R . I . Jewish Historical Inside: Association 11 From The Editor, page 4 130 Sessions Street Around Town, page 8 Providence, RI 02906 11:.. .. w RHODE "ISL~l'\ID - THE ONLY ENGLISH-JEWISH WEEKLY IN RI AND SOUTHEAST MASS VOLUME LXXU, Nl.iMBER 48 FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1985 30c PER COPY Claude Lanzmann: Madam Jehan Sadat Carries On Filming The Story Of The Holocaust Legacy Of Peace by Susan Bostian to face himself again. I was very pleased She was there to carry on a legacy of and stood by him,"' she said with great peace, a peace of actions, not words. Thus, pride. "And when he returned to Egypt, Jehan Sadat, widow of the late Egyptian crowds filled the streets and there were President Anwar Sadat, came to a temple great celebrations." fo r the first time in her life a nd addressed Meanwhile, Jehan was making progress a capacity crowd or over 1500, as brothers in her struggle lo improve the quality of and sisters, children of one God. life for women, children, war veterans and It was not a speech with a concrete, step the handicapped. A champion of women's by step plan for peace. Rather, it was an rights. she advocated changes in marriage evening with Jehan Sadat, a passing of arid divorce laws. winning new protection time with a gracious and warm woman for this vulnerable population. Calling enamored with life and filled with hope herself a nag, she laughed as she told of for a better world. She leaned forward on the repeated attempts and final success of I he podium to be closer to her listeners her efforts to persuade her husband to the way a neighbor might lean across the make some concrete changes in the laws kitchen table to share an intimate story. for equal rights. She spoke of her life with her husband She tried to describe the life she shared and after the assassination. Occasionally with Anwar and the devastation she felt Claude Lanzmann, French filmmaker, whose film, Shoah, opens on November struggling to express herself succinctly in after his mu rder. "We lived together for 8 in Boston. English, she answered questions from the thirty-two years. We loved each other, we by Robert Israel locomotive, just to get that shot. I wanted audience for two hours, thoughtfully and understood and complimented each other. BOSTON. Mass. ~ Claude Lanzmann, to make these people talk. To build the with great enthusiasm as she recalled the We were partners in the best sense. It was a 59-year-old Frenchman who fought in thing, the film, the structure." joys and frustrations she and Anwar very hard to take half of me and go on the Resistance during World War II, met When a reporter wanted to know where shared. without him." After the assassination she with reporters here on Tuesday afternoon the 330 hours of film that were edited are "Anwar believed in the dream of peace found comfort "in God, the children and to discuss Slwoh, his 91/2-hour docu­ being stored, if they had been sent to a and for t hat he gave his life," she said the countless supporters around the mentary film that opens st the Sak film archive, or where the filmmaker softly. " He initiated peace, now we must world." Ci nema in Copley Place on November 8 received his funding for the project or carry on the legacy." She asked the Anwar had predicted and warned Jehan for an exclusive New England engagement. <lther details, Lanzmann answered curtly audience to consider their common that after his death many of the When the film opened in Paris in May of or not at all. He preferred not to talk about humanity. "The real enemies are opposition would attack and criticize h im, this year, it was hailed by critics as a the technical problems he might have ignorance and prejudice," she said. "The still she found it was a very difficult "masterpiece" and as a "monument confronted making the film. but rather to wars we must fight are against poverty, situation to cope with. When the against forgetting." spend the time discussing his work. illiteracy and disease, not each other," she president of South Carolina University "I worked on the film for eleven years," "When I made the film, J said who I was continued, to a completely hushed room. asked her to come to the school and teach Lanzmann said, speaking slowly in and what I wanted to do. I told people, I In 1977, Anwar Sadat startled the world in the United States, she quickly English, which he confessed that he had am not a judge. I am not a prosecutor. I am with his decision to visit Israel. "We accepted. difficulty with, pausing frequently to find not a Nazi hunter. I am a filmmaker." couldn't predict the reaction in Egypt," Jehan Sadat, who was born in Cairo, the right words. "I am pleased with the He was asked if it was true that he was Jehan said. "There was a possibility that Egypt, was always an anomaly in her country. In a land where women we re result. I am proud. It is a very long process. beaten up during the course of making the strong objections could lead to my discouraged from pursuing an education, I had over 342 hours of film. It is a film film. husband's dismissal from office. But, he which learns its own memory. There isn't a " It's true," he said. told me t hat unless he did what he she was determined to study and wanted minute too long in the film." He was asked if there were plans to thought was right he would never be able (Continued on page 9) Lanzmann, a former close associate of show the film on television. Jean-Paul Sartre, is the filmmaker of "This will probably happen," he said, another documentary, "Why Israel," adding, "In Germany, there is a special which appeared in 1973. He has said that screening on television planned for two he made Shoah because he was motivated days." in response to the pro-Palestinian, He was asked how long it took him to anti-Israeli attitudes that were edit the film . · fashionable in the leftist circles that he "Five and one-half years," he replied. frequented. He was asked if it was true t hat it took "I made the film fo r the people who are him one year to get an interview he was not here," he said. " I made the film for the after. people who cannot tell us about "It's true," he said, and then he told the themselves, the people that were story of how he filmed a former SS official exterminated. This is what my film is at the T reblinka death camp who recounts about." in exacting detail every step of the process Consummate Artist of exterminat ion. Lanzmann is a consummate artist. who " I found out he was living in a town in works untiringly, aggressively and Bavaria. For several days I just shot the deliberately to achieve cinematic results. beer hall and the pig roast that was going He has no toierance or patience with labels on because l told everyone I was there to that attempt to pigeon-hole him or his make a film about the beer, whic h is why wo rk . Similarily, he has no tolerance or people go there. And then, after a long patience with reporters' questions which while, I got the man I was after to talk." seek to obtain from him what he considers Lanzmann was asked if he did research trivial information. into the film . "I hate the word documentary," "Yes," was his answer. Lanzmann said. " I don't want you to call Had he seen all the Holocaust films? my film cinema verite. I staged many of How did he decide to make this film, with the scenes. I staged them because I knew all the other films about the Holocaust how difficult it would be for many of the t hat have been made? people interviewed in the film to talk and I "Because no one has made a film like wanted them to talk, I wanted t hen'l to tell this. Because it had to be done." their story or the Holocaust. I asked a As a final question, he was asked what man, fo r example, if there were mirrors in he wanted to do next, now that t his the gas chambers. I knew fu ll we ll that project, which has taken eleven years of there were no mirrors there. but I wanted his life, is finally complete. the man to transmit to me his knowledge, " I have to gather deep strength," he to show there is no way of evading or said, "before doing another project. escaping. My film is a film of reality. Perhaps I will write a book," Everything is shot as present, not past. There is a sense of the destruction of time. Shoah opens November 8 at the Copley During the scene when the locomotive Place Sack Ci nema 9, 100 Huntington engineer who took the Jews to the death Avenue, Boston. For exact running times The late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat pictured here with his wife, Madam camp, to T rebl inka, he is shown on the and special group rates, phone the theatre Jehan Sadat. She entered a temple for the first time in her life w he n she spoke locomotive.