Besides West Germany under Konrad Adenauer and later governments, no other European country did any serious effort to admit their role in Jewish deportation and final annihilation during the Nazi era of WWII.
East Germany persistently denied having had anything to do with it and Austria still considers itself as having being "occupied" by the Nazis instead of the truth, which is having joyful joined Hitler's Germany as seen in old news reels with hundreds of thousands enthusiastic people in the street parades, welcoming the Germans troops at the "Anschluss".
Poland (as France, Switzerland and other countries) preferred to ignore any kind of collaboration or sympathy for the Nazi regime.
Switzerland closed his frontiers to countless Jews, which was tantamount to sent them back to a clear death.
The Vatican accepted a very small number of Jews in the Vatican State as alibi, but did not intervene at Hitler as it should morally have done. Pope Pius XII is supposed to have believed that the Jews historically deserved in a certain way that punishment, but of course the Vatican denies it.
France had to wait very long time until President Chirac was the first who had the courage to recognize the French active collaboration in the deportation of French Jews (including hundreds of very small children!) to the German death camps. He apologized in the name of the French nation. A noble gesture!
His predecessor President Mitterand (who had a dubious role during the occupation, although supposedly having been a "socialist") had before Chirac strongly denied any guilt of his country and had found "no reason to apologize". He even protected during his presidency some "old friends" who were directly responsible for having organized those deportations, people who had made even more "efforts" to carry out their sinister task, than what the Nazis requested from them!
At the time of the hopeless, desperate and heroic revolt at the Jewish Getto of Warsaw, the Polish underground partisans refused to supply the Jewish fighters with weapons or help them in any way... unless they paid for it which was not possible since within the Getto they were starving to death!
If the Germans undertook to get rid of the Polish Jews, well, it was not such a bad idea after all. In any case not a Polish problem at all!. "The less Jews in Poland, the better", was the general feeling in Poland during the Nazi occupation (with some noble exceptions of very courageous Poles who risked their own life to hide Jews). Besides, as shown in the film, it allowed many Poles to get hold of the houses, land properties and other possessions of all the "disappeared" Jews, something which of course also took place in other European countries.
This film, made by a (non Jewish! very courageous) film maker, created unsurprisingly a great turmoil in Poland. Wladyslaw Pasikowski was even accused to be a "a polish hater". However the facts it tells are entirely true although the names, for obvious reasons, were changed and some details added or modified for cinematographic reasons.
This film, together with "Schindler's List" is a MILLESTONE in the films describing WWII and the Holocaust.
No doubt it is very difficult to accept for Polish citizens. They will willingly see the film about the Katyn massacre organized by Stalin (a film in which Wladyslaw Pasikowski collaborated as well) since it concerned Polish victims. However most of them do not want to know anything about the sad role that Poland played towards their Jews during the German occupation (and long before with "Numerus Clausus" for Jews in educational institutes, restriction where Jews were allowed to live, countless Pogroms, etc.).
Whoever wants to have a comprehensive view of the Nazi era in Europe SHOULD see this film.
The arguments others brought here against this film are in my opinion fallacious. No film is perfect and no historical film is 100% identical to the facts it tells. However even if some events might be slightly changed, the true point of the film is to reveal the attitude of most Poles during the Nazi occupation towards their Jewish fellow citizens.
Unfortunately, although the number of Jews presently living in Poland can easily be neglected, strangely enough Antisemitism is still very strong in present day Poland. (Antisemitism without Jews!!!!) An interesting example is for instance Lech Walesa. He is no doubt a hero from the Polish point of view but that does not change his negative feelings towards Jews.
Antisemitism (and his present forms of Antiisraelism, Antizionism and so on) are still a sad reality with different degrees of violence in most countries in the world in the 21th century.
Antisemitism in Poland is a many hundred years phenomenon with a special, additional fact non present in other European countries in which Pogroms against Jews also took place, the strong Polish catholicism and the old catholic accusation "Jews killed Jesus" taken seriously by the illiterate people (ignoring that actually the Romans crucified Jesus and that Jesus was himself a Jew!).
How many people know for instance that at his time, Chopin refused to play in a concert hall... if he learned that Jews were among the public? That does not diminish at all, of course, the great musical value of Chopin's music but just shows that he also was "a true Pole", from this dark point of view as well.
