Bogdan's Journey
Trailer 1 [pl st en]
by Michal Jaskulski, Lawrence Loewinger
Kielce, Poland, was the site of Europe’s last Jewish pogrom. In 1946, townspeople killed over 40 Holocaust survivors seeking shelter in a downtown building, and injured 80 more. As news of the pogrom spread across Poland, Jews fled the country. The Kielce pogrom became a symbol of Polish post-war antisemitism in the Jewish world. Under communism, the pogrom was a forbidden subject, but it was never forgotten. In a free Poland, Bogdan Białek, a Catholic Pole, journalist and psychologist, emerges to talk publicly about the issue. Beginning as a solitary figure, he confronts the deepest prejudices in his fellow citizens, and strives to reconnect Kielce with the outside Jewish community. An effort which costs him dearly.