MURANOW IN THE MOVIES

The film recalled most often in the context of Muranów is “Adenture in Mariensztat” from 1953 about the rivalry of male and female bricklayer brigades. No, it’s not an error – it’s not a film called “Adventure in Muranów”. The film – the first lively Polish movie production from 1953, directed by Leonard Buczkowski -  told the story of the construction of an earlier Warsaw neighborhood, Mariensztat, but it “starred” the distinctive stairs and terrace over today’s Muranów cinema at Andersa street (then Nowotki).
The earlier Muranów – the one from 1944 and from the first years after the war, can be seen in the film “Piąta rocznica Powstania w getcie” (“Fifth anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising”), produced by Saul Goskind and Natan Gross. The narrative was written in Yiddish by Binem Heller. The documentary was made at the occasion of the celebrations of the fifth anniversary of the Ghetto Uprising in 1948. Its copy (unfortunately not comple, only half an hour of the film was preserved) is in the National Film Library in Warsaw and the Archive of the Documentary and Feature Film Production Company (in the latter one under the title “Ghetto anniversary”). It shows among others documentary pictures from the uprising, from four demonstrations that took place on the ruins of the ghetto since 1944, the laying of the founding stone under the future monument of the Ghetto Heroes, the preparations for the fifth anniversary celebrations.
Documentary photographs of the pre-war Muranow, ghetto ruins and the a coverage of the celebration during which Torah scrolls found in the ruins were given to the head Rabbi of Palestine, Herzog, in 1946, are also shown by the film “My, którzy przeżyliśmy” (“We who survived”), directed by Natan Gross in 1948. Its copies can also be found in the National Film Library and the the Archive of the Documentary and Feature Film Production Company in Warsaw.
An even more valuable film material, because one documenting the world which is forever gone, are films showing the pre-war Muranów. The best known one is “Sześć Miast” (“Six cities”) by the Goskind borthers – a project showing the life of Jews in six large Polish cities: Warsaw, Vilnius, Cracow, Lviv, Białystok and Łódź. The 10 minute film about Warsaw was made in 1939. Its copy is among others in the Archive of Jewish Films of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The documentary shows the Theater Square, the Grand Theater, then the camera moves to the “largest Jewish city in Europe” that Muranów was at that time. Amongst others, the Jewish theater (Nowości) was filmed, the cemetery on Okopowa street, hospitals, schools, synagogues, Jewish magazine publishing houses. “After the Sabbath – as Natan Gross writes in his book “Film żydowski w Polsce” (“Jewish film in Poland”) – whole families go to the Krasiński Gardens, in which children play and adults have heated debates on the significance of this special day ".
In 1922 the film “Life of Jews in Warsaw” was made, produced by the company Argus and financed by Jewish organizations in the USA. Three well-known Polish operators realized the pictures: Albert Wywerko, Gustaw Kryński and Antoni Wawrzyniak.
Another interesting film is the “Droga Młodych” (“Road of the young”) by Aleksander Ford from 1935 (not allowed for screening due to censorship!). It talks about the Włodzimierz Medem tuberculosis sanatorium in the town of Miedzeszyn outside of Warsaw for Jewish children from poor  families, but it also shows scenes of Jewish children trading in the streets of Warsaw. The copy of the film is in the National Film Library in Warsaw.