Shoah: An Oral History of the Holocaust Claude Lanzmann
When it comes to the Holocaust, filmmakers document unspeakable atrocities not to shock or to titillate. They do it because the humanity that speaks and cries out is overpowering. And while I haven't yet watched the documentary Shoah, at least I can say I have read the monologues and dialogues that are featured in the film. Here there is no question that the humanity is clearly present, lingering amidst all the tragedy.
Shoah the book recounts the conditions of the ghettos and the extermination camps during World War II as experienced by those who survived. Words like Treblinka, Auschwitz, Chelmno, Sobibor, Belzec, Kolo, and Wlodawa preface each speaker, depending on the situation they are describing. There are also passages as relayed by some of the Nazi officers who are either in denial as to their complicity in the massacres, or seek to elicit pity due to their alleged ignorance of the conditions surrounding them.
The adaptation is by Claude Lanzmann, who pieces together the interviews in such a way as to develop a rhythm. That the text is so narrative is a direct reflection on Lanzmann's skill for questioning. The preface, by literary feminist Simone de Beauvoir, alludes to arias and leitmotifs, which is a picture-perfect description of the composition of the chronicle.
The weight of the material is unavoidable. For every reminder that the interviewee did indeed survive, there are overwhelming recounts of the thousands and millions that did not. Yet, because their stories are so descriptive and precise, there is a slight relief that their plights at least did not go forgotten. For these survivors to relive and to relay their tales requires formidable courage. A passage comes to mind, as told by Filip Müller, who was one of the "special detail" Jews, which is to say the Germans kept him alive within the Concentration Camp because of his skill at a particular trade (in his case, crematorium detail). Müller was so despondent that he entered a gas chamber of his own will, but a Czech stopped him, saying: "Your death won't give us back our lives. That's no way. You must get out of here alive, you must bear witness to our suffering, and to the injustice done to us." That Müller can even find the words to convey this traumatic experience is amazing.
And yet, many of the passages are eloquent, which is an admittedly unusual choice of word, but in this case seems apt. All the more harrowing are some of the methods employed by the Germans to execute "the Perfect Solution" to exterminate the Jews. One particularly disturbing paragraph chronicles how the Germans, by confiscating all of the personal property and belongings of the Jews that they captured, were able to finance the third party transportation to and from the camps (full trains going there, empty ones coming back). In effect, the Jews themselves "had to pay for their death".
Shoah is so graphic, that at times I had to put the book down. I can only imagine how powerful the movie is. And I could never imagine how much pain and suffering its subjects were forced to go through. However, those unspeakable atrocities are spoken and, fortunately, remain firmly entrenched in the reader's mind long afterwards.
