The film Shoah 40 years on: The Jewish Museum Berlin researches Claude Lanzmann’s audio archive

During the years of research before he began filming, Claude Lanzmann (1925–2018) recorded the testimony of witnesses and experts on audio cassette tapes. With his colleagues, Corinna Coulmas and Irena Steinfeldt-Levy, he conducted conversations with ghetto and concentration camp survivors, resistance fighters, historians, clerics, intellectuals, political figures, and perpetrators. Lanzmann and his team traveled to Israel and the United States, Switzerland, East and West Germany, Austria, Britain, and Poland to visit people and places that could tell them more about the history of the Shoah.

In late 2021, Lanzmann’s widow donated his audio archive, totaling more than 220 hours of audio material, to the Jewish Museum Berlin (JMB). The Lanzmann Audio Archive, along with the film Shoah itself, was added to the UNESCO Memory of the World Register in May 2023.

“Since April 2024, the JMB has been working hard to make the Lanzmann Audio Archive accessible to both researchers and the wider public,” says curator Dr. Tamar Lewinsky. “To achieve that, all of the audio recordings are being transcribed and translated into German and English. We are also researching the background to the recordings, systematizing them, and supplying annotations.” Without explanations, it is difficult to follow what is being said in the conversations. The listener needs information on many questions that arise: Who is speaking? What events and developments are they describing? What locations do they mention?

Hetty Berg, Director of the Jewish Museum Berlin, is pleased with the project’s progress: “To mark the fortieth anniversary of Shoah’s premiere and the centenary of Claude Lanzmann’s birth, we are making public for the first time a piece of testimony that is unique in cinematic history. Starting on 27 November 2025, excerpts will be presented in an exhibition and on our online learning resource JMB di.kla. By the end of 2027, all of the material will also be accessible online.” She adds: “The Lanzmann Audio Archive grants us deep insights into the way that Lanzmann worked and the evolution of his epoch-making work. Added to that, the intense, unabridged conversations with historical eyewitnesses open up multiple poignant perspectives on the Shoah.”

The work of cataloguing and digitizing Claude Lanzmann’s audio archive is made possible by funding from the German Federal Foreign Office and the Alfred Landecker Foundation.

“At the Federal Foreign Office, we are particularly happy to support this extremely important project at a time when antisemitic narratives worldwide are gaining currency again. Our concern is to reinforce memory of the Shoah and ensure that oral testimony to the events can still be heard by future generations. By funding the educational and informational endeavors around Claude Lanzmann’s audio archive, the Foreign Office aims to contribute to the continued development of a vibrant culture of remembrance,” says Ambassador Christian Heldt, Special Representative of the Federal Foreign Office for Relations with Jewish Organizations, Issues Relating to Antisemitism, International Sinti and Roma Affairs, and Holocaust Remembrance.

“The Alfred Landecker Foundation advocates for a future-oriented culture of remembrance – which is why supporting this project is fundamentally important for us. The Lanzmann Audio Archive preserves voices of the past, but it also gives future generations access to a truth that must never be lost. Today, as we face the imminent end of direct witness testimony, such work is especially urgent. It makes memories audible before they fall silent forever – and keeps those memories alive in the mind of an open society. In a period of growing antisemitism, that is a crucial democratic mission,” adds Lena Altman, Co-CEO of the Alfred Landecker Foundation. 

For the latest information on the project, visit: https://www.jmberlin.de/en/project-claude-lanzmanns-audio-archive