It is not cinema's definitive Holocaust documentary. It is not even director Claude Lanzmann's definitive Holocaust documentary. But can there ever be enough documentaries about the Holocaust? Can there ever be no more to say on the topic? What Benjamin Murmelstein had to say to Lanzmann in 1975, and what Lanzmann has to say today, can never be forgotten, as none of it can, nor should. But though all we feel we can do now is remember, we know that the past remains with us in the present, and even if these inconceivable acts never occur again, they are as much a part of the present as what else we feel now. Lanzmann will not allow us to forget, and he implores us to remember. Murmelstein remembers a lot, more than he understands, it seems. The more we hear from him, the more we realise that we don't hear from him. The last of three Jewish Council elders at Adolf Eichmann's 'model ghetto' Theresienstadt, he is the only elder from any ghetto to survive the war. His perspective on it is unique in that obvious sense, but also in its peculiarities. It's not about what he remembers, but what he feels, or what he doesn't feel about it, and what we can learn about this egregious period of recent history through bearing witness to this. Lanzmann, in beautiful, sensitive fashion, cunningly induces feelings in us, too, and thoughts, reaching beyond the instant and the clear details, extremely clear when related by Murmelstein, and into the whole of humanity. We come closer to understanding how enormous a loss was inflicted upon the Jews, which is an achievement indeed.
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