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THIS FILM HAS BEEN MADE USING
CLAUDE LANZMANN'S UNUSED FOOTAGE

FROM HIS HOLOCAUST DOCUMENTARY
ENTITLED SHOAH.

THE NARRATION IS A MIX OF LANZMANN'S
MEMOIRS AND PERSONAL WRITINGS.

Take 99!

One hundred.

Making Shoah

was a long and hard-fought battle.

I wanted to make a film,
but was filled with emptiness.

I wanted it to be about death

in the most extreme sense.

I'd fall into futile despair
some nights,

only wanting to give up,

but I kept working,

12 long years

staring unflinchingly

into the black sun of the Holocaust.

The film project started here
in Israel

in 1973.

It wasn't my idea to make this film.

It was the furthest thing
from my mind.

I was alive during the Holocaust.

It could have claimed me,

but I knew nothing
about it, honestly,

absolutely nothing,

only that an abstract number
of people were victim to it.

Six million of us were murdered.

Something very strong,

even aggressive, within me

moved me to take on the film.

I had no idea how to go about it.

Looking back on it now,

parts of my process
strike me as utterly strange,

incomprehensible.

In Israel, I heard about a man
called Simon Srebnik.

Srebnik was the youngest

of the only two people
to survive Chelmno, Poland,

where 400,000 Jews were killed
in mobile gas vans.

At the camp, prisoners were forced
to empty the vans of the dead

and toss their remains
into mass incineration pits.

Simon Srebnik was 13 and a half

when a firing squad
put a bullet in his neck.

Miraculously,

the bullet missed
his major arteries.

We spoke,
or at least tried to speak about it,

but I grasped almost nothing
of what he described.

The little I could understand

were his bits of memories
obscured by fear.

He struck me
as still the same scared child

he must have been back then.

I just understood he used to
sing songs for SS guards

while rowing them down a
river in a skiff.

I instantly asked him
to sing me what he sang them.

There's a little, white house

I still dream about

The windows

of that little house

shine strangely

in the sun

like a pair of eyes

full of tears

I couldn't give up on Srebnik

or leave him to one side.

I had work to do in order
to be able to understand him.

I needed time to pin down
what my film was about.

For two years, I read
Primo Levi, Antelme, Rousset

and a hundred other works.

Book after book,
month after month,

my film rose from the ashes

of my trials and errors.

I had no idea where I was going.

Burlington Hilberg, take nine.

I think that the reason
why your book is a master book

is you succeed to show, really,

the inside, the implications

how the destruction of the Jews

has been possible.

My breakthrough
was entirely intellectual.

I had this particular
Rosetta Stone for quite a while.

Rosetta Stone?

And I studied it,

still not knowing what to make of
some items of information in it.

How do you know that "PKR"
means the death train?

Well, here again, of course,

the only way we know this kind
of information for sure is that...

we know
that the destination is Treblinka

and that the train
does not go further,

so when we consider that an entire
train is going to Treblinka

and there are after all several
or rather many of them,

then we say to ourselves,

this was not a train carrying
German soldiers on furlough.

This was not a train carrying

Polish workers to a labour camp.

This was a train carrying people

to a particular place,

the object of which overwhelmingly,
primarily, in 99% of all cases was

death.

I spent hours with survivors,

who spoke to me about raids,
trains, extreme thirst,

being beaten,
arriving to the camps and so on.

Every account that I recorded,

even the most tragic,

failed to touch
on the heart of the issue.

The central piece was missing:

dying in the gas chambers.

No-one survived them.

I'm haunted by what victims suffered
in their final moments

right before they died.

Is there meaning in standing nude
in sub-zero temperatures

waiting your turn to walk into a gas
chamber at Sobibor or Treblinka?

Questions like that obsessed me,

tormented me.

I'd heard about Abraham Bomba

while doing research in Israel.

I learned he'd cut the hair
of Jewish women

inside the gas chambers
at Treblinka.

I only knew that Bomba
lived in New York City

where he was still working
as a hairdresser.

Do you know the town of Sea Gate?

- Of?
- Sea Gate.

- It's in Brooklyn, in Brooklyn.
- Coney Island.

Not in Europe. Seagate.

It's a neighbourhood
in Coney Island.

A community.

I wandered round

and around for hours.

Bomba seemed key to me.

I wound up meeting an old
Jewish cobbler who'd known him.

