A nine-and-a-half-hour documentary on the Nazi extermination camps, Shoah (the Hebrew word for "Holocaust") was internationally hailed as a masterpiece upon its release in 1985. Shunning any re-creation, archival footage, or visual documentation of the events, filmmaker Claude Lanzmann relied on the words of witnesses--Jewish, Polish, and German--to describe in ruthless detail the bureaucratic machinery of the Final Solution, so that the remote experiences of the Holocaust became fresh and immediate. This book presents in an accessible and vivid format the testimony of survivors, participants, witnesses, and scholars. This tenth anniversary edition, published on the fiftieth anniversary of the liberation of the camps, is newly revised and corrected in order to more accurately present the actual testimony of those interviewed. Shoah is an unparalleled oral history of the Holocaust, an intensely readable journey through the twentieth century's greatest horror.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 3.0 / 5.0
Broad-Based but Rather Superficial: Corrections Provided:
This book includes interviews with Jewish sonderkommando survivors of Auschwitz, Polish peasants, Jan Karski (the legendary Polish Underground courier who tried in vain to warn the world about the Holocaust), Holocaust historian Raul Hillberg, a German official at Treblinka, and others. Lanzmann should have examined fewer topics, and done so more thoroughly and objectively. He used only 9.5 hours out of 350 hours of taping, making one wonder what he left out. His work comes across as anti-Polish.... more info
NOT LEGALLY CLASSIFIED AS DOCUMENTARY:
Lanzmann's put together his own 'triumph of the will" here. He could teach Goebbels a thing or two on propaganda or seriously cutting stories/tape together to fit his anti-Polish hate film, not documentary. This whole book is filled with storiesthat have been super-embellished from the originals. Sensationalizing sells. Lanzman does not care who he defames in this hate book; very, very upsetting - don't bother.
This book saved my butt!:
I am a Cinema major at San Francisco State University, and one of the classes I'm in right now is "Film and the Holocaust." We watched Shoah in that class, and the final exam is based solely on that film. This book, which is a transcript of the entire film, word-for-word, is a CRUCIAL study aid for me. I don't know what I would have done without it. Thank you Claude Lanzmann for making this book availible to the public!!!!! Shoah: The Complete Text of the Acclaimed Holocaust Film
Good to use in schools.:
Very powerful book. You will not need to see the film, although together they pack an emotional punch that will take you a long time to put behind you.
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