GDANSKI RAILWAY STATION

1968 has gone down in history as a turbulent year of political and social protest throughout Europe. It is less noted for a chapter of Polish-Jewish history that altered the destiny of those involved. In the aftermath of the Six Day War between Israel and the neighbouring Arab states, the ruling communist party and its instruments of state began to stir up anti-Semitic prejudice in Poland. Barely twenty years after the terror of National Socialism and the Shoah, Polish Jews were vilified as Zionists and enemies of the state. High time, insinuated the propagandists, for them to “go home” to the Israeli “motherland”; in some cases, Jews were simply stripped of Polish citizenship. As the pressure mounted, thousands of Polish Jews emigrated, leaving behind their home, their friends, and their families. Gdansk Station in Warsaw was the starting point for a journey to an unknown country where the future was uncertain.
Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz’s documentary depicts the fate of several émigrés from that period. It deals with the shock they felt at seeing public opinion so brazenly manipulated, with their decision to leave Poland, and with the pain, still raw for many, of leaving. And it shows a moving reunion of former companions almost forty years after the events.