us-005578-irn1003910
has or had identifier: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/units/us-005578-irn1003910/alternateIDs/2
has or had holder: us-005578
note: Staff-curated clips include: Clip 1, Film ID 3105, 03:04:25 - 03:13:37 Clip 2, Film ID 3106, 04:25:20 - 04:26:06 Clip 3, Film ID 3106, 04:02:47 - 04:19:51 Clip 4, Film ID 3108, 02:00:10 - 02:04:06 Clip 5, Film ID 3108, 02:06:16 - 02:10:30 Paula Biren appears in"Shoah" Interview segments that appear in the final film are NOT available at the USHMM. The Claude Lanzmann Shoah Collection at the USHMM contains only the outtakes from the film. Outtakes are sections of a movie that are filmed but not used in the final version.
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 Patagoni" (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 Some women central to the production of"Shoa" (1985) include Hebrew interpreter, Francine Kaufmann; Polish interpreter, Barbra Janicka; Yiddish interpreter, Mrs. Apflebaum; assistant directors, Corinna Coulmas and Irena Steinfeldt; editors, Ziva Postec and Anna Ruiz; and assistant editor, Yael Perlov. Paula Biren was born Pawa Sara Szmajer on Apr. 7, 1922, in Łódź, Poland. She moved into the Łódź ghetto in 1940 and lived there until her deportation to Auschwitz concentration camp in Aug. 1944. In Oct. 1944, she was transferred to a subcamp of Auschwitz where she was imprisoned until Dec. 1944. After World War II, Paula spent two months in the spring of 1946 in a displaced persons camp in Berlin, Germany, and then moved to the Zeilsheim DP camp in …
title: Paula Biren
has end date: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/dates/1985-12-31
has or had identifier: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/units/us-005578-irn1003910/alternateIDs/1
has record set type: Item
has beginning date: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/dates/1985-01-01
type: RecordSet
date: Winter 1978-1979
scope and content: Paula Biren was a young Jewish woman living in Łódź, Poland when the Germans invaded in 1939. She survived the Łódź ghetto and Auschwitz. In her interview with Claude Lanzmann, Biren describes the occupation of Łódź, ghettoization, the children's Aktion of September 1942, and her deportation to Auschwitz. FILM ID 3105 -- Camera Rolls #1-4 -- 03:00:09 to (03:00:09) Biren and Lanzmann are seated outdoors. Lanzmann begins the interview by asking her to start at the beginning, the moment the Germans entered Łódź, what her feelings were, and if she knew at that time what would be at stake. She says that they knew that the city would be invaded but that it was a surprise anyway. The city had prepared for an invasion earlier that summer and Biren was part of a group that helped dig anti-tank ditches. She describes the blackouts and planes flying over the city as well as the general feeling of panic. (03:04:25) [CLIP 1 BEGINS] Lanzmann asks Biren if she had a premonition of the fate of the Jews. Biren says that they did have an idea because they listened to the radio broadcasts and knew what was happening to the Jews in Germany but that they hoped it wouldn't happen in Łódź. She talks about the antisemitism in Łódź, the surprise at the swift occupation of the city by the Germans, and the reaction of the city's Polish population once the Germans arrived. Biren notes the Polish reaction to the anti-Jewish decrees, the beatings of Jews, and the confiscation of Jewish property by their Polish neighbors. She recalls having to wear the yellow star and how she didn't want to wear it. She tells Lanzmann that the Germans could not identify who was and who was not Jewish, but that their Polish neighbors knew who the Jews were and often pointed them out to the Germans. Jews, particularly men, were publicly humiliated. She describes the beginning of food rationing and how Jews were pulled out of bread lines by the Germans and by Polish youth [CLIP 1 ENDS]. Sometimes the Poles were even…
identifier: irn1003910
has or had some members with language: eng
note: 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 masterpiec" and a"monument against forgetting" The Claude Lanzmann SHOAH Collection consists of roughly 185 hours of interview outtakes and 35 hours of location filming.