Claude Lanzmann, ‘Shoah’ Director, Detained at Israeli Airport
Claude Lanzmann, director of the famed Holocaust documentary, was detained at Ben-Gurion Airport after allegedly trying to hug and a kiss a female employee.
John Macdougal / AFP / Getty Images
A French filmmaker who made a landmark documentary about the Holocaust has been detained at Israel’s Ben-Gurion airport after allegedly making an unwanted advance toward a female security agent, according to sources at the airport.
The filmmaker Claude Lanzmann apparently tried to kiss and hug the agent as she accompanied him to the ticket counter after a security check. After the incident, police and airport security detained Lanzmann but later allowed him to board his flight back to Paris.
In response to a query by The Daily Beast, a police spokesman said he would check on the incident.
Lanzmann, 86, directed the 1985 film Shoah, a nine-and-a-half-hour oral history of the genocide Nazis perpetrated against Jews during World War II. He has also made at least two films on Israel. Lanzmann could not immediately be reached.
One source said the incident occurred after the agent questioned Lanzmann as part of the routine security screening at the airport. Security checks at Ben-Gurion are among the most rigorous in the world.