man. I believe that is what Lanzmann wanted to pass down to the coming generations.