Director Claude Lanzmann spent 11 years on this sprawling documentary about the Holocaust, conducting his own interviews and refusing to use a single frame of archival footage. Dividing Holocaust witnesses into three categories – survivors, bystanders, and perpetrators – Lanzmann presents testimonies from survivors of the Chelmno concentration camp, an Auschwitz escapee, and witnesses of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, as well as a chilling report of gas chambers from an SS officer at Treblinka.
- Genre: Documentary, History
- Studio: Historia, Les Films Aleph, Ministère de la culture
- Keyword: holocaust (shoah), world war ii, history of mankind, history and legacy, historical documentary
- Cast: Claude Lanzmann, Simon Srebnik, Michael Podchlebnik, Motke Zaidl, Jan Karski, Paula Biren