Martha Michelsohn

Director Claude Lanzmann spent 11 years on this sprawling documentary about the Holocaust, conducting his own interviews and refusing to use a single frame of archival footage. Dividing Holocaust witnesses into three categories – survivors, bystanders, and perpetrators – Lanzmann presents testimonies from survivors of the Chelmno concentration camp, an Auschwitz escapee, and witnesses of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, as well as a chilling report of gas chambers from an SS officer at Treblinka.

Director Claude Lanzmann spent 11 years on this sprawling documentary about the Holocaust, conducting his own interviews and refusing to use a single frame of archival footage. This epic documentary changed the way we think about the Holocaust. Featuring interviews with survivors, bystanders, and perpetrators from across Europe, mostly Poland and Germany, Shoah is drawn from over 300 hours of contemporary conversations with these witnesses, along with footage of overgrown sites of unspeakable horrors, including the concentration camp at Auschwitz. The monumental film grew out of Lanzmann's concern that the genocide perpetrated only 40 years earlier was already being forgotten. In response, he relied entirely on accounts from witnesses, rather than historical footage or reenactments, sometimes resorting to hidden cameras or other deceptions to coax stories and memories from those with whom he spoke.