US-Polish docudrama on Jews in wartime Poland screened worldwide

The film’s gala premiere is held at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, with screenings scheduled in several hundred cinemas and other venues throughout the globe. In Poland alone, the film is shown in over 30 cities.

The production was written, produced, and directed by Roberta Grossman.

It traces the history of a clandestine organisation, codenamed Oynet Shabes, established in Nazi-occupied Warsaw by Emanuel Ringelblum to study and document all aspects of Jewish life in wartime Poland and to compile an archive that would preserve this history for posterity. The organisation continued its work until the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in the spring of 1943.

Before his death in March 1944, Ringelblum managed to hide over 30,000 documents, including newspapers, photographs, poems, paintings and essays, in milk cans and tin boxes.

Two caches of the Ringelblum Archive were unearthed shortly after the war. The third one has never been found.

The film’s executive producer is Nancy Spielberg, the younger sister of Steven Spielberg.

Polish actors are cast in the leads. Piotr Głowacki portrays Emanuel Ringelblum. Adrien Brody, who won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in The Pianist, took the voiceover role of Ringelblum.

(mk/aba)