The Bomba family had moved
20 years before.

Distraught,

I leafed in vain
through every NYC phone book,

residential and professional.

Because Bomba was a barber,

I went asking around hairdressers'.

At the 15th shop I visited,

a woman with her hair full
of rollers and pins

gave me an address.

I finally got a hold of him

and he must have talked to me
for 48 hours

as if he'd never spoken
to anyone in his life.

After they were gassed,

the spectacle already started

and that did...

They worked the people
from the other places,

from the gas chamber

taking out already those...
all those people

clung one to another

because even after their death

they clung to one another to have

together, close to one another,

not to be apart from each other

in lifetime and also in their death

and that's the way they took them
out from the gas chamber and to...

the places where they put them.

So, far for a while,

they dig big thing

and they put them over there,

but that was not the end.

After that, they dig them out

and they put on top each other,
body by body

and they burn them like a...

It was then clear to me

that the Jewish subjects of my film

would be Jewish prisoners
forced into labour,

either as Arbeitsjuden

or members of the Sonderkommando,

or special labour units.

These men, like Bomba,

who were present in the final
moments of the victims' lives,

had been, apart from the murderers,

the only witnesses to Jews

dying in the gas chambers.

Rudolf Vrba, take 100.

What were your feelings when you
were waiting for these trains

and knowing that most of the people
who would be in would be

immediately sent to the gas?

But describe as you wish.

It is very difficult

to describe feelings,

but I have seen it so many times
that it became a routine.

I wouldn't think that

I have been in any way
particularly moved or...

It was not time for feelings.

You remember the arrival of Greek
Jews or transport from Greece?

I remember many because in the time
when I was on the ramp

at least 30 to 40,000 people came
from Saloniki.

And they came
from a very long journey

because from Saloniki to Auschwitz
or from Athens to Auschwitz

it was nine days and nights.

The Arbeitsjuden and Sonderkommando

had all been young men,

ages ranging
from 18 to 25 years old.

They hailed from Poland,
Hungary and Greece.

They were handpicked,

then shaved, tattooed,
whipped and beaten.

They'd be conducted
to the door of Crematorium 5

where they suddenly saw everything.

The mass graves, the flames,

the tangle of discoloured bodies

that came tumbling out
when the chamber doors were opened.

There's people from Saloniki who
are very different in many ways.

They are more colourful,
already by dress.

They had a very philosophical
approach to life.

A touch of Orient was in them.

Those people
were more mild mannered,

less prepared for toughness.

Some Jews hailing from
the sunny shores of the Ionian,

gentle people,

"tender Jews",
as Albert Cohen described them,

couldn't bear it all.

They threw themselves
into the infernos with open arms

like sea divers.

The day I realised my film
would be about death itself,

death and not survival,

the realisation
hit me like a great epiphany

and I knew
I'd be able to see it through.

Nothing would dissuade me.

At times, I ran out of money

and feared I wouldn't be able
to finish the film.

People organised fundraisers for me
in the US.

Ambassador Robert Borden Reams?

They were all a total failure,

despite my sincere appeals
explaining

why I thought the movie
deserved to be made.

This is the fundraising department

of the American Jewish Committee.

I showed them everything
I'd learned so far

and the work
I'd already carried out.

Have they gone upstairs
to the library?

I would like to welcome first of all
Mr Lanzmann from Paris and his film

crew. I guess everybody is aware of
by now what's going.

After I'd spoken,

I'd field questions -
always the same ones.

Mr Lanzmann, what is your message?

Two-one-four.

I didn't know
what Shoah's message was.

Two-one-four.

I still don't know what it is.

Had I said,

"My message is, Never again",
or perhaps

"Love one another",

the pocketbooks
would have fallen open,

but I was no good at fundraising.

Not one American dollar
went to financing Shoah.

Individual donors kept me afloat

in the dreadful stretches
of hard living

when the immensity of the project
towered over me.

My research took me from one
continent to the next.

I felt like I was
on a police manhunt,

a never-ending chase.

I knew early on that my film
would have to feature

the perpetrators too.

From my reading, I'd composed

a list of around one hundred names

of Nazi war criminals
and bureaucrats alike

who struck me as key
to what I was after.

At the outset,

I was embarrassingly naive,
inexperienced and honest,

calling people up,
giving them my name

and the reason I was calling,

to make a movie
about the extermination of the Jews.

