The interviewer then begins to ask him [Abraham Bomba] about how he felt when he saw the naked women arriving with their children and it is just devastating to watch his face as he recollects his awful experience. He had known many of them that had come into the gas chambers, yet he could not say anything to them as to what was going to happen. They were to believe that they were just there to get a nice hair cut. He was ordered by the Germans to defile his own people; to cut the hair that is such a personal aspect to their beings. I found myself asking questions such as, How could he live on after letting them all die without letting them know that they were going to die? Wouldn't he feel so much extreme guilt for doing this, even though it meant his own life? I suppose everyone survives in their own way and Mr. Bomba had his own way of dealing with the situation. He had made himself learn not to feel anything, to try and view these humans as simply "parties" that were led in to get a hair cut. Later, during the interview, he becomes very emotional and can hardly continue, but Lanzmann pushes him on. This was when Mr. Bomba broke down and I felt my own heart being ripped out. I wasn't angry with Lanzmann for prodding him and urging him to go on, even though it looked so painful for Mr. Bomba. Lanzmann did this to provoke real emotions in order to give the skeptics a chance to realize that the Holocaust was not fabricated: that these are human beings with true emotions, who survived a true hell. Watching Mr. Bomba find the courage to continue on with his recollections and come to grips with himself was a very moving experience. Lanzmann seemed to want the audience to see this courage and pain, so that we can find it within ourselves to listen and try to realistically understand what exactly happened. I won't soon forget Mr. Bomba's tears, and I think that is what Lanzmann had in mind.

-Jill Newsome

The interview with Bomba in the barber [shop] is a brutally emotional scene to watch. He seems so cool and collect[ed] at the beginning but then the memory of a barber who had to cut the hair of his wife and sister is too much for him to take, and he breaks down. Lanzmann, however, pushes him to continue, and this is perhaps the hardest part of the scene to watch. I wanted to say "come on Claude; leave this poor man alone."

Emotions aside, the scene Lanzmann creates here in the barber shop is ingenious. He almost re-creates the actual experience Bomba relates. Bomba explains that the women were not to know anything about what was going on or about the fact that awaited them. The women were simply supposed to think that they were there for a hair cut. Lanzmann creates a similar atmosphere in this scene through language. The interview is conducted in English, but most of the other people in the barber shop do not speak English. Like the women in Bomba's story, the men in the barber shop have no idea what is going on around them, other than the fact it is something of extreme seriousness. Even the man whose hair Bomba cuts is unaware of what Bomba is talking about. When you think about that, the point where Bomba shows the camera exactly how they worked to cut the women's hair on this man's head becomes kind of horrifying in itself.

The setting and the fact that Bomba is working while he is speaking is interesting [in] another way as well. Lanzmann clearly wants Bomba to have the breakdown which he eventually does, and his method of taking Bomba to that point is as ingenious as the scene he created. It seems obvious that Lanzmann asked Bomba to cut hair during the interview in hopes that the act of cutting hair now will remind him of cutting hair at Treblinka. This is indeed the effect, but the cause is perhaps deeper than suspected. In an earlier interview, it is clear that Bomba needs something to focus on while he speaks. The memories are just too painful. In this interview he focuses on a point above and behind the camera. Lanzmann uses this sense of focus in the barber shops scene. Having Bomba cut hair while he talked gives him something to focus on to control to pain of the memories. So cutting hair in this scene works paradoxically, helping Bomba to control his emotions and speak and also causing him to lost control of his emotions and break down. The reason this works is because Lanzmann is able to lead him towards more painful and repressed memories. They almost come out accidentally [sic] because Bomba is also focused on giving a hair cut to a paying customer.

