The short animated film Moczarski’s Case is the story of a Polish patriot who after World War ll had to share a cell with a Nazi war criminal.
If you are aware of Kazimierz Moczarski – who wrote the book Conversations with an Executioner – you probably don’t need to know much more than what I am writing here.
But if you don’t, some backstory will help you further appreciate Tomasz Siwiński’s above short film.
So, press the top left play button on the above feature image so the video can play for you.
During Poland’s anti-Nazi resistance, Moczarski served with the Polish Home Army. When the war was over, he was arrested and jailed for being an anticommunist. During his imprisonment he was severely tortured, both physically and mentally.
While in jail he was locked up in a cell with two former German SS officers, one of whom was the notorious Jurgen Stroop (see in image further below) who oversaw the Nazi’s suppression of the Warsaw uprising and the subsequent annihilation of the Jewish ghetto’s inhabitants, some 50,000 people.
Moczarski shared the cell with Stroop for 255 days which is the basis of his aforementioned Conversations with an Executioner.
Stroop was hung in 1952 for his wartime crimes. He remained unrepentant till the end.
After Soviet leader Joseph Stalin died in 1953, communist excesses in Europe lessened and Moczarski was released in 1956 after a judge found that he was unjustly held in jail as an ‘enemy of the state.’
Out of jail, Moczarski would go on to write his book about his time with Stroop. The final version – without communist censorship – was finally published after his death in 1975.
Jürgen Stroop (center, in a field cap) with his men observe the burning of Warsaw Ghetto during the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, 1943. (Image: Wikipedia Commons)