"We must never forget" normally refers to the notion that we as people as a race, as thinking animals capable of more base and self centred actions must never forget the horrors of the Holocaust so as not to repeat it. In this case however I mean to say that there are some who would tar the Polish people with one negative image that has managed to survive in some communities that Poles not only did not help but were complicit in the Nazi's treatment of Jews. To say as some have, that stories such as this are overdone, and should be given a rest is to devalue and spit on the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of brave people across Poland; doctors, factory managers, priests, nuns, sewer workers, farmers, labourers who without these stories would be forgotten long before the stain that is the final solution is ever wiped from our collective memories. Too many died to be so sullied and too many survived to be silenced.
Hidden in Silence tells the true story of a 15 year old Catholic maid left to care for her sister once her parents are taken to work in Germany. Needing a place to live when forced to leave the Przemyśl ghetto, she finds a new home where for two and a half she hides and protects her former employers and other Jews. The fact they all survived the ordeal to live full lives well into old age is a sort of victory for all the others who had done the same but failed in the end.
As for the film itself, the more harrowing elements of what Fusia and the Diamants had to go through are alluded to well enough for a TV movie, but are not explored as deeply as a more explicit gritty feature film would. Despite the limitations placed on the story by the format, we do get to see the more emotional and psychological pressures of both being locked away for two years and being the one who has to walk away from and feed daily said people for such a long time. It's hard for modern people brought up in the diaspora and even harder for those who have no connection to these times and events to imagine just how hard this was and how it makes even the smallest child a heroine by the simple act of being quiet or as in the case of one little girl, to go into the the Ghetto to find and save people knowing that if caught, she will be killed.
As a pole I am aware we may have an accent when speaking English, even those of us born far from there into Polish families in North America, but it took me a while to get past some of the more forced attempts to make dialogue aimed at a domestic American audience sound Polish. Having said that, it doesn't take long to buy Kellie Martin as Fusia. She embraces the role well enough to sometimes even achieve the shadow of paranoia and fear that come more easily to seasoned actresses and to be frank, people with a deeper understanding of the source material. The rest of the cast from the youngest to the oldest lifted a script limited by being for television, past the words spoken and unspoken to deliver portrayals any one of us who's families Catholic or Jewish who come from that part of the world would recognise as not only accurate but dignified. There is a moment in the film when two girls discuss pickles and other food so vividly and honestly you taste the garlic and smell the brine. The locations, sets and costumes are wonderful further making Hidden in Silence one of the better time capsules you'll watch.
There will always be grittier darker and more depressing tellings of this story, most of which don't end nearly as happily as this one does, but not everybody is cut out for Shindler's list or the Polish/Yiddish/Russian language film In Darkness from 2011. If you have a chance to see this, regardless of age or background, do so. The profiles in courage and righteousness shown here need to be seen in a jaded self centred world where real suffering in some places only occurs in history books. In a time when even the youngest survivors of events such as this are fewer in number and the children and grandchildren are themselves no longer that young, it is important that we never forget or as I was recently told by a survivor... We must remember.
I leave you with the words of Fusia Podgorska who's actions judged by herself and weighed against the actions of those around her said "I did nothing special".