To sum up, this is an astounding film and well worth to see!!! Whoever sees it without being in advance biased against it, will not forget it!
East Germany persistently denied having had anything to do with it and Austria still considers itself as having being "occupied" by the Nazis instead of the truth, which is having joyful joined Hitler's Germany as seen in old news reels with hundreds of thousands enthusiastic people in the street parades, welcoming the Germans troops at the "Anschluss".
Poland (as France, Switzerland and other countries) preferred to ignore any kind of collaboration or sympathy for the Nazi regime.
Switzerland closed his frontiers to countless Jews, which was tantamount to sent them back to a clear death.
The Vatican accepted a very small number of Jews in the Vatican State as alibi, but did not intervene at Hitler as it should morally have done. Pope Pius XII is supposed to have believed that the Jews historically deserved in a certain way that punishment, but of course the Vatican denies it.
France had to wait very long time until President Chirac was the first who had the courage to recognize the French active collaboration in the deportation of French Jews (including hundreds of very small children!) to the German death camps. He apologized in the name of the French nation. A noble gesture!
His predecessor President Mitterand (who had a dubious role during the occupation, although supposedly having been a "socialist") had before Chirac strongly denied any guilt of his country and had found "no reason to apologize". He even protected during his presidency some "old friends" who were directly responsible for having organized those deportations, people who had made even more "efforts" to carry out their sinister task, than what the Nazis requested from them!
At the time of the hopeless, desperate and heroic revolt at the Jewish Getto of Warsaw, the Polish underground partisans refused to supply the Jewish fighters with weapons or help them in any way... unless they paid for it which was not possible since within the Getto they were starving to death!
If the Germans undertook to get rid of the Polish Jews, well, it was not such a bad idea after all. In any case not a Polish problem at all!. "The less Jews in Poland, the better", was the general feeling in Poland during the Nazi occupation (with some noble exceptions of very courageous Poles who risked their own life to hide Jews). Besides, as shown in the film, it allowed many Poles to get hold of the houses, land properties and other possessions of all the "disappeared" Jews, something which of course also took place in other European countries.
This film, made by a (non Jewish! very courageous) film maker, created unsurprisingly a great turmoil in Poland. Wladyslaw Pasikowski was even accused to be a "a polish hater". However the facts it tells are entirely true although the names, for obvious reasons, were changed and some details added or modified for cinematographic reasons.
This film, together with "Schindler's List" is a MILLESTONE in the films describing WWII and the Holocaust.
No doubt it is very difficult to accept for Polish citizens. They will willingly see the film about the Katyn massacre organized by Stalin (a film in which Wladyslaw Pasikowski collaborated as well) since it concerned Polish victims. However most of them do not want to know anything about the sad role that Poland played towards their Jews during the German occupation (and long before with "Numerus Clausus" for Jews in educational institutes, restriction where Jews were allowed to live, countless Pogroms, etc.).
Whoever wants to have a comprehensive view of the Nazi era in Europe SHOULD see this film.
The arguments others brought here against this film are in my opinion fallacious. No film is perfect and no historical film is 100% identical to the facts it tells. However even if some events might be slightly changed, the true point of the film is to reveal the attitude of most Poles during the Nazi occupation towards their Jewish fellow citizens.
Unfortunately, although the number of Jews presently living in Poland can easily be neglected, strangely enough Antisemitism is still very strong in present day Poland. (Antisemitism without Jews!!!!) An interesting example is for instance Lech Walesa. He is no doubt a hero from the Polish point of view but that does not change his negative feelings towards Jews.
Antisemitism (and his present forms of Antiisraelism, Antizionism and so on) are still a sad reality with different degrees of violence in most countries in the world in the 21th century.
Antisemitism in Poland is a many hundred years phenomenon with a special, additional fact non present in other European countries in which Pogroms against Jews also took place, the strong Polish catholicism and the old catholic accusation "Jews killed Jesus" taken seriously by the illiterate people (ignoring that actually the Romans crucified Jesus and that Jesus was himself a Jew!).
How many people know for instance that at his time, Chopin refused to play in a concert hall... if he learned that Jews were among the public? That does not diminish at all, of course, the great musical value of Chopin's music but just shows that he also was "a true Pole", from this dark point of view as well.
To sum up, this is an astounding film and well worth to see!!! Whoever sees it without being in advance biased against it, will not forget it!