Several years after the war, a strange encounter in the heart of Paris made Zofia Posmysz, a former Auschwitz prisoner, start wondering what it would be like to meet her camp overseer. Posmysz turned her fantasy in a successful radio play in which she explored the unlikely perspective of an oppressor, a Nazi German concentration camp overseer.  The story inspired a prolific young filmmaker Andrzej Munk – a representative of the Polish Film School, a group of filmmakers tackling the experience of war with new unorthodox approaches that collided with all the paradoxes of its traumatic events.  

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Further reading

• Zofia Posmysz // bio on Culture.pl
• Andrzej Munk // bio on Culture.pl
• The Passenger // film description on Culture.pl
• The Passenger // book description on Culture.pl
• “Passenger” Depicts the Holocaust from the Point of View of a Nazi Official // article on NewYorker.com
• Andrzej Munk's The Passenger // article from Vertigo magazine
• The ‘Lucky Ship’: Rebellion, Desertion & Love on the MS Batory // article on Culture.pl
• The MS Batory: Culture.pl Readers Share their Photographs & Memories // article on Culture.pl
• Female guards in Nazi concentration camps // entry on Wikipedia.org

Further watching

• Zofia Posmysz Talks about The Passenger // video interview on Culture.pl
• Zofia Posmysz: Memory That Will Save Us // video interview on Culture.pl
• Behind the Scenes: Zofia Posmysz's The Passenger in Yekaterinburg // video about the recent opera version on Culture.pl

Thanks 

Zofia Posmysz // author, screenwriter and writer for radio and televised theatre performances, reporter and broadcast radio editor. 

Michał Oleszczyk // film historian and critic, member of the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI)

Credits

Written & produced by Monika Proba

Edited by Wojciech Oleksiak & Adam Zulawski

Hosted by Nitzan Reisner & Adam Zulawski

Scoring & sound design by Wojciech Oleksiak