Shoah (1985)

**** out of ****. More if possible.

In a conversation with a friend earlier today I brought up the film “Shoah” and mentioned that, while not the most entertaining piece of celluloid in the world, I consider to be the most important film ever made. At 10 hours and 13 minutes it's also one of the longest, but it doesn't change the fact – the world is a better place because of it. That's a bold statement about a movie, but I am convinced it is true. Yet almost no-one knows about it, or they have forgotten about over the ensuing 30 years.

Shoah is a Hebrew word meaning “catastrophe”, and has become synonymous with the Holocaust. This film is a documentary about the methods and events of the extermination of  Jews under Nazi rule, specifically at the death camps at Chełmno, Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenau; and the Warsaw Ghetto. Of course there have been countless other pieces dedicated to the Holocaust, but this one is different and could never be repeated. There is no historical footage used. There aren't any photos of starved inmates. They don't show Nazi leaders or anything at all from the time it all occurred. That's why it is so impossibly special.

“Shoah” is all about experience. It is simply a series of interviews with people who were there, people who survived and people who participated in the death camps. It is a first hand account of what happened. The war has been over for close to 70 years now, which is why this film is so important. Hearing what these people had to say was crucial in ensuring that we remember, and can understand the horror.

Filmmaker Claude Lanzmann personally questions (often through translators) the witnesses, and at times he is brutal. Clearly determined to get everything possible from his subjects, he delves deeply into their experiences and asks them even the most personal and terrible questions. Many of the interviewees clearly never talk about the subject and are deeply uncomfortable, but in almost all cases they eventually give in and provide even the most wretched details Lanzmann asks for. And as horrible as their testimony often is, having it and seeing it is more important than anything else ever laid to film.

Sometimes what we hear is gut-wrenchingly horrible; sometimes it is so sad it tears at your heart. One witness, Abraham Bomba, was a barber at a death camp where his job was to cut off the hair of new arrivals that were going straight into the “showers”. He tells this story matter-of-factly, even when he describes seeing friends and neighbours come through. But Lansmann doesn't let it go at that - he presses on with, “How did that make you feel?” The poor man then drops all emotional walls and describes how it made him feel. He begs Lansmann to stop asking questions, but Lansmann replies, “You have to. I know it's hard, but you have to.”

There are many moments like this in “Shoah”. I generally want to watch a movie to be entertained, but Shoah is nothing less than a crucially important historical document. One of the men we see most frequently in Shoah is Simon Srebnik, a Polish Jew who as a boy was forced to use his lovely singing voice for German marching songs while he helped dispose of the burned bones of exterminated fellow inmates. And while he is present, we see him listen to modern-day Polish anti-semites suggest to the camera that the Jews deserved their fate, that the Holocaust was fair retribution for the killing of Jesus.

"Shoah" is not easy watching. Even more so that it is very hard to find in its entirety. But if you can, do so and then show it to as many people as you can. The Holocaust is the most horrible event ever perpetrated by humanity, and these people torture themselves just to bear witness to it. The least we can do is watch, listen, and respect. And know enough about the attitudes behind the Nazis to recognize them if they ever appear again.