Saved by Deportation – an Unknown Odyssey of Polish Jews

In 1940, a year before the Nazis started deporting Jews to death camps, Joseph Stalin ordered the deportation of approximately 200,000 Polish Jews from Russian-occupied Eastern Poland to forced labor settlements in the Soviet interior. As cruel as Stalin’s deportations were, ultimately they largely saved Jewish lives, for the deportees constituted the overwhelming majority of Polish Jews who escaped the Nazi Holocaust. Saved by Deportation not only tells this story, but it re-traces the path Asher and Shyfra Scharf traveled more than 60 years ago from Poland to Siberia to the former Soviet states of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in Central Asia. Read more below.

Prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, 3 million three hundred thousand Jews lived in Poland ­ By 1945 only 300,000 survived. Of the survivors, approximately 80% escaped the Holocaust as a result of Stalin’s deportation deep into the Soviet Union. This film tells the story of seven deportees, who in 1940 were sent to Gulag labor camps.

In 1940, a year before the Nazis started deporting Jews to death camps, Joseph Stalin ordered the deportation of approximately 200,000 Polish Jews from Russian-occupied Eastern Poland to forced labor settlements in the Soviet interior. As cruel as Stalin’s deportations were, in the end they largely saved Polish Jewish lives, for the deportees constituted the overwhelming majority of Polish Jews who escaped the Nazi Holocaust. Saved by Deportation tells this historical irony for the first time in mainstream media.

Uratowani przez Deportacje: Nieznana Odyseja Polskich Zydow

Film opowiada o losach setek tysiecy polskich Zydów, ktorzy unikneli zaglady w niemieckich obozach koncentracyjnych dzieki… wywózce do stalinowskich obózow pracy w 1940 r. Dokument takze przedstawia historie Ashera i Shyfry Scharf, którzy 60 lat pózniej udaja sie w podróz z Polski przez Syberie, Tadzykistan do Uzbekistanu w Azji Centralnej, odwiedzajac obozowe baraki w których mieszkali, stara kopalnie na Syberii gdzie pracowali i dom w Samarkandzie, w którym wzieli slub. Ta malo znana opowiesc o przetrwaniu jest nie tylko opowiescia przygodowa ale przede wszystkim afirmacja ludzkiej dobroci w trudnych czasach.

A Film by:
Slawomir Grünberg & Robert Podgursky

Produced by:
Slawomir Grünberg & Robert Podgursky

Directed by:
Slawomir Grünberg

Written by:
Robert Podgursky

Photographed by:
Slawomir Grünberg

Edited by:
Chris Julian, Malgorzata Lukomska, Marylin Rivchin & Erika Street

Original Music Composed & Conducted by:
Robert Aceto

Narrator:
Slawomir Grünberg

Principal funding for the production of Saved By Deportation:An Unknown Odyssey of Polish Jews was made possible by the generous support of The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, Inc.

SCREENINGS

• Columbia University, Harriman Institute – East European Center, April 30, 2015

• Hannukah Festival at the White Stork Synagogue in Wroclaw, Poland, December 2, 2013

• 33rd IAJGS – International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, Film Festival, Boston, US, August 6, 2013

• IPN (Instytut Pamieci Narodowej), Warsaw, Poland, June 17, 2013

• Auschwitz Jewish Center, Oswiecim, Poland, February 15, 2012

• Week of the Jewish Culture in Torun, Poland, II Tydzien Kultury Zydowskiej w Toruniu, January 20, 2012

• Elblag Library, Poland, October 21, 2011

• Rejs Cinema, Slupsk, Poland, October 14, 2011

• Days of Jewish Culture in Cieszyn, Poland, October , 2011

• Jewish Community Center Krakow, Poland, June 2-4, 2010

• Martha’s Vineyard, Hebrew Center, May 16, 2010

• Rochester Jewish Film Festival, Rochester, NY, April 28 , 2009

• VI Jewish Film Festival of Punta del Este, Uruguay, February 21-25, 2009

• San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, Marin, CA, August 9-11, 2008

• San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, Palo Alto, CA, August 7, 2008

