“They were stacked like wood.” This is how the Nazis disposed of thousands of Jewish bodies in the Holocaust.
“They fell out like potatoes.” This is how the Jews looked as hundreds simultaneously tumbled out of gas chambers.
“They cried like old women.” This is how Jewish prisoners who were forced to work at Auschwitz and Treblinka reacted to seeing their dead families and friends.
And these are the words from the Devil’s mouth himself, a Nazi officer confessing to documentarian Claude Lanzmann the horror he perpetrated and the repulsive stench of the camps that still lingers in his nostrils.
This is one of the more powerful moments from “Shoah,” the most pivotal film ever made about the Holocaust.
Nearly 10 hours in length and mostly subtitled, “Shoah” proved to be the roughest, most demanding cinematic marathon of my life.
It is a harrowing, torturous documentary made by a ruthless director, French born director Claude Lanzmann.
Lanzmann asks tough questions, paints horrid visuals through testimonials alone and educates to an unspeakable degree. For Lanzmann, the purpose of “Shoah” is to document everything that surrounds the Holocaust to serve as a chilling reminder of our dark history. Continue reading “Shoah (1985)”