Page 60 - Centrum Dialogu im. Marka Edelmana w Łodzi. Time of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto. Film images.

explains the decrease in social interest with a mass
numbing, indifference and activation of defence mech-
anisms. At that point, materials which cease to be effi-
cient must be additionally supported in a film, thus
evoking again the question of style, which allows the au-
dience to see, despite their defence mechanisms of
7
7 — numbing and indifference .
Ibidem, pp. 18-19 Hirsch’s suggestion, his resignation from following
certain poetics, a certain mode of featuring the Holo-
caust in a film, seems to settle the dispute between re-
alists and modernists. It indicates that no poetics has a
monopoly on the truth or on the global, exhaustive rep-
resentation of the Holocaust. It also reminds us that
every picture loses it initial impact, therefore it is nec-
essary to refresh our perception on a regular basis. The
films I am going to discuss further in this text undertake
the problematics of the Holocaust using the repre-
sentation conventions typical for different genres:
traditional interview documentary, fiction cinema and
a combination of documentary and avantgarde films.
The Face of an Angel [Twarz anioła] (1970) by Zbig-
niew Chmielewski is a feature film about Polish children
imprisoned in the Polen-Jugendverwahrlager concentra-
tion camp which functioned within the boundaries of the
Litzmannstadt Ghetto in 1942-1945. The core of the
story is the complicated relationship between Tadek,
a boy newly arrived in the camp, and Augustin, the boys’
Nazi tutor.
The film realistically depicts the everyday life of the
children in the camp. After his arrival in the camp, Tadek
is subjected to the registration procedure and a detailed
physical examination. He is registered, fingerprinted and
photographed. Because of his good health the doctors
send him to work in a needle factory in the camp. From
that moment on, every day is planned according to
a strict schedule of morning physical exercise drill, dur-
ing which the boys are often beaten, roll-calls and long
hours of work in a barrack with no daylight. As in all films
which recall the reality of concentration camps and
ghettoes, hunger is a recurring theme. Despite their
hard work, the children receive only small portions of
bread and watered-down soup. Some of them secretly
try to obtain additional portions of food to increase their
chances of survival. Theft is severely punished, as are
other offences. The boys are often beaten and put in

58 Bartosz Zając