Guest
60 years ago, Henryk Grynberg emigrated to the United States. His literary mission has been to preserve the memory of the Holocaust, including the memory condemnatory towards the Poles. He ventures to the village where his father and little brother were killed during occupation and seeks to learn the truth from the local farmers who still remember his family. Prior to the film, Pawel Lozinski conducted his own investigation. How, his camera follows the faces of the villagers as Grynberg asks if they recognize him. Some of them are moved while others are perplexed or hostile. They all carry a sense of collective guilt. As tangible evidence surfaces, the truth about the murders unfolds right before our eyes. But it is in the observation of the faces where the fundamental meaning lies. “The film is built upon what people say but not necessarily think, or what they claim but what didn’t necessarily happen,“ says Lozinksi. “I wanted to make a film about the Poles and Jews under occupation, but not a nice and sweet one about how the Poles who helped them meet them years later. The Grynbergs were the only Jewish family in Radoszyn. They were assimilated and well-known. The crime lay a heavy burden on people’s consciences. They talked to us because they wanted to come clean. They weren’t afraid of meeting Henryk Grynberg. The only man who was afraid was the brother of the alleged murderer. The film received a lot of international awards, but it didn’t get one at the Cracow festival. They feared it, regarded it as controversial and suspected it of having been staged. When I showed Birthplace to the Polish community in Chicago, someone asked me whether Grynberg had bankrolled the film himself. Whereas the Jews said it was a shame I hadn’t put more pressure on the villagers because they must have been lying. I had to explain to them that I felt affinity towards my characters. I didn’t want to accuse them but show what terrible choices they had to face.“
