Polish Historical Society

PBS's Holocaust "Documentary" Shtetl Must Not Be Shown in its Present Form, it must be taken off the screens as was the '94 The Liberators

(New York) On April 17, 1996, ten million viewers worldwide are to be shown Shtetl, PBS's three-hour-long Holocaust "documentary." Instead of picturing centuries of life of a small Jewish town and the heroic efforts of Polish rescuers of Jews, it shows how with the help of only five Germans, 2,500 Poles destroyed the 2,500 Jews of Bransk in Northeastern Poland and eradicated their cultural artifacts.

The documentary also shows the "traditional Polish anti-Semitism" through camera tricks such as zeroing in on unzippered trousers of elderly Polish peasants, inarticulate due to senility, who with shaking hands still putter productively around the farms, and are taken care of by their family, instead,as we know of, being "dumped" in nursing homes.

Shtetl is exclusively based on fabrications in testimonies of Jewish and Polish survivors. They spew their out-of-context confabulations and interethnic hatreds and thus promulgate international discord. Shtetlwill nurture anti-Polonism in the Western World and anti-Semitism in Poland. Out of 100 hours of informative taping, only three hours of tendentious takes will be broadcast.

The US Holocaust Research Institute in Washington has "No comments" on the chief historian featured in this film, namely Yaffa Eliach. One year ago, the Institute distanced itself from Professor Eliach for her historical inconsistencies. Years ago, Ms. Eliach had been the founding mother of the US Holocaust Museum and of the Institute.

Mr. Marlan Marzynski, Shtetl's producer, director, translator, pundit and on-the-screen narrator, promulgates historical "facts" and "data" not supported even by the Hidden Child Section of the Jewish Anti-Defamation League. Professor Richard Lukas, a Polish-American expert and author in this field from Florida, described Marzynski's pronouncements, that Poles had "given over to Germans" most of the Jewish children they hid, as an absurdity. We are expecting a similar response on this matter from the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw.

Three years ago, after previewing another PBS "documentary," The Liberators, President Clinton, Jesse Jackson and Elie Wiesel recommended that every American watch it, for it will show, via Jewish survivors and Black W.W.II veterans, how African-American soldiers liberated Dachau and Buchenwald. However, this hoax was never broadcasted, because it was found to be "inconsistent with the historical fact that Black soldiers were never near any liberated German camp." However, unlike in Shtetl, the fraud in The Liberators was at least well meant as it attempted to develop an understanding through compassion between various national and racial groups in America.

Zbigniew Romaniuk, a young and idealistic Polish historian is the main personage of Shtetl and its chief collaborator. In his recent statement, Mr. Romaniuk requested that the serial be pulled off the screen in its present form, because of historical lies it contains and most importantly because it promotes interethnic hatred. We wholeheartedly support young Romaniuk and will provide scholars and public relation interests with a 50-page press kit. (by Danylo Dorkacz)