I didn't often get the chance to
say any more.

so, after many failures,

so I decided to stop calling

and to just turn up at the homes
of the people I was looking for

with my trusted German assistant,
Corinna Coulmas,

a brilliant and brave woman.

So,

what do we have on...

Laabs?

An excerpt from an indictment

from the Chelmno war-crime trials.

Gustav Laabs, gas-van driver

during both periods
of extermination at Chelmno.

When a lorry arrived
to the manor building,

the accused drove the gas van

up a wooden ramp.

He'd wait for victims

to be loaded into the van
and for the doors to close.

Then,

he'd attach a hose
from the fixed exhaust pipe

into the interior of the van.

He then would start the engine,

put his foot on the accelerator

and let the engine run
for 10 to 15 minutes.

Once the shouts and moans

and banging

quieted down within the van

and all within had been suffocated
or had fainted,

he'd drive the van

to Waltlager, a wooded area

seven kilometres
from the village of Chelmno,

where the bodies were unloaded

and either buried or incinerated.

He won't open the door.

His neighbours tipped him off,

telling him not to open.

Are you allowed to film people

without asking their permission?

Film people who don't wish
to be filmed?

You can't film this house
or anything else for that matter.

But we rang the bell.

- You did what?
- We rang the bell.

You can't have this camera on
right now.

We don't care
if you want to talk to Mr Laabs.

We just want to talk to him.
Do you know him?

Sure, he's our neighbour.

- Is he a kind man?
- Of course he is.

Do you know anything
about his life?

- No.
- No?

You don't know
what he was involved in?

- You have no idea?
- No.

Hold on.

Sir, do you know
what a gas van is?

No.

You've never heard of that?

No.

He operated them during the war.

- How is that our business?
- Gas vans.

- He killed 200,000 Jews.
- What are you on about?

- Where are you from?
- Did you know that?

French television?

We don't care
about what you have to say.

- Fine.
- People deserve privacy.

I only care about what he does
as my neighbour.

Anything beyond that
is none of my concern.

Why don't you carry on your way?

That's just what we'll do.

Everyone's in on it.

To Germans,

my last name was a giveaway
that I was Jewish

and it only made things harder.

I needed to start using an alias.

I won't reveal how

because I promised not to say,

but I managed to get
a fake passport

that I swore to get rid of
after filming was over.

I started going
by Claude-Marie Sorel.

I worked for a phony
modern history research institute.

I gave myself the fictitious title
of Doctor of History.

Honesty and transparency
with former Nazis

had proven utterly futile.

I had to learn
how to lie to the liars.

So...

Take off your...

Do try

and not go too tight
like last time,

though I'm not sure
if it was tight

or I was just nervous.

Every time

I took a breath, it felt

like I was restricted.

You're just aware that it's there,

like it was going to break.

- You just feel it's there.
- Yeah, but still...

I'd rather it were a gun.

That all right?

Maybe a little tighter.

I'm afraid it will fall
like the other day.

It fell?

No, but it felt like it was
going to.

Hold on.

The Paluche

was a small, handheld, cylindrical
camera that changed everything.

You could use it without looking
through the viewfinder.

It didn't record on film,

but transmitted the images
to a small van nearby.

The little miracle

was going to drastically change
how I'd film in Germany.

There we are.

How has your heart been?

All right?

My heart's been fine lately.

If it starts acting up,
I'll let you know.

Sure, sure.

- Then we'll have to stop.
- Of course.

Everything working?

Franz Suchomel

agreed to a voice interview only.

At Treblinka, Suchomel
was in charge of a unit

tasked with confiscating money

and valuables the victims
were hiding on their person.

I hid a Paluche in a bag

along with a professional-grade
microphone.

My director of photography
William Lubtchansky

worked double duty
as a sound engineer.

Everything in order?

- Are you ready?
- Yes.

- Shall we?
- Let's get started.

Great.

Let's do that.

- Let's start with Treblinka.
- By all means.

We were brought
to the far side of the camp,

around the back,

and when we got up there

the gas-chamber doors
had just been opened

and bodies had come tumbling out
like potatoes.

Like potatoes?

I wish to remain anonymous
telling you this.

Of course, of course.

How do you say,
"I gave you my word?"

I gave you my word.

- D*mn!
- What's wrong?

So...

