Polish Holocaust Film Analysis

Polish Holocaust films have been around since the end of World War II and they have been a topic of conversation ever since. They 're a topic of controversy not only because they are simply about the holocaust, but the feelings between Poles and Jews has been almost a topic of taboo up until the fall of communism and the release of Jan T. Gross 's book “Neighbors”. Being that this is such a sensitive topic to many people, we need to look and try to understand if there is bias in any of the Polish Holocaust films. The first film “Ida” which was about a girl who finds out she is actually Jewish and wants to find out what happened to her parents. Ida and her Aunt Wanda, who worked for the communist during and after the war set out on a road trip to find out what happened to Ida 's parents. We eventually find out that her parents were murdered by Feliks Skiba who originally hid them from the Nazis and currently lives in their house. Skiba agrees to show them where the bodies are if …show more content…
One of the early movie directors Wanda Jakubowska, showed her communist views both on and off screen during her time as a filmmaker (Page 3). She is also bias against the Poles as she portrayed them in one of the Polish women in her films as greedy and incompetent (5). In the film “Passenger” which was directed by Andrzej Munk, Munk decided to play down the prisoners nationality saying it could have happened to any country in Europe and not just in Poland (8). Since Munk was not able to finish the film because he was killed in a car accident, the film was completed by his collaborators and we should (but are unable to) determine if they had any bias, motives or hidden agendas that were made obvious in the films. While not all Holocaust films have a bias, it is crucial as a viewer to lookout for bias in a film as it could change the outlook of the film and history