HOTEL POLONIA
Title: HOTEL POLONIA
Original Title: HOTEL POLSKI
Film Status: INTERNATIONALLY PREMIERED
Production Year: 2009
Country of Origin: POLAND
Genre: DOCUMENTARY
Language: POLISH
Duration: 49 MIN.
Original Title: HOTEL POLSKI
Film Status: INTERNATIONALLY PREMIERED
Production Year: 2009
Country of Origin: POLAND
Genre: DOCUMENTARY
Language: POLISH
Duration: 49 MIN.
Director: KAMA VEYMONT
Scriptwriter: KAMA VEYMONT
Cinematographer: ANDRZEJ ADAMCZAK
Editor: PAWEL DELIS
Producer: JANUSZ SKAŁKOWSKI
Production Company: SF KALEJDOSKOP
Scriptwriter: KAMA VEYMONT
| Cast: |
Editor: PAWEL DELIS
Producer: JANUSZ SKAŁKOWSKI
Production Company: SF KALEJDOSKOP
Format: HD
Screen Ratio: 16:9
Screen Ratio: 16:9
SYNOPSIS:
The film peeks behind the scenes of a mysterious and little known Holocaust episode which took place in Warsaw in the summer of 1943 and was called “Hotel Polonia affair” due to its moral ambiguity. A peculiar “embassy for Jews” was set up at the initiative of Gestapo (sic!) where Polish Jews could buy, at exorbitant price, life-saving passports of deceased citizens of South American and neutral countries. These IDs enabled about 2500 Polish Jews to leave the country. However, ultimately only 200 of them survived. What has happened to the rest of Hotel Polonia’s guests? Was the hotel a gate to survival or a death trap? Who were the people who actually survived. The film’s authors attempt to find answers to these questions by confronting testimonies of the last living witnesses of those events now living in Poland, New York and Israel.
The film peeks behind the scenes of a mysterious and little known Holocaust episode which took place in Warsaw in the summer of 1943 and was called “Hotel Polonia affair” due to its moral ambiguity. A peculiar “embassy for Jews” was set up at the initiative of Gestapo (sic!) where Polish Jews could buy, at exorbitant price, life-saving passports of deceased citizens of South American and neutral countries. These IDs enabled about 2500 Polish Jews to leave the country. However, ultimately only 200 of them survived. What has happened to the rest of Hotel Polonia’s guests? Was the hotel a gate to survival or a death trap? Who were the people who actually survived. The film’s authors attempt to find answers to these questions by confronting testimonies of the last living witnesses of those events now living in Poland, New York and Israel.
AWARDS:
| 2010: | "Man Under Threat" Media Festival - Award of the Chairman of the Polish Filmmakers Association - Kama Veymont
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