European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - March 1, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Testimony to Man s inhumanity stories by Christopher Wienandt staff writer Ore than 40 years after the end of world War ii it is still impossible to comprehend More than 6 million jews were exterminated by nazi Germany. Auschwitz Treblinka sob ibor Bergen Belsen Maidanek Dachau. Concentration Camps. Death Camps. A Litany of horror and despair. For Many people the names the facts the statistics seem to have grown cold with familiarity. They have lost Force except of course for those who endured the holocaust. For them the memory is indelible. But for most people they Are no More than names facts statistics. Impersonal. That is the problem French director Claude Lanzman grapples with in Shoah a 91/a-hour documentary film of interviews with survivors and perpetrators of the nazi holocaust. It was distilled from 350 hours of material filmed in seven languages Between 1976 and 1981 All told Lanzman spent 12 years working on the project. The German premiere was during the just concluded International Berlin film festival. The film was shown in Paris and new York last year. Shoah a hebrew word for darkness destruction catastrophe does not Deal with documents statistics. It deals with humanity. Here Are not words from books Mere paper and Ink. Here Are jews who saw their friends their relatives sent to Gas Chambers. Here Are germans who sent them. Lanzman has assembled a remarkable collection of witnesses whom he prods to Tell their stories one of two survivors of the 400,000 people sent to the death t hey Are people just like anyone , fathers. Housewives business people professors journalists. They live their lives like anyone else eating working sleeping. But they Are not like everyone else. These people residents of the Washington Heights Section of new York City Are jewish survivors of nazi Germany. They have seen what few have seen experienced what few have experienced. In his film we were so beloved part of the International forum of new films at the International Berlin film festival Manfred Kirchheimer looks at these people his friends his neighbors his family. In two hours of interviews they speak from their special perspective As survivors of nazism. But they turn out to be As Kirchheimer acknowledges people just like anyone else. At least in nazi Germany before Hitler s Campaign of anti semitism they were they thought just like anyone else. Kirchheimer s subjects say they were Good patriotic germans. They were not segregated into ghettos or even into jewish neighbourhoods like Washington Heights. They were simply germans. Henrik Rawkowski in his locomotive at Treblinka where he Camp at Chemno Poland survivors of Auschwitz and Treblinka an is officer at Treblinka the German Railroad official responsible for operating the trains that carried the jews to their extermination in Poland. A Barber in Tel Aviv who at Treblinka was forced to Cut the hair of incoming jews on their Way to the Gas chamber tells How a fellow Barber was forced to Cut off the hair of his wife and children knowing they were on their Way to the Gas chamber knowing that he too would be sent there if he told them. The Railroad official details How the trains to the death Camps operated and denies knowing what happened to the jews once they were unloaded from the trains. An american professor explains that the transport of the jews to the extermination Camps was arranged through a travel Agency the same one that arranged pleasure trips for German citizens. Because of the great volume of jewish passengers he says the German government which paid for the transportation with Money confiscated from the jews received special group rates a nazi schoolteacher s wife asked if she knows How Many jews were exterminated at Chemno answers in confusion something with four in it. 400,000? 40,000?" four Hundred thousand Lanzman tells her. I was sure about the four she says. Unlike most other documentaries Shoah does not use pictures from the death Camps to reinforce what its witnesses say. Their riveting testimony is shocking enough. Instead Lanzman takes the audience to modern Chemno to modern Treblinka to ride the trains into the same stations from which jews were herded into the Camps to View the scene from inside boxcars the same boxcars Lanzman says that brought the jews to their deaths. Throughout its 9v2 hours Shoah avoids making explicit judgments. Its existence is in itself an implicit judgment. Length does not diminish the film s chilling Impact if anything it magnifies it. The film in four segments with its original soundtrack and German subtitles will be shown on various German third Channel to stations at different times Between March 1 and the end of april. That is the testimony of Kirchheimer s father who was fired from his Job As advertising director of a department store in Saa Brucken then rehired the next Day on the condition that he come to work by the service Entrance. That is the testimony of Kirchheimer s aunt Annie who was married to a Gentile who abandoned her so he could join the German army. That is the testimony of Max Frankel editorial Page editor of the new York times who recalls his disappointment at not being allowed to March in the Hitler youth like the other first graders in his school. These witnesses and others say they were too much German to see what was happening to them As jews. Many were so Blind to events that they failed to emigrate in time and landed in the death Camps. But it is in their daily lives that these longtime residents of Washington Heights show How truly they Are like anyone else. They Are suspicious of people who Don t conform who Aren t like them. The widow of Kirchheimer s rabbi tells How she and her husband were shunned for years by people they had considered friends for travelling on the Sabbath. A neighbor bemoans the decay of the neighbourhood All those puerto Picans moving in. Another says she doen t mind them living there As Long As they keep the neighbourhood clean. Kirchheimer realizes the irony of these statements. The persecuted of 50 years ago he acknowledges have assumed the attitudes of their persecutors. Perhaps the most haunting statement of the film comes from Bert Kirchheimer. If the situation had been different his son asks would he have had the courage to shelter people who were persecuted As the jews were no he answers. I would have been far too  truly this is a Man like any other. In a Way the film is an american Shoah an unusual testimony by survivors of one of the most notorious events of history. But few americans Are Likely Ever to see it. According to Kirchheimer the film will play in the United states mostly in Art cinemas in Large cities and perhaps at a few universities. The German television network Adf however will show the film and Kirchheimer is negotiating with the Independent Channel 4 in Britain. Saturday March 1, 1986 the stars and stripes Page 13