us-005578-irn1004241
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.
date: 1978-1981 (Tournage en Pologne)
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: Silent
has or had some members with language: pol
has or had some members with language: fra
has record set type: Item
identifier: irn1004241
note: Lanzmann states in his notes that he used very little of this interview, and that it is"first class"
note: Jan Piwonski 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.
note: The clapper reads"Glasber" throughout. Glasberg was one of Lanzmann's cameramen. Staff-curated clips include: Clip 1, Film ID 3340, 02:00:23 - 02:09:22 Clip 2, Film ID 3343, 05:00:12 - 05:11:15
scope and content: Jan Piwonski gives a detailed description of the extermination process at Sobibor. He also provides a harrowing account of the brutal treatment the Jews received in the process of building the camp. He could hear the screams of the victims from his home three kilometers from the camp. Lanzmann quizzes him about relations between the Poles and the Jews. Piwonski says that the Poles were surprised by the Jews' lack of resistance. FILM ID 3339 -- Camera Rolls #7-8 -- 01:00:08 to 01:18:05 Lanzmann and Piwonski are seated outside on a bench in front of a small building speaking through translator Barbara Janicka. (For Lanzmann's reflections on working with Barbara and the accuracy of her translations, see pgs. 481 - 482 of the English translation of his memoir The Patagonian Hare.) On the building is the word"Sobibo" on a sign above the door. Lanzmann asks Piwonski if he is alright, to which he answers that he is fine, though he is a bit stressed. They begin the interview, learning that the building (assumedly a train station) was there since 1938 and has not changed, nor have the few buildings in the vicinity. Piwonski tells that he worked track maintenance beginning in the spring of 1942, and became an assistant switchman by July of that year, working in the building in front of which they are currently seated. Piwonski says that he could see everything that went on from the building's window, including the main gate with"Arbeit Macht Fre" and the SS logo. He begins to talk about how the camp began when he is cut off by Lanzmann, who cuts the camera. 01:06:50 Piwonski begins to tell Lanzmann about the beginnings of the camp in 1942, but prefaces his comments by saying that he never kept a diary or notes, but he believes the Germans first brought a group of Jewish workers early in March of 1942. They were housed in one of the buildings (that they are sitting near) because the camps were not yet built. The Jewish workers would unload trains of materials, carrying them on…
title: Jan Piwonski - Sobibor