“Bogdan’s Journey” Truth Has to Be Told with Love: Film Screening – Nov. 7 @ The New School
Join us on Thursday, November 7th, 2019 (6:30 – 8:30PM) for a critically acclaimed film about murder and memory 70 years after Europe’s last pogrom – in Kielce, Poland.
Special screening of the award-winning film Bogdan’s Journey / Przy Planty 7/9. The screening will be followed by Q&A with Bogdan Bialek – the protagonist of the film, President of the Jan Karski Society in Kielce and the editor-in-chief of Charaktery psychology monthly.
A Catholic Pole, embarks on a decades long journey to heal the wounds of Europe’s last pogrom in Kielce, Poland.
The Q&A will be moderated by Elzbieta Matynia, the director of The Transregional Center for Democratic Studies, NSSR.
Location:
Albert and Vera List Academic Center
6 East 16th Street, Wolff Conference Room, D1103, New York, NY, 10003
This is a free event, please RSVP here.
About the film:
Kielce, Poland was the site of Europe’s last Jewish pogrom in 1946. The militia, soldiers and ordinary townspeople killed over 40 Holocaust survivors seeking shelter in a downtown building, injuring 80 more. As news of the pogrom spread across Poland, Jews fled the country. The Kielce pogrom became a symbol of Polish post-war anti-Semitism in the Jewish world. Under communism, the pogrom was a forbidden subject in Poland, but it was never forgotten.
In a free Poland, Bogdan Bialek, a Catholic Pole, journalist and psychologist, emerges to talk publicly about the issue. Over time, with great effort, he persuades the people of Kielce to confront this painful history. Beginning as a solitary figure, he confronts the deepest prejudices in his fellow citizens, and strives to reconnect Kielce with the outside Jewish community. The effort costs him dearly. Bogdan’s Journey was filmed in Poland, Israel and the United States for almost a decade. Its two directors, a Polish Catholic and a Jewish American, combine to tell a unique story about one man and how he redeems 70 years of bitter, contested memories–by telling the truth with love.
Duration: 1 hour 26 minutes
Languages: Polish, English; English Subtitles
Presented by The Transregional Center for Democratic Studies at The New School for Social Research.
