The Patagonian Hare

by Claude Lanzmann

  I have to say, in Karski’s defence, which is another way of underlining the absolute respect I have for him, that he felt bound by the contract he had signed and had no intention of going back on his word. Day after day, I struggled to move forward, solving one after another the problems thrown up by the film. Five hours were now complete, of which I knew I would not change a single frame, but Karski had still not appeared, he was far from my thoughts and I still did not know myself where, how and at what moment he would appear. After another two years – and I was so panicked by then that I barely dared to open my post – I received not one letter but a whole sheaf of letters, all arranged by date and by the importance of his correspondents, detailing his exchanges with people attempting to persuade him to have done with me. I have to say that he fought heroically not to abandon me and that the sums he had been offered would have swayed less steadfast souls. He concluded by asking me the one question I could not answer: when will the film be finished, will it ever be finished, do you have the right to get us involved in this interminable project? It was the old story of the guillotine again, I could only stay true to my own law, I had nothing to offer the blade but my poor, oft-endangered neck. I exploded and wrote an exasperated, ironic letter to Karski, doubting that he would grasp all the implications both good and bad: ‘Dear Jan Karski,’ I wrote, ‘Five hours are now complete, that is to say more than half of the film. Everyone says they are very good, and you have not yet appeared. According to the most accurate calculations I can make right now, I have planned things such that you will appear in another two hours, thirty-seven minutes and twenty-two seconds. This is the best I can do and all that I can promise at the moment. I would add that your part will be a long one and decisive for the film and for history. But I beg you, do not bother me again, let me work as I see fit. Otherwise, the film will be made, but without you. I realize that the film needs all of its protagonists, but at the same time it can manage without any one of them. That is surely the mark of a great work.’

  The first screening Karski attended, in a cinema in Washington, moved him so much that he wrote me ten breast-beating letters, he was my most ardent supporter and I remember, with an emotion that even now I find hard to contain, the three days we spent together for the première of the film in Jerusalem.

  Not all Poles are Karski. The release of Shoah in Paris in April 1985 unleashed a huge tsunami in Warsaw. The French chargé d’affaires in Poland was immediately summoned by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Olechowski – there was no French ambassador at the time, nor properly speaking any diplomatic relations – who, in the name of the Polish government and of General Jaruzelski, demanded that the film be immediately banned and all planned screenings cancelled. National honour had been impugned, and the only possible reparation was to consign to oblivion this perverse, anti-Polish work, which attacked all that Poland held sacred. For my part, I was much too busy trying to find the exorbitant sum to print another copy of Shoah to pay attention to the truckloads of calumny that, I was told, appeared every day in the Polish press; lies that grew off one another with every passing day since no one there had actually seen the film. And, to tell the truth, this explosion produced by Shoah rather amused me. I had never thought of Shoah as an anti-Polish film; there were among the protagonists in the film people I loved and respected enormously, even if others were utter scum. As to Polish anti-Semitism, it was not something I invented: the opinions expressed by some of the villagers of Treblinka and Chełmno were enough to make you shudder, but I had not solicited them, they had had no problems expressing themselves and I had found it difficult to believe what I was hearing. And yet, while I may have been amused, I did not realize that the Polish lobby disposed of some heavy artillery. Compared to their firepower, the Jewish lobby was barely capable of a skirmish. To my astonishment, some of those who defended Shoah in France, essentially among the intellectuals, and recognizing all the strengths of the film, found it nonetheless tainted, alas, by an anti-Polish bias that seemed to echo the way Poland had been abandoned by Western Europe at crucial points in the country’s history. At the request of François Furet, the president of the Fondation Saint-Simon, I had organized the first full screening of the film in the large, beautiful theatre of the LTC laboratories, where I had spent every day during the last five years editing Shoah. I was very moved: first screening, first unseen, virginal print, and an assembly of big names from the Foundation whom I didn’t know. Simone de Beauvoir was present, as was Jean Daniel, editor of the Nouvel Observateur. We were not close friends but I had the greatest respect for him, though he did not perhaps know it. Beginning at nine in the morning, the screening lasted all day, with only a short intermission for lunch in the LTC cafeteria. At the end of the film the spectators, stunned and profoundly moved, came up to me and, though it is difficult to find something to say after Shoah, each of them said a few words. I remember Jean Daniel’s words as he shook my hand powerfully and with great eloquence said, ‘That justifies a life.’ And yet, early the following morning, after a short night, the telephone started ringing. It was some of those who had been in the audience the night before: Furet, Jean Daniel and a number of others, each began by telling me again how much they admired the film, but then quickly turned round to criticize it: the film was unfair to the Poles, it did not show what they had done to save the Jews, and I sensed that they had spent quite some time consulting one another and their friends in Warsaw. The Polish lobby had acted quickly. I had no wish to argue and referred people to those scenes in Shoah that refuted what they were saying. ‘You’re making a snap judgement,’ I told them. ‘Watch the film again, then we’ll talk.’ The international countercheck to the French screening was to take place in Oxford some months later, in September.