Sound is out of sync.

Was that a frightening duty
to perform?

It was.

People were stripped
of their most basic human dignity.

Even their hair was taken
from them.

It was total humiliation.

Well...

There's a haircutter
in New York City.

Bomba, that sounds familiar.

Sounds familiar.

I think I remember that name.

Yes, Bomba.

REEL NO. 21

Abraham Bomba had left New York
without leaving an address.

I made phone calls for days
and they led nowhere.

The letters I sent
were returned to sender.

Bomba, take one!

I finally managed to track him down

while shooting in Israel.

He thought
my movie was just a cover.

Bomba, take four!

Excuse me,

can you describe...
You became quiet suddenly.

At one day we had a order

to get together a certain amount
of barbers

and to go cut the hair
of the women.

They took us up to the place

where we never went over there.

No-one from the...

the Treblinka, where we were

at our place
and we went across that big door

going into,

at that time, which we know already
was the gas chamber.

They took us over there.

I could sense Bomba
getting nervous,

which only agitated
my own anxiety.

We both knew
the difficult part was nigh,

that we'd have to talk
about cutting women's hair

inside the gas chambers.

It's difficult for you, I know.

Yes, it is.

It's very difficult because,
you know,

you have to go through this thing
all over again

and it is very painful.

Yes, but you have to do it.

You must.

You have no choice.

Let's cut, please.

The barbershop idea was mine.

I thought getting him working

might make it easier for him to talk

than sitting in front of a camera.

I placed him in
his professional setting and said,

"Abraham,

do what you did back then".

That's when the truth
found its footing

and he was transported
into the past like an actor.

You said
that you didn't shave them.

No, we did not shave.

We just cut the hair,
make them believe

that they're getting a nice haircut.

But you cut with what?
With scissors?

With scissors, yes,
and with comb, without any clippers,

just like a men's haircut,
I would say.

What did you feel when you started

to cut the hair of the women
after the war?

After the war...
That is a really good question

because

when I came out from the

extermination camp in Treblinka

and I went into work
in a barbershop

and when a woman was sitting
at the chair,

in dress,

it was funny for me

because I was cutting the hair
for so many 100 and 100 women

all naked, without any dress

and I didn't know that,
from the beginning, I didn't

know how to start doing the haircut

where a woman sits

dressed like a woman should be

and it was, emotionally for me,

it was...
I couldn't get used to the idea.

It took quite a time

until I get used to myself
to do the cutting

of a lady's hair

dressed with her clothes on.

You can fill in details,
but I've told you a lot.

You have indeed.

He has to change his tape.

- Yes.
- You should try...

He's looking at you a lot.
You should...

- Can you hear him all right?
- Very well.

- Let me take a moment to change...
- The tape?

- The head.
- All right.

- Sound working?
- No.

OK, headphones back on.

Or let's stop
and get a bite to eat.

We took a break for a lunch

and I invited Suchomel's wife
to join.

They stuffed themselves
on salmon and cream.

That night,

I got into a heated discussion
with William Lubtchansky,

whose father had been gassed
at Auschwitz.

He couldn't understand
why I was so cool-headed,

that it was crucial
to the act I was putting on.

He'd have killed Suchomel.

I wanted to kill him another way...

kill him with the camera.

Let's stop.

My heart is starting
to act up.

Very well.

No, keep rolling.

Pretend like you're stopping.

Are you experiencing pain?

Pains in your chest?

- Angina pectoris.
- Angina pectoris?

It'll pass in five minutes.

Very well,
I won't go out for a smoke then.

Is it from...

Can you ask him if it's because
he's getting emotional?

Is it from the emotion?

I get annoyed

when people ask me that.

It's because I ate too much.

You did eat a lot.

We'll restart in a bit.

Salmon does that.

- Excuse me?
- Salmon does that.

It was all that cream.

Sure.

When we got going again,

Suchomel was feeling confident.

I had him sing for me
the song the Arbeitsjuden

had to learn upon enlistment.

The commandos march
To their daily labour

In our eyes,
All that matters is Treblinka

Our destinies are tied to it

Treblinka became part of us

In the blink of an eye

The words of our commander
Are all that matter

Beside obedience and duty

We're here to serve
And serve and serve

Until happiness shines upon us
one fine day

Hoorah!

You have a great singing voice.

Yes, I have...

A great singing voice.

