Produced by Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), the film presents some hitherto unknown documents from British archives testifying to the fact that from 1941 onward Poles informed members of the Allied coalition about the extermination camps in Nazi-occupied Poland and the atrocities perpetrated by the Germans.
The film shows that, in addition to reports by Witold Pilecki, known as the “Volunteer of Auschwitz,” and Jan Karski, a courier of the Polish underground, there were dozens of others that contained detailed accounts of the situation in Poland and the scale of genocide committed in Auschwitz, including the numbers of Jews who perished in the camp’s crematoria and the countries they came from.
Director Krzysztof Brożek said after the screening that even though Polish reports reached top-ranking British and US politicians at the time, the Allies made no attempt to stop the Holocaust.
The deputy head of the IPN, Jan Baster, told public broadcaster Polish Radio that the film may be seen as a response to recent statements by politicians and international media reports accusing Poles of anti-Semitism and complicity in the Holocaust.
Report from Auschwitz contains testimonies of former Auschwitz prisoners Kazimierz Albin, Kazimierz Piechowski, Jerzy Bogusz, Karol Tendera, and Eva Mozes-Kor, a victim of Nazi doctor Mengele’s pseudo-medical experiments.
The film will be promoted by Polish diplomatic missions around the world. Excerpts will be posted on IPN YouTube on January 27.
(mk/gs)