10 Friday, March 7, 1986
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OPINION
Highly-Praised `Shoah'
Not For Everyone
BY ESTHER ALLWEISS TSCIIIRHART
Special to The Jewish News
(limited quantities)
available)
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Chelmno survivor Simon Srebnik meets with Polish residents of his
town 40 years after the Holocaust.
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Shoah makes its local pre-
miere tonight at the Detroit
Film Theatre as one of the most
lavishly praised films in recent
memory.
In many respects Shoah is 'a
unique documentary. It is a
91/2-hour (boiled down from 350),
minutely-detailed look at the
Holocaust created solely through
interviews with the people who
were there — non-Jews as well
as Jews. The perpetrators, the
victims and the bystanders all
are captured here, committing
their stories to history. There is
no archival footage of atrocities.
Having heard the superlatives
about Shoah in the media, film
enthusiasts in Detroit are ea-
gerly anticipating what one pro-
fessional critic called "one of the
great movie-going experiences of
all time." Ticket sales have been
brisk at the DFT for the .
documentary, which will be
shown in two parts over the
next four weekends. The film
critics tell us this is an event
that no one should miss. How-
ever, Shoah is not for everyone.
Like many of you, I am quite
familiar with the Holocaust era.
Indeed, I am only one genera-
tion removed from it. When
see the Holocaust revealed on
the large screen, in such precise
detail, when I see the faces of
middle-aged Jews talking of
their terrible experiences, like
any right-thinking human being
I am repulsed by the evil of
those times, of how people could
treat other human beings that
way. But I am also grieving, be-
cause I am Jewish, and those
Jews who perished in Poland
were my family. For anyone
who has been through the
Holocaust, or who identifies
with, the Holocaust strongly, I
don't think this film is going to
help your sleep. To you I say,
pass it by because this film is
strong stuff.
We Are not spared any mys-
teries about what it was like to
be a Jew sent by cattle car to
die at Auschwitz or Treblinka.
An expert in Shoah tells us
about the "death struggle," the
physical and emotional changes
a person experiences when he
realizes that in two minutes he
will be killed. Not everyone
needs to hear these things, his-
tory or no history.
_ _ _.The _..proper __au diPnr e_ lot
Shoah is comprised of people
who know little or nothing
about the Holocaust. They
should be no younger than high
school age, and of any religion.
The film is guaranteed to pro-
vide an insightful understand-
ing dr what the Jews suffered
during that period. And for that,
among other reasons, Shoah
does deserve the acclaim it has
received.
Many images linger in the
mind days after seeing Shoah.
Rather than being a movie filled
with "talking heads" — a series
of conversations with the cam-
era glued to the speakers — we
are taken instead to sites
around the world, but primarily
in Poland. There are lush forests
blowing in the wind, fields of
flowers, crystal rivers. It is a Po-
land lovelier than we might
have expected, considering the
horror that happened there.
Israeli Simon Srebnik, a
Polish Jew who survived a Nazi
bullet in the head, leads us to
an open field in the land of his
birth where, he exclaims, "I
can't believe I'm here ... It was
always this peaceful here. Al-
ways. When they burned 2,000
people — Jews —: every day, it
was just as peaceful. No one
shouted. Everyone went about
his work. It was silent. Peaceful.
Just as it is now."
We see the train stations in
the tiny Polish villages, looking
as pleasant and everyday as
they might have in 1942 when
Jews were placed on "special
trains" taking them to the death
camps. Imagine being a resident
of Auschwitz, the town. French
director Claude Lanzmann in-
' terviews Poles who live there
today, who lived there then.
One farmer, who worked in
his field under 100 yards from
the Treblinka death camp, a
thick-necked, potbellied fellow
nOt easy to look at, readily con-
edes that he knew what was
appening. He gestures with an
index finger across his throat,
'`saying he warned the Jews
goin into the camp'of their fate
in th manner. His enthusiastic
i;aann s he makes the slit-
throat nkm
g ture belies his ex-
eressio of regret. And there
,pfilm.
*re many ore like him in the
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