The Sound of History
Claude Lanzmann’s Preparation for his film Shoah - Conference

On February 9 and 10, 2026, around 200 scholars from France, Poland, Israel, the United Kingdom, and the United States gathered in Berlin. At the center of the conference were 152 audio cassettes containing around 220 hours of material - interviews in eight languages as well as pauses, background noises, interruptions, and portions of conversations that were never filmed. The Jewish Museum Berlin is currently undertaking the complete digitization of this collection with the support of the Alfred Landecker Foundation. The cassettes also form the basis for the exhibition "Claude Lanzmann: The Recordings". The collection complements the film Shoah as well as the film’s well-known outtakes and offers new insights into Lanzmann’s research practice, which he himself described as “trial and error.

Intentionally invited without predefined research questions, the participants approached the archive through individual recordings. Across six panels - ranging from people who were not filmed to perpetrator perspectives and the differences between audio and film - it became clear what the Holocaust survivor Maria Bobrow meant when she told Lanzmann during his research: “I can only bring you that little pebble, Claude. And then from that stone, you have to build a house.”

Particularly valuable insights emerged from the participation of Corinna Coulmas and Irena Steinfeldt-Levy, who worked for many years as assistants to Claude Lanzmann during the making of Shoah. Their contributions highlighted the importance of the audio recordings for a deeper understanding of the film’s production conditions and decision-making processes. Questions of archiving, contextualization, and future scholarly use - particularly in connection with Shoah’s inclusion in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register - were also discussed. As Hetty Berg, Director of the Jewish Museum Berlin, emphasized, the conference was conceived as a starting point for further research and new perspectives in Lanzmann studies as well as in related fields.

As the Alfred Landecker Foundation, we support the scholarly exploration of this unique audio archive with the aim of enabling sustainable access for research. At a time of rising antisemitism and historical revisionism, critical engagement with such sources is of particular importance: Lanzmann’s approach does not aim at mere remembrance, but at making the past present - at a historically grounded engagement with the past that is anchored in the present.

We would like to thank the French Embassy in Germany, the Jewish Museum Berlin, the CIVS, the Selma Stern Center, Corinna Coulmas, Irena Steinfeldt-Levy, Dominique Lanzmann and all participating scholars for their focused academic exchange in a European context. The systematic evaluation of the audio recordings will form a key foundation for future research, education, and teaching.