Shoah

In its deliberations the Peabody Board rarely uses the term “masterpiece.” In the discussion of Shoah, however, this word was heard around the table. Shockingly, today there are individuals and groups who claim that the Holocaust never happened. For its six million victims, Jew and gentile, there is no more important task than to dismiss this fraud with testimony both by those who suffered and those who administered the suffering. Few can match the commitment of director Claude Lanzmann. For eleven years, in fourteen countries he found and interviewed Jewish survivors of the death camps, Nazi overseers, and the farmers and villagers who lived among the deportees or who worked adjacent to the gas chambers and crematoria. The result of his effort is 9 1/2 hours of living history which painstakingly recreates the horrors of the so-called “Final Solution.” For providing the highest level of public service, a Peabody to WNET/Thirteen for Shoah, a film by Claude Lanzmann presented on the Public Broadcasting System.