The Polish government still appears to be debating whether to fine the country’s public broadcaster for screening “Among Neighbors,” which documents the circumstances of the small rural town of Gniewoszów, focusing on one of its last living Holocaust survivors, along with a resident who says he saw Jews murdered there six months after the Nazis’ reign of terror ended.
In the wake of a thunderous online rant against the film by a high-ranking official in the Polish president’s office, and a campaign to have the film banned altogether, some 39 Holocaust scholars published an open letter acknowledging the so-called Righteous Among The Nations in Poland who, as non-Jews, risked their own lives to save Jews.
But the experts point to a darker side that Polish authorities have attempted, including with legislation, to cover up.
“A significant part of society, struggling with the terrible conditions of the German occupation, remained passive in the face of the fate of the Jews or even approved of it. In addition, there is unequivocal evidence that the survivors encountered hostility or were even murdered upon their return,” reads the letter, which was published in both Polish and English, and posted to Among Neighbors’ promotional website.
The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, better known as the Claims Conference, provided funding for the film. Gideon Taylor, the conference’s president, told JNS that “There are lessons for all of us to be drawn” from the film, adding that “the letter from historians shows how important it is for an open and honest accounting of history.”
Yoav Potash, the Jewish-American director of “Among Neighbors,” pointed out to JNS that “the nation that’s the most represented among those historians is Poland,” along with academics from the United States and roughly a half-dozen other countries.
Potash said the letter reflects the film’s own tone.
“We’re trying to highlight the most significant developments between Poles and Jews in this one small town, and it happens to be a good microcosm for looking at Jewish-Polish relations,” Potash said. “In this one small town, someone did risk their own life to help save Jewish lives during the war, but at the same time, once the Jewish homes were cleared out, Polish people moved in. And even after the war, when a few Holocaust survivors came stumbling back to their town, some of them were murdered, and others were threatened and fled.”
Potash said that the latter part is what “the ultra-nationalists in Poland can’t stand being aired publicly, because it pokes holes in their own myth about Poland’s role in the war and its aftermath.”
Polish Television, known as TVP, broadcast “Among Neighbors” for the first time on Nov. 10.
The Ordo Iuris Institute, known as a conservative Polish Catholic legal organization and think tank, lashed out, claiming Potash “accuses Poles of co-responsibility for the German genocide committed against Jews,” and demanded the president of the country’s National Broadcasting Council, known by its acronym KRRiT, penalize TVP.
While KRRiT accepted a punishment was in order, the majority of the TVP Program Council, an advisory body appointed by the National Media Council, rejected the motion, though its chair, Barbara Bilińska, abstained, even after receiving a protest letter from the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute in Poland and the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews.
“Among Neighbors” can still be watched on TVP’s video-on-demand platform.
Days after the film first aired, Agnieszka Jędrzak, a minister from the chancellery of Poland’s president Karol Nawrocki, backed by the Law and Justice party, fired off on X, writing to those interested in the film, “If you’re looking for history, you won’t find it here.”
Jędrzak added that “Among Neighbors” “distorts history so much that it’s no longer history but propaganda. And here’s true history: the Holocaust was a German state enterprise, planned and executed by German nationals in German-occupied Poland, and saying or suggesting otherwise is an outright lie.”
Law and Justice, which served as Poland’s ruling party from 2015 to 2023, led the outlaw effort, accusing the country or its people of complicity in Nazi crimes. Originally an offense punishable with prison time, it has since been lessened to a civil offense.
Jędrzak herself worked at Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance, once headed by Nawrocki, though she disputes being labeled right-wing or nationalist, claiming no political affiliation.
Jędrzak took aim directly at Potash, writing that his “tools are role-reversal—emphasizing and multiplying rare acts of Polish hostility and much rarer acts of German kindness toward Jews (in order to brand Poles, who were also victims of German occupation, as killers, and exonerate Germans, true perpetrators).”
Potash said the series of tweets triggered an “echo chamber” to “pile on with critiques of the film.”
But he pointed to a public-opinion poll, conducted by a mainstream Polish news outlet, which found that roughly two-thirds of the more than 1,000 respondents said they supported the film and that “difficult histories” should be told in Poland. About one-third sided with Jędrzak on the grounds that the film tarnishes Poland’s national reputation and said that it should be taken off the airwaves.
JNS reached out to the president’s office and to KRRiT for comment.
Anita Friedman, the film’s executive producer, whose own family first returned to Poland for a visit two decades ago, told JNS that “Most people don’t know that Jews were killed in Europe after the Holocaust ended. Most Jews don’t even know it. But antisemitism is just as deadly when perpetrated by everyday people as it is when affected by national policy.”
In the meantime, Potash is playing a “waiting game” for KRRiT’s final decision.
“We’ve understood they’re looking into it. They’ve asked some questions of the public broadcaster. The public broadcaster has then asked some questions of me,” Potash said.
But a conscious strategy was undertaken “not to react to hysteria with hysteria” and “not to engage in a sort of direct debate” with Jędrzak and others who hold her point of view.
“Essentially our message is: you’ve heard about what’s going on, see the film for yourself, make up your own mind,” Potash told JNS.
But the open letter is a new touch.
There are several historians who provide commentary in the film, and Potash said he decided to work with them on crafting a letter in support of the film.
“Getting 39 historians to agree on anything is not easy, but they were all quite united in feeling that this was an affront to the very ideals of free academic research as well as freedom of the press and free speech,” Potash said.
While Potash believes that the maximum allowable punishment by law that the Polish government has available is to issue a fine and that an outright ban of the film falls outside the government’s purview, “we have seen in various governments that sometimes that doesn’t stop presidents from trying to assert power that they may or may not constitutionally have.”
Potash posited that part of the holdup on a final decision “could be just trying to get their ducks in a row legally as to what is the maximum punishment they can impose. On the other hand, they might be realizing, ‘Oh, the more action we take, the more attention we’re giving to this film.’”
The delay and the silence that comes with it is hard to interpret, Potash said, as it could indicate deliberation, strategizing or an effort to “let it quietly go away.”
In the interim, Potash is pointing to those with an interest in the historians’ open letter.
“Through the prism of this story, the film shows the depth and complexity of the long history of Polish-Jewish relations,” they wrote, adding that “The history of Poland has been intertwined with the history of the Jews for decades and includes both positive and negative chapters,” with only “an open and honest discussion” allowing for Poles to “fully understand the complex and often painful history of these issues.”
