us-005578-irn1003913
has end date: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/dates/1985-12-31
scope and content: Siegmunt Forst escaped Vienna and moved to New York after the war broke out. He talks about his dealings with Rabbi Michael Weissmandel, a Slovakian Jew who tried desperately to tell the world what was happening to the European Jews. Weissmandel begged American Jewish leaders and others for money with which to bribe the Nazis. Lanzmann is interested in the individual and collective choices about whether to resist and/or to rescue, and in this interview and others he clearly views Weissmandel as an important figure. FILM ID 3119 -- Camera Rolls #12,14,15,17 -- 01:00:02 to 01:38:00 Lanzmann asks Forst about when he first met Rabbi Michael Weissmandel. Forst explains that he did some calligraphy for a book that Weissmandel was publishing. He describes Weissmandel at length. Rabbi Weissmandel saw as early as 1938 that Hitler would take over Europe. He met with the Archbishop of Canterbury several times and tried to convince him to use his contacts with the Canadian government to allow Jews to emigrate there. Forst, a Viennese Jew, moved to New York shortly before the war broke out. As events in Europe progressed, letters and appeals for money from Weissmandel were read aloud in Forst's synagogue. [CLIP 1 BEGINS] Forst met Weissmandel again after the war when the rabbi came to Williamsburg. He was a completely broken man. Forst visited Weissmandel, who told him story after story about his experiences, which Forst found overwhelming. As an example, Forst tells the story of when Weissmandel jumped out of a train bound for Auschwitz, leaving his wife and children behind because they refused to come with him. Forst mentions that six months before his deportation Weissmandel publicized plans of Auschwitz that he obtained from two escapees. Forst further describes Weissmandel's manner when he met him after the war. Weissmandel saw Forst as a representative of those people who knew what was happening to the Jews, but simply went about their own business and did nothing. Forst s…
identifier: irn1003913
has beginning date: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/dates/1985-01-01
has record set type: Item
has or had holder: us-005578
note: Siegmunt Forst is in SHOAH (1985). The parts of his interview in the final release are not available at USHMM. 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.
title: Siegmunt Forst
has or had identifier: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/units/us-005578-irn1003913/alternateIDs/2
has or had some members with language: eng
type: RecordSet
note: Staff-curated clips include: Clip 1, Film ID 3119, 01:24:02 - 01:37:32 Clip 2, Film ID 3121, 03:11:13 - 03:26:02
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.
date: November 1978
has or had identifier: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/units/us-005578-irn1003913/alternateIDs/1