Claude Lanzmann's monumental Shoah is the most celebrated film about the Holocaust ever made. Vivid accounts of the destruction of European Jewry by those who witnessed the slaughter at first hand make Lanzmann's film a compelling meditation on a defining catastrophe of the twentieth century. This collection offers the best writing on this remarkable cinematic achievement and brings together a range of appreciations, analyses and critiques by leading American, French and Polish critics and commentators. Their essays examine Shoah from its inception through its reception in France, Europe and the United States. New in English are translations of some of Lanzmann's key texts and interviews.