Only the Jews sang that song?

Only Jews, yes,

but we can keep singing
that our destinies

are tied to Treblinka, can't we?

The Jews are no longer around.

They can't tell the story.

With sure step
Looking out over the world,

Headlong into the distance

The commandos march
To their daily labour

In our eyes,
All that matters is Treblinka

Our destinies are tied to it

Treblinka became...

One Jewish man remembered it.

Richard Glazar
had survived Treblinka

by fleeing during the Treblinka
Uprising of August 1943.

To pay their way on the run,
Glazar and a friend

were given a few diamonds
that Jews in Suchomel's work units

had looted
from the remains of the dead.

We hid the diamonds

in beard soap

and held onto them,

telling ourselves...

that we shouldn't pawn the diamonds

to help us survive.

If fate would only smile on us,

the riches we took from Treblinka

should never

be traded

for our survival.

So, we never sold the diamonds

and later...

we had the diamonds set

in rings we gave to our wives.

Carel's wife and my own

still wear their rings
to this day.

You never sold them?

No.

Even though we were constantly short
on money.

Can you show what you have there?

This is the razor.

And the soap.

This soap is from Treblinka,

as is the case.

These are likely all

that have survived

of the 800,000 victims

and this is the ring
my wife wears.

That's...

gorgeous.

Are you tearing up?

Did you also used to cry back then?

Yes, at day's end every day,
I'd pray.

- You would pray?
- Yes.

To God?

To God.

To God.

For Him to forgive me.

I'll consider this compensation
for my pain

and not compensation
for doing an interview.

Compensation for your pain?

This...

cross I bear
that causes me to suffer.

It's the reason I'll burn tomorrow
and forever.

This is 2,000 Swiss francs,

similar to Deutsche marks.

Thank you.

I kicked and screamed
all the way to Poland,

though it was the beating heart
of the extermination project.

Something in me
didn't want to go there.

What was there to see?
People who weren't there any more?

I figured that, since my film
was about destruction,

settings were of no importance.

I saw Poland
as a memorial void.

I went late in the process,

in the winter of 1978,

five years after starting work
on Shoah.

I'd been everywhere else until then.

I was arrogant arriving in Poland,

positive I was only there
to prove I didn't need to be there.

My first day there,
I rented a Russian banger

and set out for Treblinka.

I wanted to see the site
with my own eyes.

I felt nothing.

I gaped,

my mind and soul bewildered,

the only reaction I could manage

at the traces left
of the massacre.

What lay before me was so different
from what I'd learned about

from my reading

and, more importantly,
from Suchomel,

Glazar and Abraham Bomba.

There are two kids there.

Barbara, say hi to them.

Ask him to come over here.

Hi there, sir.

Ask if he's lived in Treblinka
a long time.

Sixty-seven years.

- Sixty-seven?
- Yes.

He must have seen some things.

Does he care to share with us
what he's seen?

I'm going to step out.

What's that?

- Step out with me.
- How?

Step out

on the other side.

Two Germans struck them
and killed

both of them,

two boys as young
as his grandson,

about his age.

He witnessed that?

Where was he?

He was on his way to the fields.

Tell them we're making a movie.
We're from France.

Hello, sir.

Hi.

Does he have any memories of Warsaw
Jews arriving in cattle wagons?

Six trains per day.

Each train was 60 cars,

but only 20 of them
would go off to the camp.

I see.

The trains were separated
by hand.

He saw all this himself?

If it happened here,
he saw it.

He locked the door
and may go fetch his gun.

Well, let's try somewhere else.

You heard that lock, clack!

Come on.

I'd felt nothing
seeing the memorial at the camp,

but that little sign
struck a deep chord.

Treblinka was real.

There was once a village
called Treblinka,

a brave village.

When I first arrived here

full of everything I'd learned,

I felt like a bomb
ready to go off.

All I needed was a detonator.

Treblinka was that detonator.

On the line over there
where we stayed,

there was a small sign
which said, "Treblinka"

and it was first time

in my life I heard about that name,
Treblinka.

On the other side of the tracks,

I saw about

18, 20, maybe more wagons

going away

and after about an hour or so,

I saw the ones coming back,
but without the people.

Our train went in also.

When we got
to the extermination camp,

all of a sudden
we heard screaming,

"Men to the right
and women to the left!"

