Original subtitles

Good morning?

Good morning, are you going away or coming back so early?

I'm coming back, I took the night train from Szczecin...

Ah, I see you've made a good deal?

A series... Showing the German flight to the North Pole of 1931...

the Polarfahrt

A Zeppelin, I guess?

Three of them, they're great

You must show them to me one day

I'll be glad to show them to you

Good morning

Good morning, Professor?

The dean would like to speak to you

Come on in, please

This is Mrs. Elibieta Loranz from New York

We've already met

In the States, do I remember well?

You translated my works, didn't you?

Nearly all of them

Your Polish is perfect! And to think I've been breaking my tongue

You did very well

Yes, Mrs. Loranz is here on scientific exchange

She's interested in your works, Professor

If I got her right, she'd like to attend your classes

That will be a pleasure for me

Do you want to come today?

If I may

Will you excuse me?

Mrs. Elzbieta Loranz works...

at the American Institute for investigation

of Jews rescued from the Holocaust

Well, let's continue our subject

The moral inferno

Who'd like to speak first?

We already have two political stories

to consider...

and one related to the customs to simplify matters

Yes?

Let's imagine the following situation A man is dying of cancer...

This is the third case of cancer this year

He is treated by an excellent specialist

...who's believing Christian, by the way, it's important

Well, the doctor happen to live

...in the same house as the patient and his wife

The wife starts pestering the doctor

She wants to know...

whether her husband will die

And when, but the doctor can't tell her that

To him, it's like passing a death sentence

As a believer he can't do it

But the patient's wife grows more and more intrusive

The doctor suspects her of having...

special reasons that make her insist on his answer

It appears he's right: The woman is pregnant

It's another man's baby

The husband doesn't know What's more...

She couldn't get pregnant before

She loves her unborn baby,

But she also loves her husband

If he's going to live,

She'll have an abortion

If he dies, she can have her baby

The doctor is to decide about that baby's life

whether he likes it or not He's aware of that

I know how the story ended

Warsaw's a small town

To make things more difficult for you, I might add the baby's alive

Which is perhaps the most important element of the story

Excuse me, I can't make the recording from that distance

I said he baby was alive

And that I considered that fact the most important element

I'd like you to define the characters

...and motives of the heroes

...of that story

It's going to be the more interesting as we both know the archetypes

Though actually, I believe you know different archetypes than I do

Yes, Madam

Thank you, anybody else wants to say something? No?

Let us therefore analyse the previous stories

Yes, Madam?

You said the baby's life was paramount,

...didn't you?

Yes indeed

It just occurred to me -

if I'm allowed to take an active part in the class, that is -

But of course, all those present have equal rights

I'd like to tell you

...about an event

We'll be glad to hear you

I'm afraid it has a weak point for you

it happened in the past

But then it also has an advantage

It's true

Does what I said about the baby's life

...matter to you specially?

Yes, it does

...to some extent

It's the year 1943... February ...the winter

The heroine is a girl of six ...a Jewish girl

...kept in a basement of a house in the neighborhood

But she can't stay there any longer

The girl's father is in the ghetto

His friends try to find a new place for her

The place is found but her future guardians pose a condition

The girl must have an official certificate of baptism

It's a cold evening

The girl visits a married couple

...who have agreed to be her godparents

They are Catholics, and young

The girl's frozen

She has spent all day getting through the city with her guardian to reach this flat

Well, she now goes in accompanied by the guardian

The husband seems nervous The wife is calm

They serve hot tea

The girl wants that tea very much but there isn't time

The parent's waiting, and the curfew's near

But the woman who should start getting dressed

...asks them to sit down instead

Sorry

Get out of here!

Please go out

Thank you

You said it was in 1943?

Yes, in February

In Warsaw?

Yes

In the distant parts of Mokotow district In Odynca street

Yes? What happened next?

Next? Ah, yes

They sat at the table

The man kept walking round the table

They looked at one another

At least the woman made up her mind to say things that were so very difficult to say

They can't keep their promise

Having considered everything...

They cannot lie to the one they believe in

He does demand them to be charitable

...but forbids to give false testimony

The lie they had planned to commit knowing what cause it serve

...proved reconcilable with their moral principles after all

That's it

Then, the guardian and the girl rise from the table

Have some more tea, the woman says

The girl takes a sip

But then she glances at her guardian and puts the glass down

And then,

...downstairs at the gateway

...the girl notices her guardian

It's curfew soon, she says

But the guardian doesn't move

Was there anybody else

...in that flat?

