Bogdan’s Journey

A documentary. One man persuades the people of Kielce, Poland, to confront the truth about the darkest moment in their past: Kielce was the site of Europe’s last Jewish pogrom. In 1946 forty holocaust survivors, seeking shelter in a downtown building, were murdered by townspeople. Communist authorities suppressed the story. For Bogdan Bialek, a Catholic Pole, anti-Semitism is a sin. This conviction is the animating force of his life. Conflict over the pogrom was still a festering wound when Bialek moved to Kielce in the late 70s. He was shocked by the atmosphere of his new town. Trained as a psychologist, he has made it his life’s work both to persuade people to embrace their past and to reconnect the city with the international Jewish community.