Shoah (French Edition) (Hardcover)

by Claude Lanzmann (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes
Text: French

Product Details

• Hardcover: 220 pages
• Publisher: Fayard (1985)
• Language: French
• ISBN-10: 2213016127
• ISBN-13: 978-2213016122
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,629,350 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

105 of 108 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful, devastating testimony, June 29, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Shoah (4pc) [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I saw Shoah on PBS around the mid-80's and have never forgotten the experience. The documentary was shown in weekly installments. At first, I was just curious, but then I was drawn by the powerful testimony I was witnessing. I remember that while watching the last installments, I was weeping over the depravity and evil that was discussed by the aged survivors. At that time I was a Staff Sergeant with 15 years military service. We are tempted to turn away from the horrendous images and ignore the Holocaust as an anomaly or as something best left in the past. We want to move on. But listening to the stories and watching the faces of the survivors I knew that I must listen very carefully. I must not miss one moment of their testimony. Neither can you. Listen, watch, and learn what evil men can do to fellow man. It's a long, long film but it must be seen in its entirety.

67 of 71 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Immensely powerful! Required viewing on the Holocaust., November 18, 2002

By	M. D Roberts (Gwent, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Shoah (4pc) [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Immensely powerful, disturbing, accurate and heart-rending. The most absorbing production relating to the Holocaust that I have seen.

Here the horrors of the Holocaust are presented by real people in real time. Holocaust survivors, their captors, torturers & executioners are all interviewed on camera.

Any detachment that the reader might have felt in reading books on the subject is destroyed as everything comes to life before your eyes. To actually see apparently 'ordinary' human beings who were responsible for such atrocities, speak about these events with such 'matter of fact', carefree abandon makes one's blood run cold.

This footage is all the more real to me, having personally visited most of the concentration camps referred to and having seen at first hand what is being referred to. Nevertheless, this footage will shock even the most hardened viewer & educate the least informed amongst us on the subject. It really is a 'must view' on the Holocaust.

It is quite lengthy, some 9 hours in all & with subtitles, yet this does not diminish from it's veracity and impact. It is such a shame that this production is not required viewing in our schools. We all need to be educated about this period in our not so recent history, before it happens again.

Recommended.

42 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Documentary of Immense Power, September 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Shoah (4pc) [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Lanzmann has fashioned a documentary that should be required viewing in every modern European history class, despite its length. Eschewing archival footage from the '30s and '40s, Lanzmann presents the slaughter of European Jewry through the testimony of the survivors ... surviving inmates, surviving guards ... even surviving neighbors of Auschwitz, who claim to have been unsure just WHAT was going on. For me, the most affecting interview is that with the Jewish Auschwitz barber who tells of how, in a period of 10 minutes, he silently shaved the heads of his wife, best friend and best friend's wife just prior to them being gassed ... none saying a word, so the barber can survive and offer his testimony. I wish I could give this film SIX stars ...