The Sound of History: Claude Lanzmann’s Preparation for his film “Shoah”
The conference The Sound of History: Claude Lanzmann’s Preparation for “Shoah” brings together international researchers from the cultural sciences and humanities to examine these previously unknown historical testimonies from different perspectives and in interdisciplinary dialogue for the first time. Over two days, the conference will focus on Lanzmann’s film project, the protagonists who were not filmed, the research on Poland and Lithuania, the overlaps and distinctions between film and sound recordings, and the conversations with Nazi perpetrators.
With his film “Shoah”, French director Claude Lanzmann presented what remains to this day a groundbreaking portrayal of the genocide of six million Jews perpetrated by the Nazis. The nine-and-a-half-hour work was the culmination of a 12-year production process. During this time, Lanzmann and his team traveled to Israel, Poland, Great Britain, the Czech Republic, Italy, the USA, Switzerland, and West Germany, conducting hundreds of preliminary interviews, many of which were recorded on tape. These previously unknown audio recordings reveal the many different aspects of the Shoah that the director explored before settling on extermination as the central theme of his work. At the same time, they provide insight into how people remembered the events three decades after the end of the war.
The 152 surviving magnetic audio cassettes have formed the Lanzmann Collection at the Jewish Museum Berlin since 2022 and comprise approximately 220 hours of audio recordings in eight languages. Since 2023, this collection, together with the film “Shoah”, has been entered in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register.
For more information on the evening event with Claude Lanzmann’s colleagues Corinna Coulmas and Irena Steinfeldt-Levy, which will take place on 9 February 2026 as part of the conference, please visit the event page The Making of Claude Lanzmann’s Film “Shoah”.
Program
Mon, 9 Feb 2026
9 am Reception
9.30 am Welcome
- S.E. François Delattre (French Embassy Berlin)
Hetty Berg (Director of the Jewish Museum Berlin)
Dominique Lanzmann (Chair of the Claude and Felix Lanzmann Association (A.C.F.L.))
Susanne Zepp-Zwirner (Permanent Fellow Selma Stern Zentrum für Jüdische Studien Berlin-Brandenburg, University Duisburg-Essen)
Tamar Lewinsky (curator for audiovisual media at the Jewish Museum Berlin)
10 am Eine Untersuchung über die Shoa: Die Recherchen (An investigation into the Shoah: The Research)
Moderation: Irmela von der Lühe (Free University Berlin)
Comment: Michael Levine (Rutgers – New Brunswick)
- Jennifer Cazenave (Boston University): “I Can Only Bring That Little Pebble, Claude” – Maria Bobrow and the Making of Shoah
- Nicolas Berg (Dubnow-Institut): “Nobody could expect it” – Claude Lanzmann im Gespräch mit dem Historiker Yitzhak Arad
3 pm Ungehörte Stimmen: Die nicht gefilmten Protagonist*innen (Unheard voices: The protagonists who were not filmed)
Moderation: Lutz Fiedler (Humboldt University Berlin)
Comment: Marc Sagnol (Paris)
- Dagi Knellessen (Dubnow-Institut): “It’s really against my feelings.” – Ilana Safrans Absage an Claude Lanzmann
- Sonja Göthel Knopp (Jewish Museum Berlin): “Peng, peng! This shooting, ne?” – Lanzmanns Begegnung mit Hermann Friedrich Graebe und die Herausforderungen prekärer Zeugenschaft
4.45 pm Hinter geschlossenen Türen: Die Täter (Behind closed doors: The perpetrators)
Moderation: Anika Reichwald (Jewish Museum Berlin)
Comment: Annette Weinke (University of Jena)
- Axel Doßmann (ZZF Potsdam): “Ist es unhöflich [...], wenn ich Sie frage, was Sie für ein Landsmann sind?” – Deutsche Ehre, Husten und Lachen des SS-Generals Karl Wolff
- Stefanie Rauch (University College London): “Wir waren keineswegs erfreut darüber, dass da ein Konzentrationslager war” – Kurt Eisfeld und Wilhelm Biedenkopf zur Standortsuche der I.G. Farben in Auschwitz
7.30 pm Evening event – The Making of Claude Lanzmann’s Film “Shoah”
Moderation: Daniel Wildmann (Jewish Museum Berlin)
- in conversation with Corinna Coulmas and Irena Steinfeldt-Levy
Tue, 10 Feb 2026
9.30 am Verworfene Ideen: Die nicht veröffentlichten Themen (Rejected ideas: The unpublished topics)
Comment: Jan Gerber (Dubnow-Institut)
Moderation: Elisabeth Gallas (Dubnow-Institut)
- Christoph Dieckmann (Fritz-Bauer-Institut): Anoushka Freiman im Interview mit Claude Lanzmann, evtl. 1975
- Klaus Hoffmann-Holland & Susanne Zepp-Zwirner (Free University Berlin/University Duisburg-Essen): “Hier ist kein Warum.” – Claude Lanzmann im Gespräch mit Gerhart Riegner
11.15 am Erkundungen vor Ort: Die erste Polenreise (On-site explorations: The first trip to Poland)
Comment: Ania Szczepanska (Université Paris 1)
Moderation: Kerstin Schoor (Europe-University Viadrina)
- Roma Sendyka (Jagiellonian University): Bystanders’ testimonies: from ‘false witnessing’ (Felman, Kantarowski) to ‘co-witnessing’ (Głowacka, Piwoński)
- Dariusz Stola (University of Warsaw): Comments on the Recording of Claude Lanzmann’s Conversation with Henryk Woliński
2.15 pm Überschneidungen und Unterschiede: Audio und Film (Overlaps and differences: audio and film)
Comment: Gertrud Koch (Free University Berlin)
Moderation: Christina von Braun (Humboldt University Berlin)
- Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann (Hebrew University of Jerusalem): “Worse than Hitler” – Claude Lanzmann im Gespräch mit Hillel Kook (Peter Bergson) über jüdischen Aktivismus und umstrittene Erinnerung
- Christoph Hesse (ZfL): “Et les cadavres sont tombés sur la route” – Claude Lanzmann im Gespräch mit Leon Kantarowski, einem polnischen Augenzeugen der Vernichtung (Chełmno, 1978)
3.45 pm Final comments and concluding discussion
Comment: Kurt Grünberg (Sigmund-Freud-Institut)
Moderation: Susanne Zepp-Zwirner (University Duisburg-Essen)