Our Mothers, Our Fathers: ZDF
The case concerns three-part drama Our Mothers, Our Fathers (Unsere Mutter, Unsere Vater), which has already been shown in Germany and Poland, and is scheduled to be screened in at least 60 countries worldwide.
The lawsuit has been filed by a Krakow-based veteran of the Home Army (AK), the official resistance force that was subordinate to the government-in-exile in London, together with the World Association of Home Army Soldiers.
Lawyer Monika Brzozowska, who is representing the veterans at Krakow's district court, has revealed that the applicants are seeking a combined sum of 50,000 zloty [11,950 euro] in damages. They also want AK insignia to be edited out of footage in the mini-series.
“The film has been sold to 60 countries, and we want a statement to be emitted everywhere the film is shown to the effect that only the Germans were guilty for the Holocaust,” she said.
According to Brzozowska, both German public television channel ZDF, which funded the project, together with production company Teamworx are liable for the alleged defamation.
At one point in the drama, Polish partisans stop a German train, but when they discover that the passengers are Jews being transported to a concentration camp, they decide not to free the inmates.
Similarly, a Jewish character named Viktor is thrown out of a Home Army unit when his comrades-in-arms discover his background.
Poland's Home Army had a branch named Zegota which was devoted to saving Jews.
However, it has also been accused of anti-semitism. Polish-Jewish Solidarity activist Marek Edelman reflected in an authorised biography that he fought in the communist People's Army (AL) resistance force during the 1944 Warsaw Rising against the Nazis because he feared he would be murdered if he tried to join an AK unit.
Nevertheless, some Jews did fight in the AK, including such figures as Stanislaw Aronson, whose memoir of the war was recently published in both Polish and English. (nh)
Source: PAP