Entitled A Story of One Crime (Historia jednej zbrodni), the film is the work of acclaimed director Mariusz Pilis. It was produced and distributed by Rafael Film, a Polish film production company based in the southern city of Kraków.
The film traces the story of the Ulma family from the village of Markowa, near Łańcut in southeastern Poland, who in the autumn of 1942 gave shelter to members of two Jewish families.
More than a year later, the Jews’ presence on their farm was discovered. On March 24, 1944, German police shot eight hiding Jews to death and murdered the entire Ulma family, Józef, Wiktoria, who was seven months pregnant, and their six children.
Director Mariusz Pilis says he got hold of some previously unpublished documents about the crime, and also found interviews with the daughter of one of the gendarmes who oversaw the execution, and with Abraham Segal, a Jew from the same village of Markowa, who survived the Holocaust.
The documentary highlights the fact that those responsible for the murder of the Ulma family were never brought to account.
Przemysław Wręźlewicz, the director of Rafael Film, told the media: ”The film is an important event in the run-up to the beatification of the Ulma family. It is going to be an unprecedented event in the history of the Catholic Church – the first time in its history an entire family, including an unborn child, will be recognized as the blessed.”
The beatification ceremony will be held in Markowa on September 10.
(mk/gs)