us-005578-irn1004372
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. In addition to his work as a musician, Aleksander Orlowski (1862-1932) was on the city council for the town of Oswiecim [Auschwitz] from 1909 onwards and had a role in building the bridge over the Sola River, the tram connection between the railroad station and the Oswiecim town center. He also helped to redistrict the Oswiecim-Brzezinka border so that the train station, which was named"Oswieci" even though it was actually built in the"Brzezink" township…
date: July 1978
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: pol
has or had some members with language: fra
has record set type: Item
identifier: irn1004372
note: Henryk Gawkowski 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: A rough translation of the Polish lyrics are: Verse 1 In the dark grave, sleep forever And we have to say goodbye to you shedding tears, shedding tears! Because you've headed to a far off land, Your remaining brothers are sending off prayers! Refrain: For a brief time say goodbye to us For in fact God will beckon us there For a brief time say goodbye to us For in fact God will beckon us there Verse 2: To God's throne we send prayers for you That eternal peace He may give you And that you have covered our hearts with grief Is testified to by our tears, oh, by these tears.
note: See also RG-60.5077 for interviews with Polish farmers and children in towns around Treblinka which likely took place around the same time as this interview with Gawkowski.
note: Staff-curated clips include: Clip 1, Film ID 3363, 02:10:49 - 02:31:52 Clip 2, Film ID 3364, 03:11:22 - 03:22:03 Clip 3, Film ID 3365, 04:11:12 - 04:22:25 Clip 4, Film ID 3367, 06:22:32 - 06:30:20 Clip 5, Film ID 3368, 07:00:07 - 07:10:25
scope and content: Henryk Gawkowski was a locomotive conductor at the Treblinka station and estimates that he transported approximately 18,000 Jews to the camp. He drank vodka all the time because it was the only way to make bearable his job and the smell of burning corpses. He describes the black market and the prostitution that developed around the camp. This interview also includes conversations with several other Polish witnesses who were railway workers. FILM ID 3362 -- Camera Rolls #4-7 -- 01:00:00 to 01:13:26 Gawkowski and a Polish choir sing"W mogile ciemnej ?pij na wieki" a Gregorian-chant style funeral march written by Aleksander Orlowski, in a church accompanied by an organ. FILM ID 3363 -- Camera Rolls #8-10 -- 02:00:00 to 02:31:52 CR8 Gawkowski explains his job as an assistant machinist/conductor on the locomotive. He went to Treblinka three times a week. Initially he transported gravel, after the creation of Treblinka he transported Jews. He tells how he would push the rail cars into the camp. He transported Jews from many different cities (talks of Bialystok and Warsaw). 02:10:49 CR9 Gawkowski describes the loading of the Jews from the Warsaw ghetto onto the trains (not the Umschlagsplatz). He personally drove approximately 15-20 convoys, with 60 cars per convoy, 120-200 people per car, with an estimated total of 18,000 people, into Treblinka. It was required that German Gestapo accompany each transport. He says he transported Jews from France, Greece, Holland and Yugoslavia into the camp; his first transport was of Greek Jews. 02:22:05 CR10 Gawkowski talks about the first transport he drove, a convoy of Greek Jews. He recalls that it was passenger train, not a cargo train, and that they were accompanied by the German police, not the Gestapo. He knew what their fate was going to be, so while passing part of the train, he made a gesture (of slicing the neck) to let them know. They understood and it caused an uproar on the train. People started trying to get off the train…
title: Henryk Gawkowski and Treblinka railway workers