Screening Auschwitz: Wanda Jakubowska's The Last Stage and the Politics of CommemorationWinner of The 2019 Waclaw Lednicki Humanities Award Screening Auschwitz examines the classic Polish Holocaust film The Last Stage (Ostatni etap), directed by the Auschwitz survivor Wanda Jakubowska (1907–1998). Released in 1948, The Last Stage was a pioneering work and the first narrative film to portray the Nazi concentration and extermination camp complex of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Marek Haltof’s fascinating book offers English-speaking readers a wealth of new materials, mostly from original Polish sources obtained through extensive archival research. With its powerful dramatization of the camp experience, The Last Stage established several quasi-documentary themes easily discernible in later film narratives of the Shoah: dark, realistic images of the camp, a passionate moral appeal, and clear divisions between victims and perpetrators. Jakubowska’s film introduced images that are now archetypal—for example, morning and evening roll calls on the Appelplatz, the arrival of transport trains at Birkenau, the separation of families upon arrival, and tracking shots over the belongings left behind by those who were gassed. These and other images are taken up by a number of subsequent American films, including George Stevens’s The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), Alan Pakula’s Sophie’s Choice (1982), and Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (1993). Haltof discusses the unusual circumstances that surrounded the film's production on location at Auschwitz-Birkenau and summarizes critical debates surrounding the film’s release. The book offers much of interest to film historians and readers interested in the Holocaust. |
Contents
The Script | |
The Making of the Holocaust | |
The Film and Its Reception | |
The Heroic Account of the Camp | |
Representation of the Holocaust in The Last Stage | |
Notes | |
Film Credits | |
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Screening Auschwitz: Wanda Jakubowska's The Last Stage and the Politics of ... Marek Haltof No preview available - 2018 |
Common terms and phrases
actors Aleksander Ford Andrzej Anna APMAB Auschwitz Auschwitz Chronicle Auschwitz survivor Auschwitz-Birkenau Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum barracks Béla Balázs Birkenau Borowski camp number camp’s communist concentration camp crematoria Czekalski death documentary Dwa debiuty emphasized Epicenter Eugenia extermination fascism female prisoners Film Polski film’s filmmakers former Auschwitz prisoners former prisoners gas chambers Gerda Schneider Helena Henryk heroic Holocaust Huener Ibid images inmates Jakubowska’s film Jerzy Jerzy Bossak Jerzy Kawalerowicz Jewish Jews Józef Kapo Katarzyna Rudomino Kazimierz kina Kino Kraków Krystyna Lachendro Last Stage liberation Łódz Lubelski Majdanek Maria Marta Memory Monastyrski Nazi German Os´wie˛cim Ostatni etap Pawiak Poland Polish cinema Polish film Polish Newsreel political prisoners Politics of Commemoration polskiego portrayed postwar published Rajsko Red Army representation resistance Revier Russian S´laska scene screen script shot Socialist Realist Soviet SS guards Stalin Stanisław Stuart Liebman Tadeusz Tadeusz Borowski testimonies transport trial University Press victims Wanda Jakubowska Warsaw women Wydawnictwo Z˙ywulska Zofia