My wife was holding the child

and my mother was together with her,

so we, me, my brother and my father,
went to the right side,

and the women went
to the left side,

to the barracks.

That was the last time

I saw anybody
of the female relative of mine.

I heard about a train driver

who operated the Holocaust trains

every year the camp was operational

and he lived only some
10 kilometres from Treblinka.

Rolling.

Call out.

Take 17.

How old was Mr Gawkowski
at the time?

He began operating trains

when he was fairly young.

He was in his early 20s
during the war.

His early 20s,

a young man.

Yes!

That's why his memory
of what happened

is so clear.

In that case...

His memory is less sharp now.

He seems to have a great memory.

So much so he looks
to be reliving that time.

Absolutely right.

Right.

It's as if he can see it all
before his eyes.

Did he hear ever screaming
while driving the trains?

Yes.

What did people scream?

Were they just shouts
or did people say things?

It was anything and everything,

anything and everything.

Calling out, shouts, everything.

Does he have nightmares about it

to this day?

It's happened more than once,

to say the least.

Sure!

Let's go!

I told Gawkowski

I'd film him driving
into Treblinka.

Just like Bomba in the barber shop,

Gawkowski was transported,

seeing 60 imaginary Holocaust trains
taking people to their deaths.

There were no wagons attached,

just the engine that came at a high
rental price from the Polish rail.

Barbara,
will you please ask Mr Borowi,

if he lived here

during the war?

Yes,

during the occupation.

I heard him say the word "Christ",

what was that in relation to?

He says that according
to religious tradition,

when Christ was alive,

the Jews had him crucified

and as we know,

he was resurrected,

so what happened to the Jews

happened to them

because of what they did to Christ.

They had to pay for the injustice.

Is that what he means?

"That's what the old timers say.

- I'm just repeating it".
- I see.

Take 55.

Barbara,

can you ask...

Excuse me, Mr Borowi.
Would you ask him

if he thinks I'm Jewish?

- He thinks so.
- Why?

The way you speak

and carry yourself,

but mostly how you speak.
You speak French

with a slightly Jewish accent.

- A Jewish accent?
- Yeah.

Very well.

I was the first
to interview Gawkowski, Borowi

and the other farmers around.

No-one else had cared to listen
to what they had to say.

It produced
a harrowing realisation in me

that the farmers
in the heart of Poland

had been the nearest humans

to the victims of the Holocaust.

In Poland, I discovered

a gold mine
of things left unsaid.

You'd think it impossible
for this to have happened here,

given how beautiful
and peaceful it is here.

So quiet.

Believe me, it wasn't always

this quiet around here.

There was a time

when you'd have only heard shouts,
barking dogs and gunshots

where we are now.

When not filming in Poland
or the US,

we were like a travelling circus

or theatre troop

crisscrossing Germany's towns and
villages gleaning more and more.

In the hotels at night,

a good bottle of red wine

would help keep our spirits up

to do it all over again
the next day.

Every day, we set our sights
on a new target.

Mr Kretschmer?

On my way.

OK.

I'd love to interview you

about your letters.
Do you remember them?

Oh, I don't much wish to.

That's so...

The reality of what happened
is so disgusting

I'd really rather distance myself
from all that.

Why'd you make the joke,

"The sight of blood
has become so common

you can't bear the taste
of black pudding"?

What's black pudding?

It's pork and beef blood.

So, a sausage made with blood?

A sausage made with blood
that takes on a black colour.

Why was the taste
of black pudding so hard to bear?

Because there was so much blood?

I don't know.

It seems to me...

We went out one time
and when we got back,

there was a table set
with a dinner spread

that included black pudding
and comments were made.

I believe what you're trying to say

is that after an execution,
it was hard to eat black pudding.

I... I...

It's an interesting thing to say.

What?

That was something, huh?

I hope that Dominique

caught all that.

A euphoric feeling of omnipotence
was coming over me

and our entire little troop.

I let my guard down.

I grew less weary.

D*mn!

Whatever it took,
I wanted to talk

to a commander
of the Einsatzgruppen,

the mobile killing squads
that murdered 1.5 million Jews.

I set my sights
on Heinz Schubert,

a lieutenant who oversaw
the Simferopol massacre in Crimea.

There are dogs.

Yeah.

Hi, might I speak to Mr Schubert?

Please, have a seat.

We're on the garden side.

