Theresienstadt and Prague
Creator(s)
- Claude Lanzmann (Director)
- William Lubtchansky (Camera Operator)
- Claude Lanzmann
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
Scope and Content
Location filming in and around Terezin and Prague, Czechoslovakia for SHOAH. FILM ID 3765 -- (White 48) Theresienstadt Ville et Crematoire The town of Terezin nearly deserted except for a few people in the streets. 02:44 Group of soldiers and a large blue bus in the street. Street signs "Litomerice, 3; Usti, 28; Praha, 59." Public parks, passing trucks, pedestrians. 11:22 A public square from above and clapperboard with "Bob 50" written on it. Terezin from an upstairs window. Children playing in a park. 13:15 "Bobine 49, Lubchansky Terezin." Street views. 16:00 A wooden tower can be seen over a fence. Train tracks, memorial in the shape of a menorah. The crematorium next to the cemetery. Views of the ovens inside the crematorium. 20:16 Views of the city from outside the crematorium. 22:06 "Bobine 47, Lubchansky Terezin." Street scenes, mostly deserted. CU of railroad tracks. 26:04 Sign next to the tracks reads "Krematorium Terezin." Park views, a bus passes by. Camera approaches a building marked "15 KSC, Prislusnici, Csla, Cestne, Splni, Zavery, Xv, Sjezou, Ksc," a soldier guards the door. More street scenes. 32:53 Same view of the public square from above. A hand cuts in front of the camera. 33:36 Sunset. 34:18 Public square from the ground. Street scenes and views of buildings in the town of Terezin. FILM ID 4625 -- (White 47) Prague
Note(s)
The original camera negative was stored in a can labeled: "Theresienstadt - Negatif pour TC plaus 21-22-23-24 / Rendre au Montage Negatif / LTC 6-1-97". Refer to Film and Video Archive files for more information.
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
- MEMORIALS
- CHILDREN
- SHOAH (FILM)
- SIGNS/POSTERS
- TRAINS
- PARKS
- SOLDIERS/MILITARY
- CONCENTRATION CAMPS
- CEMETERIES
- STREETS
- THERESIENSTADT (TEREZIN)
- CREMATORIA
- PARKS
Places
- Terezin, Czechoslovakia
- Prague, Czechoslovakia
Genre
- Film
- Outtakes.