  Meanwhile, some Poles had begun to travel, had come to Paris specifically to see Shoah and, returning to Warsaw, took it upon themselves to contest the calumnies, writing to assert that the film did not lie and beginning, individually, an examination of conscience that was to encompass all of Poland, one that would go on for years, including certain episodes to which I shall return. These people added that Poland was not the subject of the film and confessed to having been intensely moved by something they recognized as entirely new and as a major event.

  One morning, about a month and a half after the release of Shoah, to my astonishment I got a phone call from Warsaw. A clear, laughing and trilling young woman’s voice asked for me in English of crystalline purity. Assured she was indeed speaking with me, she introduced herself: ‘I am calling from PolTel – Polish Television – and we were wondering if the rights to Shoah were free.’ Incredulous and almost laughing myself, thinking this was a practical joke, I answered, ‘Yes, they are in fact, but why do you want to know?’ ‘We are thinking about buying the film and showing it on Polish television!’ I struggled not to burst out laughing, saying, ‘My dear lady, I’m afraid I don’t understand. How do you expect to buy and broadcast a film that all of Poland – the newspapers, the radio, the government and every official authority – has bombed day and night with your rocket launchers?’ She replied, ‘We think that these are people who have not seen the film.’ Then she added quickly, ‘If you like, I can put you through to my boss, the director of PolTel, Lew Rywin.’ He spoke impeccable American English and said, ‘Would it be possible to get a video of Shoah?’ ‘I’m sorry,’ I replied, ‘I don’t have any, I didn’t have any made, it didn’t occur to me, and I can’t see why you would want one.’ ‘I intend to have your film seen by all the governmental and military organizations concerned. Since they are very busy people and have little time, they need to be able to watch the film at their own pace, otherwise we’ll get nowhere.’ Lew Rywin’s voice had the mellow tone of a crooner and I could not resist. I promised to send him the videos, which, alas, I would have to have made at my own expense. ‘I’ll get back to you,’ he said. We left it at that. I fulfilled my part of the deal, sent off the videos and, two months later, having ha
d no news from Warsaw, I called Lew directly. He answered immediately: ‘I know it’s taking a long time but be patient, I’ll call you soon.’ The years I spent working had been very hard, I was exhausted, I decided go on holiday to Corsica. While there, I received a call from my secretary that I didn’t understand at all. She told me, ‘Someone phoned this morning, but I’m afraid I can’t remember his name.’ (I was used to this, she could never understand foreign names.) I was the first to think of Rywin and we stumbled from Rywin to Rewan, Rowan, Ravon. I decided it had to be Rywin. I was urgently to call a number in northern Greece (Macedonia) and key in a complicated sequence of numbers. It was indeed Rywin: ‘Monsieur Lanzmann, will you be in Paris between 25 July and 1 August?’ I replied, ‘If necessary, I can.’ ‘Could you book a hotel room near your home?’ He gave me a price range. ‘Can you give me your solemn word that no one besides you and me will be told about this meeting?’ I gave my word. ‘Especially not the Polish Embassy,’ he added. ‘That’s hardly likely, I don’t know anyone at the embassy.’ My secretary found a hotel near my apartment that suited Lew’s requirements. She was given details about when this courier from the Vistula would arrive and a meeting was arranged at the hotel. In the week preceding his arrival, Rywin’s laughing Polish secretary called my assistant daily to ensure that arrangements had been respected to the letter and that, above all, there had been no leak to Polish officialdom.

