Polnische Passion

Polish expatriate Janusz Piekalkiewicz put together this documentary about his homeland's struggle in World War II from 1939 to 1945. He draws from his personal experience as a participant in the Warsaw ghetto uprising and his incarceration in a Nazi concentration camp. Piekalkiewicz, who fled Poland in 1957, also focuses on the terror of the Stalin regime that followed the war, and newsreel footage is used to set the stage for the 1939 agreement between Hitler and Stalin. Piekalkiewicz maintains the film is not anti-Russian but admits it is definitely anti-Stalin in its presentation. He also points out that there were more casualties in Poland than the combined total of casualties suffered by the Western allies.