Shtetl and Hotel Terminus: History and Memory of the Shoah

McCrillis I Shtetl ana Hotel Terminus: History and Memory of the Shoah Neal R. McCrillis Methodist College Shtetl and Hotel Terminus: History and Memory of the Shoah Documentary producers usually operate on the premise mat historical actors and documents are "facts" which need litde mediation or interpretation. A film mat follows this approach , Robert Rosenstone notes, unwittingly conveys "memory (and nostalgia) rather than history ... [because it] never asks questions ofits witnesses, and never comments on their opinions, however wrong or inaccurate theymay be ..."' This kind offilmmaking has been challenged, notably byfilms on the Holocaust such as Shoah (1985). Similarly Marcel Ophuls' classic documentary, The Sorrowand the Pity(1970), assailed the nation's heroic memory ofwartime resistance. Ophuls' more recent film, Hotel Terminus (1987), and a new picture, Shtetl(1996), by Marian Marzynski uncover the complex nature of the Shoah and probe the role ofindividual and collective memory. Both Hotel Terminus and Shtetlquestion our unreflective acceptance of oral testimony and documentation . These films challenge accepted historical methodology and press us to search for meaning in the Shoah and all history. Hotel Terminus, Ophuls' first film in a decade, is a documentary about Klaus Barbie, his victims and friends, and die Vichy legacy. At the center of this film is Barbie, the infamous "butcher ofLyon." Yet the young Barbie is described by inhabitants of his hometown and classmates as the son a schoolteacher and an upright Catholic boy. As an SS captain Barbie headed a section ofdie Lyon security police during 1942-44 and was responsible for die torture, death, and deportation ofmanyvictims . After working for American intelligence, Barbie escaped to Bolivia in 1949 with the assistance ofWashington and die Vatican. As Klaus Altman, Barbie worked for various Bolivian dictators until he was discovered and extradited to France. In 1987 he was convicted for crimes against humanity. However, as its tide suggests, Hotel Terminus is a documentary less about Barbie than Vichy France—particularly Lyon—where the gestapo was headquartered in die Hotel Terminus . In abroader sense Ophuls studies the legacy ofthe Shoah. He uses interviews with various individuals who knew Barbie as their torturer, friend, or neighbor. The film opens with Johannes Schneider-Merck, a South American friend of Barbie, who recounts how his friend exploded in anger at a suggestion that Adolf Hider had betrayed the idealism of German youdis. Ophuls shifts to a Lyon cafe where middle-aged men play billiards and reflect upon their experiences under Nazism. One interviewee evenrecalls how as abellboy in the Hotel Terminus he received large gratuities from gestapo members. This is followed by aseries ofvisual images of the hotelwhile the audio track offers ajarring sequence ofstatements by contemporaries of Barbie who describe him as kind and moral, or brutal and demonic. The opening sequence indicates that Ophuls is more interested in memories and legacies than the persona of Barbie, fragmented and filtered bywitnesses. Ophuls devotes a great deal ofattention to the ambiguous and contested legacy ofdie war. In a speech after Barbie's extradition , the prime minister ofFrance emphasized that the trial would "honor die memory of that time ofgrieving and struggle bywhich France preserved her honor."2 Yetwhen prosecutors decided not to indict Barbie for die murder ofJean Moulin, the martyr ofFrench resistance, the case prompted debate about the divisions, particularly ideological, which had plagued the resistance. This returned French attention to the difficult task ofreconciling the reality of French right-wing and antisemitic ideas to the myth ofnational unity in resistance. At one point in Hotel Terminus an interviewee suggests that conservatives , such as Rene Hardy, collaborated with the Nazis in order to purge leftists like Moulin. Other interviewees try to reconcile their actions during the war with accepted historical mydis. One Vichy police officer claims to have protected French suspects, admittedly only prominent gentiles. Awoman who chargedJewish fugitives high rents for lodgings claims to have acted out ofpatriotism. German interviewees rebuke Ophuls for "sensationalism," but Wolfgang Gustmann praises his SS comrades for having halted the Communists before 1944. Ophuls juxtaposes segments in order to challenge ahistorical memories. During an interview with Simone Lagrange, a soft-spoken Jewish survivor whose family was exterminated , Ophuls allows her to describe her memory, as...