  At ten o’clock in the morning, when I arrived at the hotel, the man was already waiting. He was about forty, not very tall, heavy-set and plump with a moustache and dark eyes that sparkled with extraordinary shrewdness and intelligence. I immediately realized who I was dealing with, a long career studying facial features assured me that I could not be wrong: Lew was Jewish. As I led the way to the restaurant, I subjected him to a skilful, rapid interrogation, he told me that he had been born in the USSR to a Jewish mother and a staunch Russian father. All of this confirmed the immediate sympathy I had felt the moment I saw his face. The restaurant was the Balzar on the rue des Écoles and his first words, whispered, were to ask whether I had a VCR. I said, ‘No.’ If necessary, however, I could perhaps find a solution. ‘I’ve got a film I want to show you,’ he said. From the start, the tone and the atmosphere between us were conspiratorial, which, with all the racket in the restaurant, made conversation difficult. He began very solemnly, ‘Monsieur Lanzmann, whatever the outcome of our meeting, I want your word that you will not mention it to anyone. I am here in an official-unofficial capacity representing General Jaruzelski personally. I have, as I promised, shown Shoah to all of the authorities in Poland: Mr Olchowski, the Minister for Foreign Affairs [the person who had led the campaign against me] is ready to have you summarily executed. A number of our most important generals are of the same opinion and have ordered an inquiry into how permission was given for a man like you to be given free rein to rummage around in our back alleys and paint such a negative picture of Poles and their relationship with the Jews. Only one man supports you, General Jaruzelski. He has not seen the film in its entirety, but has given it several hours of serious consideration: “Shoah does not lie,” the general said. “It is a mirror held up to Poland and what it reflects is the truth.”’ Lew then explained at length the power struggles taking place in the highest echelons of the Polish government and how, much as he would like to, in current circumstances it would be impossible for the general to authorize a broadcast of Shoah. A meeting of the Central Committee had been convened for October; Jaruzelski’s position was at risk; it would be him or Olchowski; I only half-understood the subtleties Lew used to convince me of I did not yet know what, but it sounded as if the fate of Poland was in my hands. All would become clear once I had seen the film he had prepared for me with the approval of General Wojciech Witold Jaruzelski. If I agreed, Poland would be eternally grateful to me.

  The film, completely concocted out of Lew’s lawless, twisted mind, was absolutely shocking. The fact that anyone imagined a creator could consent to such a bastardization of his work showed to what depths of intellectual decline and dishonest compromise ‘real’ Communism had sunk. The film, which bore the title Shoah, ran for about two hours, Germany was mentioned for about five minutes: Suchomel speaking incomprehensible German. What he had to say was summed up by the sentence: ‘An SS officer from Treblinka tells his story.’ But Suchomel was not the only one; every one of the protagonists of Shoah, Jew or SS, appeared for a few seconds. The Poles, especially in the group scenes, were allowed to speak uncut, and obviously translation was not an issue. Lech Waøêsa, the president of Solidarity and future President of Poland, having seen a few minutes of the expurgated scene at the Cheømno church, said to the press: ‘A meeting should not be held in front of a church!’ When I realized that hundreds of copies had been made of this bowdlerization of Rywin’s, I became furious, told him that there was no point carrying on with our conversation, that I would never dream of sanctioning such a travesty and that we should leave it at that. He left, simply saying, ‘This is not our last word on the subject.’

