Katyn
by Andrzej Wajda
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DVD details
Actor: Andrzej Chyra, Artur Amijewski, Maja OstaszewskaDirector: Andrzej Wajda
Brand: E1E
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Polish (Original Language)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 121 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-08-11
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Koch Lorber Films
Product features:
- KATYN (DVD MOVIE)
DVD Reviews of Katyn
DVD Review: Communist Poland Was Built On The Lies Told About Katyn
Summary: 5 Stars
This was probably the biggest national heartbreak suffered by a single country other than the Holocaust. It happened when Stalin ordered the NKVD to "liquidate" the captured Polish POW's who had the misfortune of being captured by Timoshenko's troops instead of Guderian's or Runstedt's. The "4th Partition Of Poland" created a problem for the western allies that would not resurface until 1942 when Stalin's government, who adamantly refused the recognized legitimate government-in-exile in London's request to send the Swiss and the Red Cross over to what the Germans discovered at Katyn. The Soviets told the world it was a German Atrocity while the Nazis were telling the world that it was a Soviet Atrocity. Only the Poles and Soviets knew the real truth and no Nazi forensics was going to tell anybody different. The Poles because it affected their families directly when they lost contact with their loved ones captured by the Red Army. The Soviets because they knew exactly who gave the orders as well as who carried those orders out--afterward, many of them who committed the executions themselves would be slaughtered by their co-workers on orders of their superiors. What few survivors there were from the executioners' side were either discredited because of their mental imbalances or they drunk themselves to their deaths. It was the lies of Katyn that compelled Stalin to break relations with the London Government as well as work to crush the Polish Home Army that was loyal to it. The Home Army fought and died with the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto against the Germans while Rokossovsky's troops were ordered to stand back and let the Germans take out the last vestige of Pilsudski's and Paderewski's Pre-War Poland. Once it was clear that the Germans effectively eradicated all Polish military resistance, The Stavka gave the order with Stalin's blessing for Rokossovsky's forces to take Warsaw from the Germans and continue their drive to the west to take up as much land as possible before the Americans and the British take it.
Katyn was the fulcrum by which the Polish people would judge their experience under Communist rule, first under Soviet Occupation and then as a Soviet satellite, a forced ally despite centuries of mistrust between them. The lies of Katyn that compelled Stalin to set up the Lublin Government in 1942 to counter the London Government and when Rokossovsky took Warsaw, the Lublin Government became the de-facto government of Poland--even though many in its government, including its Minister of Defense, Konstantin Ustinovich Rokossovsky himself, were not Poles. Because of Katyn, many Poles after the war did not respect the Polish Government as their legitimate government, Let alone the PRP, the Polish Communist Party.
The Polish Governments of Wladislaw Gomulka, Stanislav Konya, Edvard Gierek, Konya again and Wojciech Jaruzelski had to walk a balancing act between the Polish people and the Soviets despite the fact that the rest of the world did recognize Gomulka's government as the official government of Poland in the mid-1940s. It was fait accompli that made it happen, brought about by a Soviet victory which further tried to bury Katyn to the Poles and the rest of the world--even though the rest of the world knew the truth. Churchill even wrote about it in his history of the Second World War.
It wasn't until Gorbachev became General Secretary in Moscow and his calls for openness after the Chernobyl disaster that forced a discussion about Katyn in both Poland and the Soviet Union. The Poles also learned other truths about their leaders as well, especially Jaruzelski, who during that time was arrested by Smersh troops and and hauled off to a gulag in Siberia, only to be rehabilitated after the war and brought into the ranks of the new Polish Army and the PRP. By discussing the subject of Katyn, the Poles confirmed their beliefs in their common loss, which until this time was considered a loss suffered by specific families. By this time, the Polish government found itself in an untenable position with their own people and without Gorbachev and his government to support them further. If it was the will of the people to undo their government by either coup or reform, the Red Army would not stand in the way. The only guarantee that Gorbachev would give to Poland was that their territorial integrity especially against Germany would be defended.
Jaruzelski had to give opposition parties more legitimacy and even had to allow for the possibility that the PRP could lose its monopoly on political power, especially when the government thus far failed to deliver prosperity to the people it served. He also had to allow for the possibility that he may also be tried for crimes either for what he did in World War II or even afterward. The government was between a rock and hard place. Eventually, that government dissolved peacefully and the opposition parties gathered together with the PRP's successor party, the USDRP. In the early-1990s, even Jaruzelski tried to paint himself as a reformer in the Gorbachev mold, but his past caught up to him, especially what he did in 1981 trying to squelch the Solidarity movement.
The lessons of Katyn are that no matter how deep one tries to bury the truth behind an atrocity, It will always be in the background and will determine how one perceives people who either built the lies or benefited from them. Katyn founded Post-War Poland twice--first in 1942 by its lies and then in 1990 by its truth.
Description of Katyn
Academy Award Nominee for Best Foreign Language FilmWinner of the European Film Awards Prix d?Excellence
The critically-acclaimed film from Poland?s greatest living director, Andrzej Wajda
1940. After Germany?s invasion of Poland, Joseph Stalin ordered the liquidation of the Polish officer corps, slaughtering nearly 22,000 men in Katyn Forest. Based on this horrific, historical event, Katyn tells the affecting story of four fictional officers and their families as they struggle to uncover the truth. Based on the novel ?Post Mortem? by Andrzej Mularczyk.
OVER 80 MINUTES OF BONUS FEATURES:
Interview with Andrzej Wajda
?Katyn: 60 Days on the Set? making-of featurette
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