Yes, an elderly gentleman

He was sitting with his back to the rest

In a wheel chair, I believe

Do you know any details?

The tea cups were good quality China, but didn't match one another

There was a green kerosene lamp on the table but it was out

The man never took his hand out of his trouser pocket

...during the two or three minutes of the conversation

They are all the details

Any questions? None?

Maybe doubts?

Yes?

The motivations seems improbable to me it that married couple were really Catholics

That false testimony wouldn't be directed against their fellow man

This is the only motivation I know It seemed quite genuine that evening

What other motives were possible?

How do you think?

I don't know

I can't understand that

I don't know motives which would justify a decision like that

Yes?

Fear...

Imagine another Jewish child had been discovered in that house

And his head smacked against the railing, and the family that had kept him executed

Yes Fear, yes

Is fear a justification to you?

I've just suggested a possible motive I haven't said...

We're going too far

Please consider the moral problems

...that emerge from that story as your homework

As for you,

try and present an acceptable point of view of that woman

Try and understand her

That's all, thank you

It wasn't in Mokotow district

That's right

It happened down town

In Noakowskiego street

Yes

So it's you...

Yes, it's me

And you're alive

I kept thinking, all those years

Whenever I saw anybody playing with a golden chainlet

I said to myself

Oh God, you're alive

A chance family in Prague district agreed to give me shelter

Some relatives of the person who brought me to you

They were moon shiners, I spent two years next to a mash tub

They're with me in America now The man's already dead, actually

And you've come here to look at my face

...while you tell your story

I wanted to tell you who I was back in the States

I tried to write you a letter

And to come here

If it hadn't been for those few words about that baby

I'd never have

Yes

I see

Some say a person who rescue another person has special features

The same concerns the one who has to be rescued

Yes, I believe there are such special features

And you have them

I have them?

Yes

The things you did afterwards

...are well known

Several of my nationals owe their lives to you

Funny, that girl sensed the falsity of that ostensibly...

...Catholic reasoning straight away

The ash-tray's over there

You don't smoke

But I see things

Where are you staying? Shall I give you a lift?

I remember you once drove me all through New York

I have a room in Victoria about 300 meters from here

Perhaps you'd like to have supper with me?

In this where you live?

No

But this is the house

Yes

It's in this very gateway that you said,

Let's go, it's curfew soon

Elzbieta!

Elzbieta?

What's all this stir about?

I didn't hear it ring

I once... Sorry

I'm looking for a woman

There hasn't been one here for ages

But there are several families living in this flat?

Five of them, you must ring the bell for each of them separately

We don't like one another too much

Is this about the advertisement? Come in, please

No

I'm looking for my friend She entered this staircase

A tall woman, black hair...

What?

I'm looking for my friend

Nut case!

Come on, stop it

Excuse me

Is there another entrance?

Is it about the advertisement?

No

There's no other entrance

It's a respectable house

About the advertisement?

No, and she never came back

This means she didn't go in after all

But she did

Elzbieta

Nut case!

Oh God, I've been looking for you

I'm here

I was frightened for a moment

I thought you'd never been here at all

But I am

It's a horrible place

I went to my former flat

That night my father's friend could not think what to do next

It was then that I decided I'd never be afraid again

Why didn't you come here

...all those forty years?

Didn't you want to see this place?

No, it's humiliating

Being helped by others?

Yes, one doesn't like to meet the witnesses

...of one's own humiliation

Even if those witnesses are only houses

All right, we investigate. Analyse and describe

But how could this injustice be abolished?

Why can some be rescuers while others are the rescued only?

Do you know why?

No, I don't

Let's go

A nice flat

I'm on a diet, you see

I didn't expect anybody to supper

The woman I remember couldn't have changed into a person like you

But it did happen

You frightened me

...back there in Noakowskiego street

I'm sorry

If you made all this trip of several thousand kilometers

...hoping for a mystery,

...you're going to be disappointed

The reasons why I had to get rid of you...

...that night are trivial

The impact that night had on my life...

...is quite another problem But let's forget it

The man...

