Becher - Mount Kisco / Weissmandel
Creator(s)
- Claude Lanzmann
- Irena Steinfeldt (Assistant)
- Bernard Aubouy (Sound Engineer)
- Claude Lanzmann (Director)
- William Lubtchansky (Cinematographer)
- Dominique Chapuis (Cinematographer)
Biographical History
Claude Lanzmann was born in Paris to a Jewish family that immigrated to France from Eastern Europe. He attended the Lycée Blaise-Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand. His family went into hiding during World War II. He joined the French resistance at the age of 18 and fought in the Auvergne. Lanzmann opposed the French war in Algeria and signed a 1960 antiwar petition. From 1952 to 1959 he lived with Simone de Beauvoir. In 1963 he married French actress Judith Magre. Later, he married Angelika Schrobsdorff, a German-Jewish writer, and then Dominique Petithory in 1995. He is the father of Angélique Lanzmann, born in 1950, and Félix Lanzmann (1993-2017). Lanzmann's most renowned work, Shoah, is widely regarded as the seminal film on the subject of the Holocaust. He began interviewing survivors, historians, witnesses, and perpetrators in 1973 and finished editing the film in 1985. In 2009, Lanzmann published his memoirs under the title "Le lièvre de Patagonie" (The Patagonian Hare). He was chief editor of the journal "Les Temps Modernes," which was founded by Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, until his death on July 5, 2018. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/postscript/claude-lanzmann-changed-the-history-of-filmmaking-with-shoah
Some women central to the production of "Shoah" (1985) include Hebrew interpreter, Francine Kaufmann; Polish interpreter, Barbra Janicka; Yiddish interpreter, Mrs. Apflebaum; assistant directors, Corinna Coulmas and Irena Steinfeldt; editors, Ziva Postec and Anna Ruiz; and assistant editor, Yael Perlov.
Scope and Content
An Orthodox Jew affiliated with Weissmandel's Yeshiva in Mount Kisco in New York, Mr. Becher talks about Rabbi Weissmandel, the "Blood for Goods" and other rescue efforts, and the Orthodox prohibition on violent resistance. FILM ID 3820 – Camera Rolls NY 82-87 -- Becher NY 82 Mr. Becher explains that Rabbi Weissmandel was the first person to explore the idea of bribing the Nazis in order to save the Jews. Rabbi Weissmandel began rescuing Jews from Slovakia in 1942. Religious Jews were opposed to the ban on German goods initiated by Rabbi Stephen Wise in 1933. Becher says Jews were religiously opposed to displays of force against Germans and the Jews living in Germany. 10:21 NY 84,85,86 Becher claims that the boycott of Germany and Rabbi Wise's declarations of war in 1938 both contributed to the Holocaust. Zionist Jews in Palestine collaborated with the Nazis through the creation of the Haavara Agreement which permitted German Jews to immigrate to Palestine if they agreed to leave their belongings and money in Germany. Lanzmann asks Becher what he would have done, as an Orthodox Jew, if the Nazis had humiliated him the same way they did to many Orthodox Jews during the war. After Becher does not answer, Lanzmann asks if he thinks the war would have been different if Jews had weapons to resist. 21:35 NY 87,89,90 Becher discusses the differences between the holidays Chanukah and Purim. According to Becher, Jews can only fight back when their faith is in danger, and the Nuremberg laws persecuted Jews personally, rather than the religion of Judaism. FILM ID 3821 – Camera Rolls NY 88,89,90 -- Coupes NY 88 Must, LS Lanzmann and Becher talking in the street, CUs. Becher walking along the road. FILM ID 3822 – Camera Rolls NY 91 -- Coupes NY 91 Becher thinks that the Diaspora has made it impossible for Judaism to be wiped out. Weissmandel was able to negotiate for the rescue of Slovakian Jews by convincing the Nazis that if they happened to lose the war, allowing some Jews out would help their image. Nazi SS official Dieter Wisliceny agreed for the price of $50,000 USD to divert several of the transports going to Poland.
Note(s)
Claude Lanzmann spent twelve years locating survivors, perpetrators, and eyewitnesses for his nine and a half hour film Shoah released in 1985. Without archival footage, Shoah weaves together extraordinary testimonies to render the step-by-step machinery of the destruction of European Jewry. Critics have called it "a masterpiece" and a "monument against forgetting." The Claude Lanzmann SHOAH Collection consists of roughly 185 hours of interview outtakes and 35 hours of location filming.
Subjects
- DEPORTATIONS
- RESISTERS/RESISTANCE
- ORTHODOX JEWS
- PALESTINE
- YESHIVAS
- SLOVAKIA
- JEWS
- RESCUERS/RESCUE
- HOLIDAYS (HANNUKAH)
- BOYCOTTS
- ZIONISTS/ZIONISM
- WEISSMANDEL, MICHAEL DOV
- WISE, RABBI STEPHEN
- SHOAH (FILM)
Places
- New York, NY, United States
Genre
- Film
- Outtakes.