us-005578-irn1003914
type: RecordSet
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. Leib Garfunkel (January 1, 1896 - September 7, 1976), also known as Leyb Gorfinkel, was an advocate, journalist, and political figure. He was a widely respected figure in Kovno's Jewish community. Before the war, he was general secretary of the Jewish National Council of Lithuanian Jewry, a member of the Kovno municipal council, a member of the Lithuanian parliament, and first editor of Die Yiddishe Stimme (The Jewish Voice) and Dos Wort (The Word). A So…
date: February 1976
has beginning date: 1985-01-01
has end date: 1985-12-31
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 1
has or had identifier: 2
has or had some members with language: eng
has record set type: Item
identifier: irn1003914
note: Staff-curated clips include: Film ID 3129 from 05:05:59 to 05:14:35.
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.
note: Sound quality is poor, due to low volume and ambient noise from the positioning of the microphone (papers rattling, clothing, phone ringing). It is also difficult to understand Garfunkel due to his age.
scope and content: Leib Garfunkel describes the Kovno ghetto, where he was vice-chairman of the Jewish council, and the Aktion of October 1941, during which 9,200 Jews were murdered at the Ninth Fort. This was the first interview that Lanzmann conducted for Shoah and Garfunkel died one week after it was filmed. FILM ID 3125 -- Camera Rolls #1-3 -- 01:00:18 to 01:21:29 No sound until 01:05:32. Irena Steinfeldt, Lanzmann's assistant, reads passages from Garfunkel's book. Garfunkel talks about the first meeting between the Kovno Gestapo and representatives of the Jewish population. He tells of the Germans entering Kovno and the two large pogroms where between 5000 and 6000 Jews were killed. Garfunkel speaks about his dealings with Franz Stahlecker, commander of Einsatzgruppe A, who promised that nothing would happen to the Jews once they were concentrated in the ghetto. There is no sound starting at 01:17:41 through the end of the tape. FILM ID 3126 -- Camera Rolls #4-6 -- 02:00:10 to 02:22:54 Garfunkel describes the ghettoization process and the difficulties associated with moving 30,000 people into the ghetto. He explains that some Jews gave up their valuables to the Germans and the Lithuanian collaborators because they hoped that they could buy their freedom this way. Part of the dialogue is inaudible. Irena Steinfeldt reads a passage from Garfunkel's book about the creation of the Judenrat and the dramatic election of Dr. Elkhanan Elkes as"Oberjude" FILM ID 3127 -- Camera Rolls #7,8,8/2 -- 03:00:05 to 03:22:24 Steinfeldt reads a moving letter written by Dr. Elkes to two of his children living in England. Garfunkel talks of the danger of having a radio in the ghetto but says that the Jews managed to get news despite their isolation. For example, the Jews in the ghetto knew about the fall of Mussolini, but had to hide their excitement so that the Germans would not become suspicious. Steinfeldt reads from Garfunkel's book about the distribution of Lebensscheine, [life certificates] to t…
title: Leib Garfunkel - Ghetto Kovno