This is good here.

He can be there.

- Hi there.
- Hi, Mr Schubert.

- You're Dr Sorel?
- That's right.

I'm not familiar
with your institute.

I don't understand the work you do.

It's affiliated
to the University of Paris.

Are you're here on behalf

of the French government?

No, I'm carrying out research

on the Einsatzgruppen.

I had Corinna go out and make
sure the van was picking us up

because we were toward the back
of the house.

Great.

Mrs Schubert swiftly grabbed our bag

and placed it on the ground,

so all we caught from then on
were lower legs and chairs.

Oh, what happened? That's not
good. We've lost connection.

Pardon me. Heinz,
will you come pick up the phone?

Excuse me.

They noticed the van.

I bet they noticed the antenna.

It's hard to miss.

They keep jostling it about.

It's a problem.

You shouldn't be broadcasting this
to the outside.

I was out by the vehicle
and saw the recording equipment.

It isn't right
to lie to people like this.

Let's work this out.

- No.
- We heard voices in the vehicle.

I stood right next to it.

What do you think I'm up to?
I would like to know.

There's a vehicle outside
with recording equipment in it.

And it's recording
this conversation.

What?

Call the police.

Madam, you were outside
next to the vehicle.

I saw you out there.

You saw that it was recording.

Show us what's in your bag.

Show us.

No. That's none of your business.

I want to see what's inside.

No. That won't be happening.

No. That won't be happening.
What is all this?

We had to run from police.

With all my might,
I threw the bag at them,

which held them off.

I jumped in the car

and drove flat out
at the human blockade

trying to keep us there.

They knew I'd rather kill them
than get caught by police.

I couldn't replace the Paluche.

I didn't know
how I'd keep working.

Even worse than that,

my film didn't feature anyone
from the Einsatzgruppen,

though they were so crucial.

For those executioners,

I'd gone out on a limb

and I'd lost my bet.

Barbara, ask these kids

what they think
of the history here?

They don't much believe the tales
the old folks tell.

They don't?

Hey, quiet down, huh?

I filmed every season in Poland,

each one a season of death.

Shoah is an allegory

of European Jews
journeying toward death.

It's a race against death.

Soon, the recent past

will become history

and only history.

Shoah is
an act of remembrance.

Remembrance is all that matters.

Ready? Rolling? OK.

My directors of photography,
Chappuis,

who followed Lubtchansky
and Glasberg,

all would ask to me,

"Why do you keep filming
these rocks?

You've filmed them ten times".

I couldn't get enough of them.

I didn't film them enough
and kept returning to Treblinka

to film them more.

I shot them because that's all
there was to shoot.

I couldn't come up
with anything else.

I'd need them for when Bomba,
Glazar, the farmers

and Suchomel would speak.

These blocks of stones
turned human before my eyes,

the only trace of the hundreds
of thousands who died here.

Years prior, I'd left Simon Srebnik,
the singer from Israel,

without having understood much,

but I'd honed my craft
in the meantime.

Corinna, ask Mr Srebnik

if anything strikes him
as familiar.

What's this to the left?

He doesn't remember.

His memory will come back.

Now he's remembering.

Chelmno is this way.

The camp was that way.

What's this here?

It's the church
they locked people in.

He'd go there
to give people water.

They'd see him approaching
with his ankles

in chains.

No, this way.

Here?

Perhaps...

Sure, go that way.

Plane overhead.

So,

Corinna, tell Mr Srebnik we'll head

to where the schlöss was,
but I have a question first.

Is this the same church
that was here back then?

What's changed since then?

The exterior is the exact same.

He can't say about the interior.

The exterior is the exact same.

The fence, the colours, everything?

Yes, it's the exact same.

Father,

do you know what happened here

in your church in Chelmno?

He heard there was a drop-off

of clothing
that people would separate

before shipping it off
somewhere else.

Shipping it off?

That's all he knows about
what happened in this church?

That's what people have told him.

What he's heard?

He doesn't think anything else
happened here?

The church was just used
as a collection point.

For items?

Yes, a collection point.

I didn't think this interview

would go like this.

Yesterday

when the cameras weren't rolling,

Father explained to us

that when he first began
to lead this congregation,

the walls of the church
were covered in writings

from the Jews who'd spent
their last night alive here,

writing messages on the walls.

