PANEL DISCUSSION.
“40 YEARS AFTER THE SHOAH. THE HOLOCAUST IN THE LIGHT OF CLAUDE LANZMANN’S DOCUMENTARY”
State Museum at Majdanek
The documentary of the French director premiered in Paris in 1985. That over-nine-hour long visual tale through the former German extermination camps was quickly proclaimed by the public as an iconic movie, one of the most important accounts of the Holocaust, and by some as even a cinematic masterpiece. Such was also the opinion of the author himself. It was not free of criticism though, especially in Poland, where
The discussion will focus on the artistic significance of this deeply moving and innovative film, its multidimensional global influence on the European Holocaust remembrance, and in case of Poland on the perception of the Polish-Jewish relations during World War II. The debate will take place on the former grounds of the extermination camp in Sobibór – one of the vital filming locations for the Shoah.
The debate will be livestreamed on the Facebook profiles of the State Museum at Majdanek and the Museum and Memorial in Sobibór, as well as on the Majdanek Museum YouTube channel.
Speakers:
Bartosz Kwieciński PhD
(Jagiellonian University) – film historian, media expert, researcher of anti-Semitic propaganda, assistant professor at the Jagiellonian University Holocaust Research Centre, author of the 2012 monograph entitled Obrazy i klisze. Między biegunami wizualnej pamięci Zagłady (Images and clichés. Between the Poles of the visual memory of the Holocaust), co-author of the 2023 book (Dez)informacja w czasach (post)prawdy [(Dis)information in the age of (post)truth].
Katarzyna Person PhD
(Warsaw Ghetto Museum) – historian, director of the Warsaw Ghetto Museum, former head of the research department at the Jewish Historical Institute, project leader for the full edition of the Ringelblum Archive, the author of Assimilated Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, 1940–1943 (2014), Policjanci. Wizerunek Żydowskiej Służby Porządkowej w getcie warszawskim (Policemen: the Image of the Jewish Ghetto Police in the Warsaw Ghetto) (2018), Dipisi. Żydzi polscy w amerykańskiej i brytyjskiej strefach okupacyjnych Niemiec 1945–1948 (Displaced Persons: Polish Jews in the American and British Occupation zones of Germany, 1945-1948) (2019), and Przemysłowa Concentration Camp: the Camp, the Children, the Trials (2023).
Piotr Witek PhD
(Maria Curie-Skłodowska University) – methodologist and historian, director of the e-Humanities Research and Development Centre, employed at the Department of Digital Humanities and History Methodology at the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University’s Faculty of History, author of: Andrzej Wajda jako historyk. Metodologiczne studium z historii wizualnej (Andrzej Wajda as a Historian. A Methodological Study of Visual History) (2016), Kultura. Film. Historia. Metodologiczne problemy doświadczenia audiowizualnego (Culture. Film. History. Methodological problems of audiovisual experience) (2005); and co-editor of the volume Historia w kulturze współczesnej. Niekonwencjonalne podejścia do przeszłości (History in contemporary culture. Unconventional Approaches to the Past) (2011).
Debate introduction and chair:
Tomasz Kranz PhD
(State Museum at Majdanek) – Germanist, historian and museologist, Director of the State Museum at Majdanek, author of The Extermination of Jews in the Majdanek Concentration Camp (2010), editor of The Infrastructure of Operation “Reinhardt” (2023), co-editor of the volume The Past in Historical Museums. Representations and Narratives (2024)
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We encourage you to follow our livestreamed debate entitled “40 Years after the Shoah. The Holocaust in the Light of Claude Lanzmann’s Documentary.” The discussion will launch our international conference “Trains of Death – Railways Transports to the German Death Camps. State of Knowledge and Research Proposals”
hosted by the State Museum at Majdanek and the Museum and Memorial in Sobibór
on 8-10 September 2025.