Yad Vashem Collections - Movies

10 Results

The summer of 1945. Tadeusz, a former Home Army (AK) soldier who lost everything in the war, is journeying across Masuria. He arrives at the home of a German soldier's widow. Rose, who lives alone on a large farm, gives him a cool welcome but lets him stay the night. Tadeusz repays her by helping around the farm. Though she won't admit it, Rose needs protection from looters who keep coming to the farm. Gradually Tadeusz discovers the reasons for her solitude. Amidst a landscape ravaged by war, an impossible love is born between two people from distant worlds.

Director : Wojciech Smarzowski

Production Year : 2011

Duration : 94

Language : Polish

ילדי האש שלי

This documentary records the contribution of the Podhale region (north of the Tatra mountains) to Poland's liberation starting with the formation of Jozef Pilsudski's Legion to which both the smallholders (gorals) and the local landowners belonged. The legendary First Regiment of Podhale Riflemen created in 1918 consisted of inhabitants of this region. During the Second World War Podhale Underground fought German Nazism on many fronts. After the war, when Poland was militarily occupied by Soviet communists, partisan fighters continued their activities. A partisan detachment nicknamed "Ogien" distinguished itself...

Director : Tadeusz Pawlicki

Production Year : 1996

Duration : 40

Language : Polish

Power of the Powerless

Siła Bezsilnych (Power of the Powerless) series tells the story of the Polish resistance movement against the Communist government during World War II. This chapter is dedicated to Joseph Kuras, nicknamed "Fire", who was the commander of the partisan organization "Lightning". The organization acted to release anti-communist underground prisoners from the "Saint Michala" prison in the center of Krakow near military camps and secret police headquarters with not a single shot fired. The last living witness Zbigniew Plobodah describes the action. The history of "Fire" reflects the history of post-war Poland. The...

Director : Tadeusz Pawlicki

Production Year : 2008

Duration : 49

Language : Polish

Cabaret Polska

This film combines the documentary genre with the cabaret. Only 25 years after Nazi Germany carried out the Holocaust on Polish soil, 30,000 Jews, including intelligentsia, scientists, artists and exceptional writers, were expelled from Poland. In the anti-Semitic campaign sponsored by the state in March 1968 in Communist Poland, the last Holocaust survivors - in the pre-war country of more than three million Jewish citizens - were declared "Foreigners," "Zionists," "Cosmopolites," and "Enemies of the Polish People's Republic", and forced to leave the country. Many of the emmigrants found shelter in Scandinavia,...

Director : ניר דויד זץ, Zuzanna Solakiewicz

Production Year : 2008

Duration : 49

Language : Polish, Yiddish

The Last Klezmer: Leopold Kozlowski, His Life and Music

Yale Strom traveled to Eastern Europe to search for remnants of klezmer music (Jewish folk melodies) that survived the Holocaust such as recordings, sheet music and klezmer musicians. In this program he interviews and travels with Leopold Kozlowski, the last klezmer, who grew up in the tradition. Special mention, Ecumenical Jury Prize, Berlin Film Festival.

Director : Yale Storm

Production Year : 1996

Duration : 84

Language : English, Polish, Russian, Yiddish

Fugitive aka The Runaway

Documentary about Kazimierz Piechowski - the organizer of the most daring escape from Auschwitz. For belonging to the Army was also imprisoned by the authorities after the war. Story of an ordinary man who became the victim of two totalitarian systems: Nazism and communism.

Director : Marek Tomasz Pawłowski

Production Year : 2006

Duration : 56

Language : Polish

Pope John Paul II

Filmed in Rome and Austria, this TV biopic tells the story of Pope John Paul II, Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 16.10.1978 until his death in 2005. The story begins in 1938, when teen-aged Karol Wojtyla, a would-be actor, decides instead to enter the priesthood. Played from age 26 onward by actor Albert Finney, Wojtyla spends WWII years in the Polish anti-Nazi movement. He continues battling for his beliefs with the Communist-ruled Polish government in the postwar years. In 1978, Wojtyla is elected to succeed Pope John Paul I, thereby becoming the first non-Italian pope in 4 centuries. Relations between...

Director : Herbert Wise

Production Year : 1984

Duration : 150

Language : English

Ashes and Diamonds

The third part of the second world war trilogy by Andrzej Wajda (“A Generation” and “Canal” were the first two). Matchek, a young freedom fighter, is given a mission to kill a communist government clerk in a Polish town. A love affair with a girl who works in a bar causes him to have doubts about the struggle.

Director : Andrzej Wajda

Production Year : 1958

Duration : 103

Language : Polish

Zwei Welten

A shortt documentary. The fistory of the Jewish Community in the city of Bytom in the region of Upper Silesia. The history of the Jews of Bytom is divided into two parts; from the 14th Century till the Second World War and from the end of the war till today. u The emancipation edict of 1812, nder the rule of the Hapsburg Monarchy, the Jewish community thrived. ssynagogues and shops were opened shops, and also social services such as a Jewish cemetery. Prominent Jews being part of the City Council. There were good relations between the Jewish and German inhabitants of the town. The Geneva Convention on...

Director : Alicia Scatton

Production Year : 2021

Duration : 24

Language : Polish

The Red Orchestra (2020)

A docu-drama. The "Red Orchestra" was the most important resistance group inside the Third Reich, a vast spy network mainly located in Brussels and Paris during the Second World War. Those activists help the Jews persecuted by the regime, hide deserters and gather military information that will be decisive for the victory of the allies. The film sheds light on this network of mythical spy.

Director : Carl-Ludwig Rettinger

Production Year : 2020

Duration : 120

Language : English, German