TONIA AND HER CHILDREN

DOUBLE FEATURE
Two people sitting at a table in a darkened room, letters and photographs spread out in front of them. The siblings Werka and Marcel have sat down to re-visit the past and examine a chapter in their traumatic childhood. Their mother Tonia, a Polish Jew suspected of anti-communist activities, was arrested in 1949, and was tortured and humiliated during her five years of subsequent imprisonment. The 11-year-old Werka was put into a children’s home along with her 9-year-old brother. Visibly moved, the two adults now read extracts from interrogation transcripts and their mother’s own letters and recollections, sometimes illustrated with old black-and-white photos and films. Tonia writes about the torture she experienced, but also her feelings of guilt. When her unexpected release from prison was announced, she initially refused to leave: after years of indoctrination she really believed she was culpable. Discussing their memories and emotions becomes a painful journey into the past for the brother and sister. Werka and Marcel talk about the loneliness of their childhood, how they felt angry with their mother for abandoning them, and about the conflicting emotions both experienced when re-united with a woman whose spirit had been broken.