Shtetl

With his friend Nathan Kaplan, the film director, a Polish Jew who survived the Holocaust, retraces the steps of Nathan’s family, originally from Bransk, a small town in the east of Poland. They meet Zbyszek Romaniuk, a young Pole who is passionately interested in local history and to whom Nathan has been writing for some time. By examining places and questioning witnesses, all three of them attempt to rediscover the marks left by Bransk’s Jewish past. The shtetl disappeared when 2500 Jews were deported to Treblinka… Later, Zbyszek travels to the United States, where he meets with an emotional welcome from the American Jews whose families had emigrated from Bransk. But when his research takes him to Israel, he comes up against some young students who reproach him for Polish antisemitism and burden him with a feeling of guilt. Conversely, on his return to Poland, he is criticized and threatened because of the interest he has shown for Bransk’s Jewish history. Appointed deputy mayor of the small town, he finally omits mentioning this side of the past in his official speech at the town’s fifth centenary ceremony.