Poland in South Africa

A young Pole, Alfons Ziółkowski, risking his life, makes an amateur film, never before published, showing the reality on both sides of the Warsaw ghetto wall in 1941. Finding the tape years later is a pretext for director Eric Bednarski to return to the events of breaking out and fencing off a part of the city, the extermination of inhabitants and destruction. The poignant archival material, the only so far non-Nazi and non-propaganda document from that place, woven into the film, becomes a silent witness to the tragedy. Compiled with the memories of the ghetto survivors, Warsaw residents and the opinions of historians, architects and artists, it shows both the memory of those events. The film raises questions about what a tragedy on such an unprecedented scale means for the city and its functioning. At the same time, we see scenes from the life of a modern, dynamic metropolis, where the traces of wounds from 75 years ago are still tangible and visible. They force us to reflect on the processes of rebuilding and development on the one hand, and preserving memory on the other. The film also shows the ruthless German bureaucracy and the plan to divide the city, which was to be marginalized, and its inhabitants - systemic extermination.

After the screening of the film, there was a discussion with E. Bednarski, who answered questions about the film's reality.

The event was organized by the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre, the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Pretoria and the Lissoos Family Foundation.