Lanzmann 5

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None of the survivors in Shoah says "I". Nobody tells a personal  tale: the 
barber does not tell how after three months in the camp he escaped  from 
Treblinka, that didn't interest me and it didn't interest him. He says  "we", he 
speaks for the dead, he is their spokesman. As far as I am concerned: I  wanted 
to construct a form that acknowledged the generality of the people. It is  the 
reverse from Spielberg for whom the extermination is a setting: the blinding  
black sun of the holocaust is not stood up to. One cries when seeing  
Schindler's List? So be it. But tears are a kind of joy, a katharsis.  Many people 
told me: I cannot see your picture, because with Shoah it  is impossible to cry.  
In a way, Spielberg's film is a melodrama, a kitschy melodrama. One is  
affected by this story of a German swindler, nothing more than that. Anyway,  
although many take me for a Zionist I would never dare to give such sledgehammer  
blows as those Spielberg gives at the end of Schindler's List. With  that great 
reconciliation, Schindler's grave in Israel, with its cross and the  small 
jewish pebbles, with the colour which insinuates a happy ending ... Israel  
cannot buy off the holocaust. The six million did not die to justify Israel's  
existence. The last image of Shoah is different. It is a train which  rides and 
never stops. It says that the holocaust has no ending. 
 

For educational purposes only. Translation, by Rob van  Gerwen, of the Dutch 
translation from NRC Handelsblad of 26/03/1994, Page 11  Opinion


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