Canada/Poland, 2005 – 57 minutes
Co-Produced with Pado Studio Film & 
Telewizja Polska S.A.

Based on the book “In the Shadow of Katyn”, The Last Witness tells Dr. Stanisław Swianiewicz’s remarkable story of survival against all odds, and lifelong struggle for justice.

One of thousands of Polish officers and political prisoners rounded up by the NKVD (Soviet Secret Police) after the invasion of Poland by the U.S.S.R in September of 1939, he was the only officer to not have been killed at the Katyn massacre. There, 4,000 other Poles were executed by the Soviets and hastily buried in mass graves.

The truth about Katyn and other mass executions which claimed the lives of some 20,000 Poles could not be told for many years. Only since the end of the Cold War have full details of the massacres and of the half-century of Soviet cover-up begun to emerge.

Production info:

• Directed by Eric Bednarski & Paweł Woldan
• Produced by Dorota Przyłubska
• Edited by Paweł Deliś & Paweł Woldan
• Music composed by Andrzej Krauze

 

 

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