  Two months later, I was out in the countryside when I got a panicked call from Angelika: ‘You have to phone Warsaw urgently, they have a proposal they want to make to you.’ Barely had I hung up when the phone rang again: it was not Warsaw, but Paris, the foreign editor of Le Monde. ‘Monsieur Lanzmann, we just want to confirm something. Jerzy Urban, a spokesman for the Polish government, has just held a press conference announcing that you have reached an agreement.’ I said, ‘I would like you to refute it in the strongest possible terms. There is no agreement, I have broken off all contact with the Poles.’ But that was just the beginning. The spokesman for Jaruzelski’s government was not to be refuted; our ‘agreement’ had been announced urbi et orbi and I finally discovered what I was being offered: Shoah would be shown in its entirety in two cinemas in the Warsaw suburbs. And in exchange, I was to give permission for Lew Rywin’s film to be shown on Polish television at a date to be agreed. By now, in any case, Le Monde had already announced that an agreement had been reached: the Polish lobby was so active, so powerful, that no one took any notice of my objections or reservations. All of this posed considerable problems: how to ensure that the film was screened in its entirety, that the translation and the subtitling were faithful. I didn’t have the means to deal with such problems, it would have required an established production company capable of paying lawyers and investigators. I was in no position to do so. I was suddenly faced with a thousand other problems that I had not foreseen, such as those that would result from the American release of the film. Shoah, I decided, would have to succeed on its own merits as, in fact, it had already begun to do; for my part I needed my inner freedom, which was what mattered above all else.

  If I decided to forget about Warsaw, Warsaw did not forget about me. In early September 1985, I received an invitation from Oxford University to an uncut screening of Shoah, to be followed by a debate, the following day, in which the most renowned Polish, American, English and Israeli authorities on the subject would participate. The host was an institute for Judeo-Polish studies and its journal Polin, a pioneering organization that comprised two robust departments, one in Oxford, the other in Poland. They seemed to have buried their previous differences and formed a united front on the subject of Shoah. Among the big names invited were members of the Communist Party, Jaruzelski’s men, but also the most respected Polish Catholic journalists and writers such as Jerzy Turowicz, editor of Tygodnik Powszechny in Krakow, and Professor Józef Gierowski, rector of Jagiellonian University in Krakow. The most surprising thing about 4 August, this night of reconciliation, was the inclusion of dissident Polish intellectuals, such as the philosopher Leszek Kołakowski and Professor Peter Pulzer, who had both fled their country after Gomulka launched his official anti-Semitic campaign.

  I arrived in Oxford in the afternoon, a little nervous, with a fighting spirit, having no idea what would happen nor why I had been summoned to appear before this tribuna
l. The screening had started at ten o’clock that morning, I popped my head around the door, the cinema was packed, the silence had a powerful presence and I decided that rather than attending the formal dinner to which I had been invited, I would eat on my own in a local restaurant. I wanted to avoid wasting my energy and my nerves on polite smalltalk in order to remain battle-ready for the debate the following day where – I knew – it would be me against everyone else. It is impossible to go into detail here about the debate, which lasted for seven hours, but it began with a joint mea culpa, all of the participants apologizing to me for the vicious official campaign against Shoah in Poland, a campaign that was still in full force. Though there were points they wished to criticize about the film, they all agreed that it was a work of art, faithful to its own rules, not a piece of reportage about how the Poles had been the closest witnesses to the extermination of their Jewish compatriots. After the Oxford debate, numerous articles were published around the world, in the United States, Britain, Germany, Israel, even in Poland; for example, there was Timothy Garton Ash’s article in the New York Review of Books, which was twenty pages long, Neal Ascherson’s in the Observer and Abraham Brumberg’s in the New Republic. All of them paid tribute to Shoah and to the way that my knowledge of history and the preparatory work that had led to its realization had utterly routed those who, at first, had put themselves forward as my fiercest enemies, having proved to them that their weapons, like their criticisms, were hollow and empty. Some, such as the philosopher Leszek Koøakowski, wrote to me after the screening to tell me that their admiration had far outweighed any reservations they had had, and that if Shoah did not tell the whole story, its overwhelming power of suggestion and its originality revealed the truth as never before.