Belzec
Creator(s)
- Claude Lanzmann (Director)
- 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 Belzec, Poland for SHOAH. Film ID 4707 -- Belzec 22-23 Gare. Camp Doubles, Chutes Bte 22 Camp Travelling down a road, trees on either side. Train tracks. Road leads to a metal gate. (1.57) “1942-1943” on the gate. (2.19) Driving down the same road as before, this time getting a clear view of a sign on the right that says “Do Bylego Obozu Zaglady” [to the extermination camp.] Sign includes shield with two swords. (4.41) Railroad tracks and large piles of chopped wood in the BG, CUs. (5.21) Train tracks and old train cars (not on the tracks but beside them). Path of the tracks and the surrounding area. Sequence repeats several times. (6.42) A black locomotive with red details. A flock of ducks waddles around. (7.35) A railroad switch and the track’s divergent path. (8.22) Train goes by. (9.18) Side view of piles of wood. (9.37) A sandy, hilly area. Camera moves several times to show the rest of the hill. (11.21) A walkway between two tall piles of wood. Film ID 4708 -- Belzec 22-23 Gare. Camp Doubles, Chutes Bte 23 Gare A low, teal colored building, with “Belzec” sign. (1.52) Train tracks and trains. People stand around. Station. (2.47) Smoke billows out as train pulls away from the station. (3.28) The Belzec sign. (4.06) A train moves past, smoke billowing from the locomotive. (4.39) Clapperboard: “Bob 95.” Another clapperboard: “Bel 1.” (4.49) A large garden in the countryside. Tracks and railcars. (6.48) The sides of railcars as they move. (7.38) The backs of locomotives, some with smoke coming out of them. (7.55) A flock of ducks standing next to the train tracks. (8.50) The Belzec sign, zooming out to show the train station. (9.09) Railcars moving by. (9.16) Locomotives. A train goes by.
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
- BELZEC
- RAILCARS
- POLAND
- TRAINS
- SHOAH (FILM)
- TRAIN STATIONS
- CONCENTRATION CAMPS
Places
- Belzec, Poland
Genre
- Outtakes.
- Film