...who walk round the room

...with a hand in his pocket was my husband

He died in 1952

I know

He was a Home Army officer in those days

We had been informed that the family who were take you

...were agents of the Gestapo

Through yourself, your guardian and the priest the Gestapo would

...then get to us... to the underground organization

That could have been a possible give-away channel

And that's the whole mystery

Yes, it's very simple

Later it appeared that...

the information about that family was false

But they were nearly executed by the underground

And you believed

That's only natural

And you lived forty years with that certainty

I didn't ever know you were alive

I left you all alone

I sent you to what was a nearly certain death

And I knew

...what I was doing

Yes, you're right

No idea, no thought, nothing can be more important

...that the life of a child

What do you tell your students?

About how they should live?

I don't tell them anything

I'm there to help them reach their own conclusion

Why?

It's the right that matters

It does exist

I believe it exist in all men

A situation can release either the right or the wrong

That evening released no right in myself

Who's the one to evaluate it?

The One who's inside all of us

I never noticed a mention about God in your works

I'm not a church-goer

I don't use the word God

But you don't need words to be sure

Man is free ...free to choose

He can leave God behind

...if he likes

And what can then replace God?

Loneliness, in this world

And afterwards...

Try to get to...

the bottom of this problem

If there's nothing but emptiness

...afterwards... In that case

Yes, I know that

May I?

Come in, please

Oh I thought you were alone

Good evening, Madam

I just wanted to show you...

Beautiful, really beautiful

Sorry to trouble you...

If you happen to see your so, please tell him about them

He was always most interested in such things

I will, Polarfahrt

Three Zeppelins... 1931

Right Well, good night

Good night, and thank you

A stamp-collector?

More than that, I think He sometimes shows those stamps to me

...like others show their grandchildren

...or pictures of their children

He was wearing a sweater Looked like a neighbour...

A neighbour, yes

Know what? That doctor and patient

...we talked about during the class

...also live in this house

Well, an interesting house

Like any other one

In all houses, in all flats, some people...

And so on, and so on...

Exactly

Thank you

Do those people... the ones I was to go to

Do you know them?

Yes

If that's what you want to know?

Could I meet them?

Would you like to?

All right, I'll take you there tomorrow

It's a small tailor's shop in Prague district

But I'm not going in

I only saw them once after the war

I said, I'm sorry

That was all I could say

But it wasn't enough

Would you like to...

...stay here for the night?

I have another room

Very few people ever stay there nowadays

It's interesting

Do you like it?

What are you doing?

They've got a favourite on TV

I want to show them I'm even better

See? That was rubber stand He can't do that

How do you do it?

Anybody can do it It's a matter of practice

Bend backwards...

A bit more

No, you can't

I can't

It's too late now, you won't learn it I'm sorry

Excuse me

Will you have breakfast with me?

Something more than just 50 grams of cottage cheese

...on the fifteenth day of the diet Coffee without sugar

All right

I get up early, just like you

All right, I'll have...

A normal breakfast

Was that room...

What room?

The one I slept in

Was it your son's room?

Yes, it was

But he doesn't live here, does he?

No, he didn't wan to stay with me

Did you buy these flowers?

Yes, I noticed you put fresh flowers on the table

Thank you

Where is he?

To be brief...

He's far away from me

It's here

I'll do some shopping and come back here to fetch you

Yes, Madam?

I'd like to talk to you

To me?

Oh God... what about?

I'm Elzbieta Loranz

I don't know you, Madam

I know we never actually met, but we were to meet during the war...

No, wait a minute I don't want to talk about the war

Or about what happened

...after the war

Not even about today

I can make you a nice dress, coat, or maybe a suit

Just decide on the out Here you are

You were to save my life, I'd like to thank you for being prepared to do it

Got your own length of cloth?

You see, it's so difficult to buy anything nowadays

I was six years old then It was in February of 1943

Yes

I was twenty-two

Well, a coat?

These fashion magazine are very old

Would you be offended if I send you something more recent?

No, I got this one from abroad, too But it was many years ago

Afterwards, there was no opportunity

And you aren't going to talk with me?

No

I didn't go away just in case

Well, he wanted to make a coat for me

Just what I thought He was in great trouble

Too great a trouble perhaps

Isn't this a strange country

Did you pray yesterday?

Yes