Lanzmann, Claude and Heike Hurst.

[FIRST CZECH EDITION – SAMIZDAT] Šoa [Shoah]. Samizdat edition.

Prague: Edice Expedice (vol. 258), 1988. Large octavo (23.5 × 16.8 cm). Original patterned beige cloth with typescript spine label; [3], 4, [1], 5-324, [1] leaves of carbon copy typescript (third or fourth copy) to rectos. Very good. Item #55633

First Czech edition of the transcript of Lanzmann's groundbreaking 1985 documentary fim "Shoah", published illegally as samizdat, as volume 258 of the "Edice Expedice" (Expedition Edition), one of the most significant samidat publishers in Communist Czechoslovakia. The translation is based on the 1986 German edition "Shoah: Mit einem Vorwort von Simone de Beauvoir" (though the introduction by de Beauvoir is omitted here). With an editor's note on the transliteration and meaning of the film's title. The work featured a three-page preface by Lanzmann, followed by transcripts of the first and second parts of the film, and finally the translated text of an interview between Lanzmann and Heike Hurst originally published in German as "Eine befreiende Wirkung").

Lanzmann's nine hour documentary film about the Holocaust consists largely of interviews with eyewitnesses, including both victims and perpetrators. It could not be shown in Czechoslovakia, nor anywhere else in the Eastern Bloc, until after the end of the Communist regime. The "Edice Expedice" was initiated by prominent opposition figure Václav Havel in 1975 and published numerous translations in addition to works by contemporary “underground” writers, such as Egon Bondy and Ivan Jirous. In some editions, Havel and his wife Olga included their own names in the colophon, which had not been customary in Czechoslovak samizdat. After both faced severe repercussions (Václav Havel was even sentenced to prison), they discontinued this practice.

Havel would go on to become the first President of free Czechoslovakia in late 1989. In his new role, "Havel formally pointed out the importance of remembering the Holocaust.... Besides this, Havel had a short meeting with the French director of the film, Shoah, Claude Lanzmann, when he was present at the film's premiere in Prague in May 1991. This was the first time Lanzmann's film could be seen in Czechoslovakia." (Sniegon p. 97). Sniegon goes on to point out that the engagement with the Holocaust by Havel and other Czech intellectuals of the period remained curiously uneven, with the film never being shown to a wider audience or aired on television.

See: Tomas Sniegon, Vanished History: The Holocaust in Czech and Slovak Historical Culture (2014).

As of March 2026, no copies located in KVK, OCLC.

Price: €2,000.00

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