5 . Sheol . Museum display case . Arnaud Sauli © Dublin Films
6 . Sheol . The archaeologist Wojtek Mazurek . Arnaud Sauli © Dublin Films
I would like to return the question back on you because your perspective , as well as your work on similar subjects , is different . You , who were born in Poland and are currently working on the landscape of the metropolis of death , to echo Otto Dov Kulka : how do you look at this landscape , these traces ? How do you allow yourself to be taken in by this landscape with a renewed perspective or , on the contrary , how do you let go of your sensitive and historiographical heritage ? You know that many people in Jewish communities view Poland as a gigantic cemetery with rather hostile inhabitants .
Ania Szczepanska : To answer your question , I propose a detour through the eyes of a writer who is dear to us both . When we were talking about literature , you recently told me that Imre Kertesz ’ s book Être sans destin was a turning point in your desire to make films and that his unique perspective had moved you to seek out another form of language , cinema . Do you remember the character ’ s arrival at the Auschwitz camp in Être sans destin ? His arrival in what he calls the “ beautiful concentration camp ”? The narrator says that the first day is the one that has remained best engraved in his memory . He
regards this new reality like “ a visitor in prison ” and uses writing to try to rediscover his initial perception of the place upon his arrival . Yet , in what we usually call the “ concentration experience ”, he first sees the “ beauty ” of the landscape . He is sensitive to the brightness blinding him : “ A red ray , fine and sharp , appeared somewhere behind us , and I understood : I was witnessing the sunrise ”. The expanse of the meadow astonishes him and he sees himself playing football there with his friends . He sees the children playing ball before simply writing : “ the place where they are asphyxiated is very beautiful ”. This perception frightens us . Above all , I see it as a way to capture the truth of a landscape in its complexity , its nuances and its history . Kertesz says he owes this perception to “ our deceptive habits which I believe , in the final analysis , are those of human nature ”. I cite these phrases from Être sans destin because they force us , simply and compellingly , to become aware of the historicity of a perspective on a landscape . Kertesz ’ s writing forces us to dissociate the place and its uses . Our gaze is at the intersection of the two , in a temporal depth that does not consider coherence or clarity . To come back more specifically to your question : Poland was my birthplace . After emigrating to France with my parents at the age of five , in 1987 , the Polish countryside , that of Mazovia — a region southeast of Warsaw around the city of Minsk Mazowiecki — was where I spent all my summer holidays as a little girl and teenager . When I crossed the Polish forests to go to the Auschwitz Museum , where I shot my film on archaeological excavations in 1967 , the pine forests that I crossed very much resemble the forests of Mazovia where my paternal grandparents lived , in a house bought by my parents in the late 1970s . Above all , they embody this nature that was the setting of our childhood games , our mushroom , blueberry and blackberry picking . We jumped in the fine sand pits , characteristic of pine forests , with my brother , because we had transformed them into a life-size amusement park . So of course , when I regard and film these landscapes today , I also consciously or unconsciously have in mind the shots filmed by Lanzmann ’ s cameraman , Jimmy Glasberg , in
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Observing Memories Issue 7