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Shoah [DVD] [1985] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

Simon Srebnik (Actor), Michael Podchlebnik (Actor), Claude Lanzmann (Director) | Format: DVD
4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)

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Region 1 encoding (requires a North American or multi-region DVD player and NTSC compatible TV. More about DVD formats.)

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Product details

  • Actors: Simon Srebnik, Michael Podchlebnik, Motke Zaidl, Hanna Zaidl, Jan Piwonski
  • Directors: Claude Lanzmann
  • Writers: Claude Lanzmann
  • Format: Box set, Black & White, Colour, DVD-Video, Subtitled, NTSC
  • Language: English, French, German, Hebrew, Polish, Yiddish
  • Subtitles: English, French, Italian
  • Region: Region 1 (US and Canada DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3 - 1.37:1
  • Number of discs: 4
  • Classification: Unrated (US MPAA rating. See details.)
  • Studio: New Yorker Video
  • DVD Release Date: 7 Oct 2003
  • Run Time: 503 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B00005JM8V
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 259,227 in Film & TV (See Top 100 in Film & TV)

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Reviews

From Amazon.co.uk

To write a review of a film such as Shoah seems an impossible task: how to sum up one of the most powerful discourses on film in such a way as to make people realise that this is a documentary of immense consequence, a documentary that is not easy to watch but important to watch, a documentary that not only records the facts but bears witness. We are commanded "Never forget"; this film helps us to fulfil that mandate, reverberating with the viewer long after the movie has ended. Yes, Holocaust films are plentiful, both fictional and non-, with titles such as The Last Days, Schindler's List and Life Is Beautiful entering the mainstream. But this is not a film about the Holocaust per se; this is a film about people. It's a meandering, nine-and-a-half-hour film that never shows graphic pictures or delves into the political aspects of what happened in Europe in the 1930s and 40s but talks with survivors, with SS men, with those who witnessed the extermination of 6 million Jews.

Director Claude Lanzmann spent 11 years tracking people down, cajoling them into talking, asking them questions they didn't want to face. When soldiers refuse to appear on film, Lanzmann sneaks cameras in. When people are on the verge of breaking down and can't answer any more questions, Lanzmann asks anyway. He gives names to the victims--driving through a town that was predominantly Jewish before Hitler's time, a local points out which Jews owned what. Lanzmann travels the world, speaking to workers in Poland, survivors in Israel, officers in Germany. He is not a detached interviewer; his probings are deeply personal. One man farmed the land upon which Treblinka was built. "Didn't the screams bother you?" Lanzmann asks. When the farmer seems to brush the issues aside with a smile, Lanzmann's fury is noticeable. "Didn't all this bother you?" he demands angrily, only to be told, "When my neighbour cuts his thumb, I don't feel hurt." The responses, the details are difficult to hear but critical nonetheless. Shoahtells the story of the most horrifying event of the 20th century, not chronologically and not with historical detail, but in an even more important way: person by person. --Jenny Brown

Customer Reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars
21 reviews
4.8 out of 5 stars
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
114 of 117 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Memory is all 23 Jan 2007
By Mr. David C. Halliday TOP 500 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format:DVD
There have been many dramas and documentaries of what happened in the death camps of WWII but put altogether they would not cut as deeply or inform so completely as 'Shoah'.

Covering in particular Chelmno,(where Jews were 1st killed by gas in vans), to Treblinka, Auschwitz, Birkenau and the Warsaw ghetto Lanzemann does not embellish or re-enact anything, he simply films as survivors, perpertrators and bystanders all tell how they see what happened. I say see and not saw because many have convinced themselves of their own innocence by dismissing what happened. It is for this reason that 'Shoah' needs to be so long in running time, everyone has their own skewed perspective for whatever reason and it is only when enough evidence is gathered from so many differing sides and personalities that you can begin to see a little of what happened.

Bystanders who had rather seen the Jews returned to Israel but were glad to see them go nonetheless, guards "following orders" and a general apathy to one of humanities greatest crimes.

At over 9 hours this is a huge work and requires you to sit through heartbreaking interviews over and over again.

The truth is though that in a society where we are becoming jealous and resentful of those who are not us or do not believe what we do this account is a stark reminder of just how quickly and terribly humans can turn on each other on a massive scale if we allow ourselves to de-humanize others.

I love films but I cannot think of a single other that HAS to be seen. This is without peer and is essential.
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37 of 40 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Immensely powerful! Required viewing on the Holocaust. 18 Nov 2002
By A Customer VINE™ VOICE
Format:VHS Tape|Amazon Verified Purchase
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.

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36 of 40 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars the Finest Documentary 11 July 2005
By "steevo72"
Format:DVD
From the opening interviews right through to the train dissapearing into the distance at the end - this Documentary is the finest ever filmed. It brings together survivors and perpetrators and shows us moving images of the Camps in their present state (1985 - the time of the original release)
Mr Lanzmann is an unrelenting unstoppable interviewer.

One can never forget the Scenes of The Old Camp worker with his Pointing stick motioning proudly at his Diagram of Treblinka and the Train guard motioning that this would be the end of the line...

Recollections and accounts from guards survivors and civillians make this an incredible , engrossing film.

Shocking, Disturbing - this Film should be shown in every school studying this terrible era of History.

This documentary is Highly reccomended - I beleive it to be the greatest work of its type in the history of the world.

Take one viewing and Im sure you will agree.

Mr Lanzmann should be celebrated for such an incredible acheivement.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Shoah
This us an amazing film of the appalling attitudes of people that not only did these horrific acts but of those who allowed it to happen and did nothing. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Dr. Linda Helen
3.0 out of 5 stars Difficult to rate
Somehow I got an Italian version of this film so it's difficult to assess. No subtitles available. Does an English version exist?
Published 2 months ago by goneXC
5.0 out of 5 stars Shoah, A must-see documentary never to be forgotten
This box set is compulsive and compulsary viewing for everyone. I quote from Thuricides funeral speech to Pericles" For the whole earth is the tomb of brave men".
Published 5 months ago by Benny Wielandt
5.0 out of 5 stars Historical masterpiece of the 20th century
Up until this film no Nazi officer was recorded on tape or video confessing to the murders, neo nazis and deniers clung on to this point like leeches, Lanzmanns duping of the... Read more
Published 6 months ago by casio smith
3.0 out of 5 stars Maybe not quite the event claimed?
I have not seen this 9 hour long documentary until 2012 so some 30 odd years have passed since it was originally made and issued. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Siriam
5.0 out of 5 stars Shoah
As a history student, one that has concentrated on the first and second world wars, this documentary is up there with the World at War. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Mr. M. King
5.0 out of 5 stars Sad awful memories
Firstly Shoah is not a film of scenes of the Holocaust but a collection of short stories of individual peoples history and accounts of their survival of the Holocaust. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Munters
4.0 out of 5 stars History Captured
Along with most people, I have seen the awful, grisly photographs and video films of the Holocaust. However, this DVD set produced between 1980-85 does not contain any such... Read more
Published 18 months ago by JDE of Huntingdon
5.0 out of 5 stars Brutal and Beautiful
Shoah is brutal, beautiful, and absolutely important to watch. Not for the faint of heart, Lanzmann's nine-hour documentary focuses exclusively on the methods used to kill Jewish... Read more
Published on 8 Jan 2011 by Professor S
5.0 out of 5 stars Oral history
Very much an oral history with scenes of the deathcamps as they are today leaving your mind to fill in the images. Read more
Published on 27 Dec 2010 by G. H. Kennedy
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