us-005578-irn1004168
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
date: April-May 1979
has beginning date: 1985-01-01
has end date: 1985-12-31
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 2
has or had identifier: 1
has or had some members with language: fra
has record set type: Item
identifier: irn1004168
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: See RG-60.4915 on USHMM Film ID 2891 for"Un Vivant Qui Pass" "A Visitor from the Livin"] containing an additional hour of the interview with Rossel that Lanzmann recorded for SHOAH. The following segments of the Rossel interview are incorporated into the"State of Deceptio" special exhibition about Nazi propaganda at the USHMM: 03:04:12 to 03:07:23 of Camera Roll 8 on Film ID 3250 05:02:22 to 05:03:05 of Camera Roll 15 on Film ID 3252
note: Staff-curated clips include: Clip 1, Film ID 3248, 01:22:41 - 01:33:54 Clip 2, Film ID 3249, 02:00:12 - 02:11:21 Clip 3, Film ID 3249, 02:11:28 - 02:23:10 Clip 4, Film ID 3250, 03:00:18 - 03:11:24 Clip 5, Film ID 3250, 03:11:31 - 03:22:42 Clip 6, Film ID 3250, 03:22:49 - 03:34:03 Clip 7, Film ID 3251, 04:27:42 - 04:34:00 Clip 8, Film ID 3252, 05:01:32 - 05:03:38
scope and content: As a representative of the Swiss Red Cross in 1944, Maurice Rossel was asked to inspect Theresienstadt. He admits that he gave Theresienstadt a clean bill of health and would probably do so again today. He was also given a tour of Auschwitz, which he did not realize was a death camp. Lanzmann's questioning points to the degree to which Rossel and others were manipulated by the Nazis and to what extent they were willing to be fooled because of their own politics and prejudices. This interview is the basis of Lanzmann's 1999 documentary"A Visitor from the Livin" [Un vivant qui passe]. FILM ID 3248 -- Camera Rolls #1,2,3 -- 01:00:12 to 01:33:53 Dr. Rossel is seated in a chair in what appears to be his library, with Lanzmann facing him, back to the camera (when he is on-screen). There are frequent audio problems, with the microphone and also with off-screen distractions. Dr. Rossel explains that beginning in 1942, he was with the International Red Cross, choosing to work for them rather than be in the Swiss army. He was in Berlin with a handful of other Swiss. He stresses that the POW camps were much different than the camps for civilian internees. Statistics for survival in the different camps are mentioned. For POWs, he says that the Germans abided by the Geneva conventions. He explains the purpose of the International Red Cross versus the national versions. He also condemns the Swiss Red Cross for picking sides, sending help only to the Germans on the eastern front. 01:12:15 Dr. Rossel discusses the stance of the Swiss people during the war, saying that they feared communism more than Hitler. He talks about how they would get German military escorts to take them to the camp and guide them to the proper people within each camp. His was a major who often brandished his war medals in order to get what was necessary. He had to talk to the elected leader of the prisoners, as well as a leader of the officers. They moved into a house owned by a German actress, which was won…
title: Maurice Rossel - Red Cross