Claude Lanzmann's epic documentary recounts the story of the Holocaust through interviews with witnesses: perpetrators, as well as survivors.

The "First Era" covers memories of the time period from roughly the winter of 1941 to the winter of 1942, as death camps were constructed and Jews were deported to those camps from Poland, Croatia, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. At the early camps, including Chelmo, where gas was first used for the killing, the mechanisms of extermination were relatively primitive and inefficient. Among those Lanzmann interviews is Simon Srebnik, who miraculous survived Chelmo, and an engineer who drove a death train to the camp at Treblinka.