WJC mourns death of 'Shoah' filmmaker Claude Lanzmann

NEW YORK – The World Jewish Congress mourns the death of Claude Lanzmann, the French filmmaker whose seminal documentary Shoah in 1985 changed the world’s perception and awareness of the Holocaust.
 
WJC President Ronald S. Lauder said: “Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah was a monumental contribution to the historical memory of the Holocaust, creating an unprecedented awareness and understanding of the atrocities of the killing machines and the Nazi attempt to exterminate European Jewry.
 
“Lanzmann was a relentless truth-seeker and master filmmaker who took pains to open the eyes of the world to the greatest crime of contemporary history, and to ensure that its memory never be buried,” Lauder said.
 
“As the years pass, and the number of survivors among us wanes, Shoah will continue to serve as a critical testimony to the horrors of the Holocaust for future generations to bear witness and remember,” Lauder said.
 
In 2015, Lanzmann participated in a conference in Jerusalem on the Allied Response to the Holocaust, organized by the World Jewish Congress’ Israel Council on Foreign Relations, where he introduced his film "The Karski Report.”