He even showed us one,

the only one left

from a Jew from Leipzig,

who wrote his name,
though it's barely legible.

You can make out Leipzig.

How does he explain this graffiti?
I don't understand.

He doesn't understand your question.

He doesn't?

When I first got the chains
put on me,

I couldn't walk very fast.

I had to walk like this.

- You had chains put on you?
- I did.

Then an SS officer
made an announcement:

"The first person
to reach the petrol supply",

said SS Bothmann,

"can get longer chains put on".

My God, it was a game.

Yes, we were all lined up here,
standing,

and we raced to the petrol supply,

but I didn't run,
I hopped with the help of my hands.

You could do that?

I got there like this.

When Mr Srebnik was here,

people would get locked
in the church

before being loaded
into gas vans.

No, no,

not right before.

That's incorrect.

When there was no more...

Oh, that!

People were in the church

and the gas vans
would come to pick them up.

The van would take 80
to 90 people

and head to the forest.

They'd empty the vans there,

then come back to the church
to load up more people

and head back out to the forest.

They'd go back and forth
from the forest

to the church,

forest to the church,

until there was no-one left
in the church.

It's always been quiet here.

Always.

Even when they were burning people
every day,

or I suppose every other day,

2,000 people, Jews,

it was still this quiet.

There were two chambers here,

one over there
and a second one here,

and everything was as quiet
as you hear now.

No-one would cry out or anything?

No, no-one would cry out at all.

They were all performing their duty.

All was calm.

- Calm?
- Yes.

As it is now.

Can you sing that same Polish tune?

The same one as before?

- Now?
- Yes.

There's a little, white house

I still dream about

The windows...

Cut, cut, cut. Something's off.

I was with a guard,

an SS soldier stationed at Chelmno.

OK.

I'd row the boat

and look for food
for the rabbits.

When I'd get back to Chelmno,

I'd go feed the rabbits.

- You'd go out rowing?
- That's right.

In a skiff, a boat.

- And you'd sing?
- That's right.

- You'd be ordered to sing?
- Come again?

Were you ordered to sing?

Yes, it was an order.

Did others have to sing as well?

No-one else sang.

You were the only one.

- One more time.
- The same one?

There's a little, white house

I still dream about

The windows

Of that little house

Shine strangely

In the sun

Like a pair of eyes

Full of tears

We couldn't film what had happened.

We had to re-enact it.

I had to grow delirious

and convince myself
nothing had changed.

Shoah cuts across the distance
between past and present.

I experienced the past
in the present.

Shoah

looks into the eyes
of the witnesses.

Cut.

The Shoah saga had started here,
in Israel,

six years earlier.

I came back here
for my final interviews.

I was almost out of film

and money to buy more.

I'd been filming non-stop

to the point of serious exhaustion.

Antek, come near me.

Antek had been second in command

leading the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Antek, a hero, was a drinker.

The kibbutz bureaucrats
didn't want me to talk to him.

I gave them my word I wouldn't.

Can you ask him to stand

next to you?

I only really started drinking
after the war.

When I climbed up
on the great tomb...

Claude wanted to know

how I felt.
If he could have licked my heart,

he would have tasted poison.

When that great injustice
was carried out

against the Jewish people

and when we look for symbols,

be it Antek,

be it Tsivia,

be it Morekhay Anilewic,

they're all heroes.

The hundreds of people

whose names have been lost,

not one of them
has written a book.

The little bit of hardship

that I'm facing now

is I'm making a movie

and I need human faces

to help tell the story.

The question to ask is:

what good can it do,

this documentary?

I survived millions.

All around me,

not looking,

are thousands.

Each one of them...

Ask yourself
if I wish to lose sight of the past.

Go on.

For example,

Hebrew peoples,

millions of them were sacrificed

at Treblinka,

Sobibor,

Auschwitz.

I've always felt haunted
by the ones

who died alone,

far from anyone.

I wanted the film
to bring them back to life

only to kill them a second time,

but we would die with them

so they wouldn't die alone.

SHOAH TOOK 12 YEARS TO MAKE.
THE 9.5-HOUR FILM

WAS FIRST SCREENED
IN APRIL OF 1985.

IN 2023, SHOAH
WAS ADDED TO UNESCO'S

MEMORY OF THE WORLD REGISTER
FOR ITS VITAL DOCUMENTATION.

Subtitle translation: Timothy Stone