Broken Dreams is a 2019 Polish documentary film directed by Tomasz Magierski that tells the story of Renia and Ariana Spiegel, sisters who experienced the Holocaust as children in Poland. The film was prompted by the 2012 discovery of Renia Spiegel's diary, which she kept from 1939 until her death at the age of 18 in 1942. Broken Dreams premiered on May 2, 2019, at the United Nations in New York, and on September 18, 2019, in Warsaw, Poland.
The documentary revolves around the diary of Renia Spiegel, who spent the early years of World War II in the Polish city of Przemyśl, along with her sister, Ariana Spiegel (now Elizabeth Bellak). Ariana was a child film star in Poland, while Renia was more reserved, a typical Polish youth. In her diary, Spiegel writes about everyday teenage life, as well as the growing war, eventually covering her imprisonment in the Przemyśl ghetto. After escaping the ghetto, Spiegel was killed at the age of 18 by Nazi police when her hiding place was discovered. Spiegel's diary was preserved by her boyfriend, Zygmunt Schwarzer, who eventually brought it to Spiegel's mother and sister in New York after the war. The diary remained unread until 2012, when Elizabeth Bellak's daughter had it translated to English, leading to its publication in 2019 and the creation of Broken Dreams. [1] [2] Broken Dreams tells the story of the Spiegel sisters through interviews with Bellak and readings of Renia's diary by Polish actress Aleksandra Bernatek. In addition to telling Renia's story, the documentary also spends substantial time telling Bellak's story of being a child actress. [3] [4]
After Elizabeth Bellak's daughter, Alexandra Renata Bellak, rediscovered Spiegel's diary in 2012, she approached Polish filmmaker Tomasz Magierski. After reading the diary, Magierski agreed to make a film, telling Agence France-Presse, "But I couldn’t stop reading it! I read this thing over probably four or five nights... I got used to her handwriting and to be honest I fell in love with her. I fell in love with Renia." [5]
Broken Dreams premiered at the United Nations in New York on May 2, 2019, which was Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day). This screening was conducted by the Department of Global Communications and the Permanent Mission of Poland to the United Nations. [6] The documentary's Polish premier took place in Warsaw on September 18, 2019. [5]
Writing for the Los Angeles Times , critic Gary Goldstein called Broken Dreams "vital and intriguing" but said that the production is "a bit cursory and cobbled together". [3] Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the documentary is "deeply moving" and that it is one of the most powerful films providing a first-hand account of the Holocaust. He also praised Aleksandra Bernatek, who reads from Spiegel's diary, saying that she "delivers emotive readings that fully convey Renia's girlishness, passion and inner strength". [4]
Adam Czerniaków was a Polish engineer and senator who was head of the Warsaw Ghetto Jewish Council (Judenrat) during World War II. He committed suicide on 23 July 1942 by swallowing a cyanide pill, a day after the commencement of mass extermination of Jews known as the Grossaktion Warsaw.
Przemyśl is a city in southeastern Poland with 58,721 inhabitants, as of December 2021. In 1999, it became part of the Subcarpathian Voivodeship; it was previously the capital of Przemyśl Voivodeship.
Irena Stanisława Sendler (née Krzyżanowska), also referred to as Irena Sendlerowa in Poland, nom de guerreJolanta, was a Polish humanitarian, social worker, and nurse who served in the Polish Underground Resistance during World War II in German-occupied Warsaw. From October 1943 she was head of the children's section of Żegota, the Polish Council to Aid Jews.
Annelies MarieFrank was a German-born Jewish girl who kept a diary in which she documented life in hiding under Nazi persecution during the German occupation of the Netherlands. She is a celebrated diarist who described everyday life from her family hiding place in an Amsterdam attic. One of the most-discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust, she gained fame posthumously with the 1947 publication of The Diary of a Young Girl, in which she documents her life in hiding from 1942 to 1944 — it is one of the world's best-known books and has been the basis for several plays and films.
The Holocaust has been a prominent subject of art and literature throughout the second half of the twentieth century. There is a wide range of ways–including dance, film, literature, music, and television–in which the Holocaust has been represented in the arts and popular culture.
The March of the Living is an annual educational program which brings students from around the world to Poland, where they explore the remnants of the Holocaust. On Holocaust Memorial Day observed in the Jewish calendar, thousands of participants march silently from Auschwitz to Birkenau.
The Vilna Ghetto was a World War II Jewish ghetto established and operated by Nazi Germany in the city of Vilnius in the modern country of Lithuania, at the time part of the Nazi-administered Reichskommissariat Ostland.
Rut "Rutka" Laskier was a Jewish Polish diarist who is best known for her 1943 diary chronicling the three months of her life during the Holocaust in Poland. She was murdered at Auschwitz concentration camp in 1943 at the age of fourteen. Her manuscript, authenticated by Holocaust scholars and survivors, was published in the Polish language in early 2006. English and Hebrew translations were released the following year. It has been compared to the diary of Anne Frank.
Hanuszka is a 2006 film by Nurit Kedar that tells the true story of a Jewish girl who survived the Holocaust in a convent, where she got to know Pope John Paul II. The film blends documentary and narrative elements to tell the atypical story of how Hanna Mandelberger escaped the Warsaw Ghetto.
Hannah Elisabeth Pick-Goslar was a German-born Israeli nurse and Holocaust survivor best known for her close friendship with writer Anne Frank. The girls attended the 6th Montessori School in Amsterdam and then the Jewish Lyceum. During The Holocaust, they saw each other again whilst imprisoned at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Goslar and her young sister were the only family members who survived the war, being rescued from the Lost Train. Both emigrated to Israel, where Hannah worked as a nurse for children. They shared their memories as eyewitnesses of the Holocaust.
Julien Hequembourg Bryan was an American photographer, filmmaker, and documentarian who documented the daily life in Poland, Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany between 1935 and 1939, in the leadup to and early days of the Second World War. He was honored with a Decoration of Honor Meritorious for Polish Culture during his last visit in Poland (1974) for showing the truth about the Invasion of Poland.
Mariusz Kotowski is a Polish-born writer and director. As a director, he has gained a reputation for cinematic portrayals that are atypical of both Hollywood and independent film styles and that cleverly mix different film approaches into a cohesive whole.
Sławomir Grünberg is a Polish-born naturalized American documentary producer, director and cameraman.
Zofia Posmysz-Piasecka was a Polish journalist, novelist, and author. She was a resistance fighter in World War II and survived imprisonment at the Auschwitz and Ravensbrück concentration camps. Her autobiographical account of the Holocaust in occupied Poland, Passenger from Cabin 45, became the basis for her 1962 novel Passenger, subsequently translated into 15 languages. The original radio drama was adapted for an award-winning feature film, while the novel was adapted into an opera of the same name with music by Mieczysław Weinberg.
Renia Spiegel was a Jewish Polish diarist who was killed during World War II in the Holocaust.
Jerzy Bitter was a Polish-American painter, known for his works depicting the Holocaust themes.