There Are no Antisemites in Poland

Nominated on:Short Documentary

Film Info

Film Year: 2019

Film Duration: 17 min

Country: Austria

Director

Karolina Malwina Gruschka

Film Category
Synopsis

Right-wing media repeatedly claim that anti-Semitism “practically does not exist” in Poland – an attitude that regularly meets with international outrage. There are no antisemites in Poland, until they appear in your own family. There I encounter diffuse fears, insecurity and resistance. Since 2016, Poland has been drawing attention to itself with controversial changes in legislation: A controversial school reform bill is passed, that includes a new publication of history school books. This is followed by the removing of 27 judges of the Supreme Court who are replaced by members of the ruling national conservative party Law and Justice (PiS). In the spring of 2018, the new “Holocaust Law” was published, which is supposed to make Polands innocence in the Second World War binding for everyone. My mother Sofia and my older siblings Jarek and Ewa live in Poland. I live in Vienna. All generations have experienced Poland in change and deal differently with todays political events. In an attempt to show how much antisemitism and xenophobia feel at home in todays Catholicism I point the camera at my own family.