Claude Lanzmann (1925–2018) was a French journalist, writer, and film director best known for Shoah (1985), a nine-and-a-half-hour documentary on the Holocaust. As a teenager he joined the French Resistance and fought against the Nazis. After WWII, he studied philosophy at the University of Tübingen, later taught at the Free University, and began writing for Le Monde on the persistence of Nazism. Lanzmann directed several films on the Holocaust and Israel, using firsthand interviews to construct his narratives. His distinctions include the Resistance Medal with rosette, Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour, and Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit. Lanzmann is one of the few French intellectuals and artists of international stature whose body of work left its mark on millions of viewers all over the world. His memoirs, The Patagonian Hare was published in 2009.
