Posted on 12/01/2006 11:41:07 AM PST by lizol
Wajda begins filming Katyn movie
01.12.2006
Krakow comes to a standstill as shooting of Oscar winning director Andrzej Wajdas new film on the 1940 Katyn massacre begins.
Report from Krakow by Robert Kusek
The major streets and squares closed. The city veiled in mist and covered with artificial snow. Swastikas on the buildings. Men in Nazi uniforms. Krakow has once again become a location for the shooting of a new movie by Andrzej Wajda one of the most renowned Polish filmmakers who in 2000 was presented with an honorary Oscar for his outstanding contribution to world cinema..
Post mortem which can already boast the best Polish cast and an unparalleled budget is a story about the Katyn massacre, i.e. a mass execution of Polish citizens ordered by the Soviet authorities in 1940. In 1943 the mass graves were discovered at Katyn forest by the German army but the Soviet Union continued to deny responsibility for the massacre until 1990. Only then did the Russians admit that the Soviet secret police had in fact committed the crime and killed over 22 000 Polish soldiers and intellectuals.
Andrzej Wajda has been considering making a movie about Katyn for a long time. The project is of particular significance to Wajda since it is partly autobiographical. Wajdas father captain Jakub Wajda was one of the officers murdered by the Soviets in Katyn. But the movie is not going to deal directly with the crime but rather with a lie about the true perpetrators and a cover-up by the Soviet and Communist authorities. It will tell a story from the point of view of women mothers, wives and daughters of Polish officers who are waiting for their men to come back home.
Hence, the choice of Krakow as a major shooting location. It is not only Andrzej Wajdas city where he and his mother waited for any news about the lost member of the family but also the place where in 1943 the Germans officially broadcast to the world the Katyn massacre and charged the Soviets with carrying out the crime.
The film will be officially released on the 17th of September 2007 precisely on the day when the Red Army invaded Poland in 1939.
By the way. Here are a couple of old threads on Jeeps in World War II.
The FReeper Foxhole Studies The Military Jeep - October 17th, 2003
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-vetscor/1002844/posts
The FReeper Foxhole Revisits The Military Jeep - Jan. 14th, 2005
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-vetscor/1320519/posts
And here's the thread on the massacre:
The FReeper Foxhole Remembers the Katyn Forest Massacre (Poland~1940) - October 13th, 2003
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-vetscor/1000151/posts
>>The Soviets were just as bad as the Nazis were, if not worse.
Just going by the numbers, they were considerably worse. As were/are the Red Chinese.
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM
Yes, a fairly huge percentage of the Soviet's motorized transport was U.S. trucks. I don't have any references handy, but I'm thinking it was in the 75%-90% range. We gave them a *lot* of stuff in general, and trucks in particular.
Yep, through Lend-Lease. We shipped literally thousadns of vehicles, transports, and tanks to the Soviets through the ports of Vladivostok and Archanglesk. Without them, the Soviet supply lines would have ground to an inglorious halt.
BOOKMARK --- I want to see this film.
Hallo dfwgator,
If I manage to get my picture of the Katyn statue from my dead hard drive, it will be a good companion to yours. I took it on the same spot in Jersey City, but with my beautiful WTC towers in the background.
Meantime would you please write it down how to post pictures here.
That looks like the Kaminsky Brigade, an SS unit of Russian renegades, not the ROA, which was a legitimate liberation army.
The one on the right, wearing black uniform has ROA badge on his arm.
None of Vlasov's ROA units were in Warsaw in 1944. A lot of Russians sewed ROA patches on without actually being part of that organization. There's a lot of confusion about it.
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