The re-writing of history is happening in two planes – the erasure of the actual history through the destruction of the monuments, and the implanting of a “new” narrative in the minds of the people. We told about the destruction of the monuments through a video clip from the film “Warsaw ’21” in the article “Warsaw ‘21” – a political thriller with a fragment on the essence of the Polish destruction of the Soviet memorials, while the alteration of the history with the “new narrative” is happening though the films, like the one criticised below.

For an additional story about the liberation of Poland, and how that event gets malformed in the minds of the Poles, see our 2015 article The Sorrow of a Warsaw Woman. Why Poland is not happy to be liberated from fascism?

Soviet and Polish soldiers plant the victory banner. Warsaw, January 1945. The Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.

Oscar-winning film lies about the Red Army

Nikolai LAKHONIN, Chief Counselor, Foreign Ministry Information and Press Department
March 17, 2025

The annual Oscars Academy Award ceremony attracts attention of the whole world. Recently, another such show took place. We would like to talk not about the American film Anora (rated R) with Russian actors (we congratulate them on their great success), but about the drama A Real Pain (rated R) directed by Jesse Eisenberg.

It is also an American film, made by Americans primarily for Americans and about Americans. This is important. The picture is about historical memory in the perception of American descendants who survived the Holocaust. The genre is a road film: the main characters travel to memorial sites, get acquainted with monuments in the Polish capital and go to the Majdanek concentration camp museum. The picture has already been seen by millions, and after it received the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, even more people will see it. The screenwriters of such films lay down powerful narratives. And since they contain a distorted view of the most important events related to our country, we cannot remain silent.

The myth of the Red Army

What does the viewer see and hear? Beautiful views of Warsaw to the music by Frederic Chopin, including the Palace of Culture which is a Stalinist high-rise. The tour “about pain, suffering, but also glory” logically starts from the monument to ghetto heroes, the 1943 uprising of imprisoned residents. The British guide emphasises that it is important for him to dispel the myth of Jews who went to slaughter without a murmur. The Western viewers successfully rid themselves of one misconception which is certainly a good thing. But not even an indirect attempt is being made to explain to the audience why their fellow countrymen, ethnic Poles from the heroic Resistance, failed to help the rebellious Jews.

But the next scene cements another myth. Approaching the monument to the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, the British guide declares that the strangest and scariest part was not that it was suppressed by the Germans (it was probably not too scary), but the role played by the Russians. This is how the lie that the Red Army did not come to the rescue of rebellious Warsaw is promoted and enforced without any context.

Probably, we wouldn’t even be talking about this film at all if it weren’t for this outrageous segment. Next, the protagonist, the grandson of a woman who survived the Holocaust, meaning she was saved by the Red Army, suggests taking a group photo at the monument to the rebels, who, in his words, fought the “fucking Russkies” and the “Krauts.” This is an utterly pejorative and xenophobic way to refer to Russians. That’s how, to the music of Chopin, he took a potshot at the memory of 600,000 Soviet soldiers who died in battles on the territory of modern Poland. Indeed, this character walks around stoned halfway through the film and this is why his role won him an Oscar. And, judging by how painstakingly Jesse Eisenberg approached his work, nothing happens by accident in his film. It took him eight months just to negotiate the filming on the grounds of the Majdanek Museum.

What was it like?

The film director decided not to delve deep into the historical context of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, which was not coordinated with the Soviet side and resulted in additional casualties on the part of the Red Army and the Polish Home Army. So, both the Russophobic lines and segments of the film were deliberately included in the script. The question is by whom? The other day the director received Polish citizenship from President Andrzej Duda. Here is the answer.

For those who are interested in the “context.” After the defeat of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943, Itzhak Zuckerman, deputy head of the Jewish Fighting Organisation, wrote the following to Commander-in-Chief of the Home Army (Armia Krajowa) Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski, “At the end of the fighting in the ghetto, we asked countless times for help to rescue surviving fighters. We were not given guides to take us through the canals, we were denied apartments in Warsaw, and we were not given vehicles to take our fighters out of the city.” This is about the general character of inter-ethnic relations in Polish society before and during the war. On September 15, 1943, Bor-Komorowski issued Order 116 prescribing the destruction of Jewish partisan groups, and accused them of banditry. And this person is considered a hero in modern Poland. He was the one to lead the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.

“Saved the whole world”

The rescue of the surviving Polish Jews from persecution by the Nazis, anti-Semitic Home Army formations and the People’s Armed Forces (Narodowe SilyZbrojne) came only with the Red Army. That’s a fact.

Torah says, “Whoever saves one life saves the whole world.” This saying is often mentioned in connection with the righteous of the world which is the honourable title of those who saved Jews. From time to time, one hears that the Red Army liberated almost empty concentration camps in Poland. There were “just” a few hundred or thousands of prisoners left there. The rest were taken on “death marches” to the west. These lives don’t count, or what?

We tell this story for our audiences to understand how the people in the collective West have been brainwashed by liberal propaganda. How do they manage to get their heads around the claim that the Poles in Warsaw were simultaneously fighting against “Ivans” and “Krauts?” Through the efforts of such collective “British guides” (authors of books and films, lecturers, and historians), the Red Army getstransformed from a saviour into an “occupier” who accidentally swung by Majdanek and Auschwitz.

“It just came”

In this film, by the way, a Holocaust expert, during a tour of Majdanek’s grounds, claims that the Red Army also exactly just got to Majdanek. Allegedly, there were no bloody battles for the city of Lublin, on the outskirts of which Majdanek is located. There was no Konstantin Simonov’s article “Extermination Camp” in Krasnaya Zvezda on August 10, 1944. There was no joint Soviet-Polish commission that looked into Nazi crimes in Majdanek and published documentary reports about atrocities in the camp, where about 200,000 Jews and about 100,000 people of other ethnicities were exterminated.

Not a single monument to the Red Army is shown in the film. There are simply no more left in Poland. More than 500 monuments have been demolished. Those that are shown in the film, including the one in Krasnystaw, are dedicated to Poles, although they were erected “under the Communists,” and were vetted by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance for “glorification of totalitarianism”.
No way to put up with this

We will not call out the Western organisations that keep the memory of the Holocaust on being silent. They have long been silent on even more outrageous occasions. It is more important to ask what society is supposed to do about it.

First, it should not tolerate or let any such occurrence go unnoticed, but instead uphold the historical truth every time it is attacked by Russophobes.

Second, not to allow such products enter our information space uncommented. Why not add a mention of Russophobia to warnings such as “the film contains scenes of violence, smoking, etc.?” It would be an excellent inoculation against historical falsifications.

We encourage our journalists who rhapsodise about such “masterpieces” to put more thought in their writings. We recommend looking not only at the acting and dialogues, but also at the meanings laid down by the scriptwriters.