-Brian Dalusio

Like I said earlier, I feel that Shoah affected me just as much as Night and Fog. Although now when I think about when I saw Night and Fog for the first time during class, I remember that I started crying because the pictures were so graphic and horrible. Now comparing Shoah to this experience, there was one scene that affected me just as strongly; Abraham Bomba in his barber shop. I wondered why Lanzmann chose to film Bomba cutting hair in his own shop. To add to the dramatic effect? What Bomba went through and how he describes seeing the people right before they were put to death is overwhelming to me. When he begins to explain the time when his friend saw his wife and sister, he cannot go on talking about it. He practically begs Lanzmann not to continue, to stop filming. But Lanzmann does not give in, in fact he's very persistent about continuing. Perhaps Lanzmann could have stopped filming and given him a chance to compose himself. Lanzmann's decision to film the whole situation is quite effective, only because it shows true pain and lets us feel only a slight bit of the whole horrible experience that Bomba had.

I believe it was necessary for Lanzmann to force these emotions out of the survivors. He wanted to unveil the hidden emotions and hidden facts from the Holocaust. If he would have been impassive about it, I'm sure he would not have gotten all the information he did. He had to be persuasive and forceful and sometimes use a little trickery to get some of the people to express their true emotions.

-Michelle Bargen

During this scene we observe Bomba at work cutting a man's hair. Watch Bomba cut this man's hair and at the same time imagining him cutting the hair of Jewish women minutes before their death had an incredible impact on me. It is quite disgusting. The contrast makes the process seem petty and covers up the true hell it really was. This hell is brought out through Bomba's final reaction. We understand that Bomba was in many ways dead during the Holocaust and he still remains numb to what he saw and did. He even says that he had to act as if he was dead and that nothing mattered or else he could not have survived. Even as Bomba begins to talk to Lanzman. he talks too calmly and is too unaffected by what he is saying. His emotions are unevident and he, like the other survivors, seems detached to what he experienced. But as he begins telling more and more, Lanzman keeps pushing and somehow revives Bomba by letting him release some of the bottled up emotions he has. As a viewer I felt most moved by this scene and I felt a human connection to Bomba. I believe this scene is incredibly important in understanding Lanzman's attempts. Lanzman wants to revive the memories of the Holocaust. He wants no one to forget to try to hide what happened. It is important for us to know and remember what happened. Lanzman finds himself in a position where he can remind the world what people are capable of and the effects the Holocaust has had on human morality as a whole.

-Erin Cicalo

The image of Abraham Bomba is forever seared into my my mind, the place where when I am idle, he will be one of the first faces I see. The scene is set up in a barber shop where we see Mr. Bomba cutting hair. It is no wonder Lanzmann does this because the questions he asks are concerning Abraham's occupation as a prisoner of the Germans. It should be remembered that Lanzmann knows the answers to the questions he is asking, the staging is only to further the response of the individual being interviewed.

Abraham was selected by the Germans to make those about to enter the death cambers less wary of their impending death. He cut the hair of woman just before they were killed in the chambers. This served two purposes, the hair was used by the Germans, and the woman were comforted and not suspicious.

While he is talking he never looks at the camera, his comments are given as if he is talking to the individual he is giving the haircut to. He has built a wall around him and it is this wall Lanzmann is trying to take down. He questions him precisely, almost irritatingly, Bomba appears to answer bitterly at times and dodges certain questions. For example, when asked how he felt to have these naked women coming into the room to have a haircut, he replies, "I felt that accordingly I got to do what they told me, to cut their hair in a way that it looked like the barber was doing his job for a woman . . . " This can not be his first reaction, but more of a secondary response. Who can tell what the first would be? I guess it to be one of shame and then a cascade of rapidly shot emotions I assume he has packed tightly away on his side of the wall.

At the end of the interview Abraham cracks, and the scene becomes bitterly emotional. I found myself telling Lanzmann to get the damn camera out of the guy's face. I feel the pressure and the tension that carries on for minutes, wanting to put my arm around him and take him out of the room. I found myself hating Lanzmann. My wife asked why I was irritated, and I found it next to impossible to share his story second hand. It must have ripped him inside to witness a man with his wife and family hours before they were to cease existence in a heartless and pitiless manner and not be able to do anything.

-Ran Hanks