• San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Berkeley, CA, August 7, 2008

• Castro Theatre, San Francisco, San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, July 26, 2008

• The 5th Jewish Motifs Film Festival, Warsaw, Poland, April 22-29, 2008

• 2008 Vancouver Jewish Film Festival, April 2 2008

• Minneapolis Jewish Film Festival, March 9, 08

• Louisville Jewish Film Festival, February 18, 08

• Festival of Jewish Cinema – Australia, December 2007

• Boston Jewish Film Festival, November 2007

• Jewish Eye-World Jewish Film Festival, Beer Sheva, Israel

• Festival of the Jewish Culture “Warsaw of Singer”, Warsaw, Poland, September 2007

• Cracow Film Festival, Poland (European Premiere), www.cracowfilmfestival.pl/festiwal_en.php3, Kino Pod Baranami, June 4, 2007

• Toronto Jewish Film Festival, May 7, 2007

• Cornell Cinema, 104 Willard Straight Hall, Ithaca, NY, April 19 2007

• Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival, Fall Creek Cinema, Ithaca, NY, March 30th 2007

• New Jersey Jewish Film Festival, JCC of Metropolitan NJ, March 25th 2007

• New York Premiere,The Makor/ Steinhardt Center, 92nd Street Y, New York City, 35 W. 67th St, March 14 and 15th 2007

• World Premiere Washington Jewish Film Festival, Washington D.C., December 2006

AWARDS

• The Audience Award for ‘the Best Documentary’, Washington Jewish Film Festival

• “The Best Presentation of Contemporarty Jewish Life” An Award at 5th ‘Jewish Motifs’ Jewish Film Festival, Warsaw, Poland; An Award funded by the Jewish Community in Warsaw

• Discovery Communications Europe (Poland)

How Joseph Stalin (Inadvertently) Saved Some Of Poland’s JewsInternational Business Times
By Palash Ghosh
February 21 2013

Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, perhaps the worst mass killer in human history with the blood of tens of millions of people on his hands, once inadvertently saved Polish Jews from the Nazi death camps and gas chambers by deporting them to Siberia and other parts of the USSR.

In 1940, one year before the Nazis commenced their program of extermination, Stalin ordered the deportation of some 200,000 – perhaps as many as 300,000 — Polish Jews from Russian-occupied Eastern Poland to Gulag labor camps deep in the Soviet Union.

In 1939, just before the outbreak of World War II, Poland boasted a Jewish population of some 3.3-million, or about 8.5 percent of the total (and almost one-third of Warsaw’s population). By 1945, at war’s end, only about 300,000 to 350,000 Polish Jews remained.

The tragic fate of the Polish nation was sealed in August 1939 when Germany and the Soviet Union signed the so-called “non-aggression” pact, leading to Germany’s spectacular blitzkrieg of Poland the following month and the eruption of the Second World War.

Ocaleni przez deportacje
The International Warsaw Jewish Film Festiwal Festival – ‘Jewish Motifs’
Piotr Marciniak
Kwiecien 23 2008

W okresie II wojny swiatowej wywozenie ludnosci w glab ZSSR oznaczalo przewaznie jedno – smierc.

Przyczyna byla nieludzka, katorznicza praca w odleglych obozach Syberii. Film Slawomira Gunberga „Ocaleni przez deportacje” pokazuje, ze wywiezienie do Rosji ocalilo zycie tysiacom Zydów, a nie kiedy bylo niczym w porównaniu z pieklem jakie czekalo na nich po powrocie do rodzinnego domu.

Film rozpoczyna sie od wydarzen roku 1940, gdy Stalin podjal decyzje o wyslaniu w glab Zwiazku Radzieckiego 200 000 polskich Zydów. Jak wspominaja bohaterowie, gdy dotarli na miejsce, mieli do wyboru: przywyknac albo umrzec. Przywykli. Jedni pracujac w kopalniach, inni scinajac drzewa na 50 stopniowym mrozie. Nie bylo mozliwosci ucieczki, nie bylo dokad.

PUBLICITY PHOTOS

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