OSTATNI ETAP

Poland, 1947
Feature Film

A Pole,Helena, finds herself in Auschwitz-Birkenau as a result of a raid. The woman is pregnant and gives birth in the so-called revier, i.e. the camp hospital. Doctors, nurses and prisoners too, are trying to fight for her child's life. However, an SS doctor murders the baby and Helena, after a moment of breakdown, joins the women's resistance movement. The group is international in nature. It is led by its charismatic leaders: the doctor Eugenia from the Soviet Union and the German nurse Anna. The group includes: nurse Nadia, French liaison Michele, Yugoslav partisan Dessa and others. After an overnight transport from Warsaw, they are joined by Marta, a Polish Jew. During an international commission visit, Eugenia tries to expose the genocidal practices of the SS, for which she is tortured and murdered. Anna discovers a trade in medical supplies between kapos, for which she ends up in a bunker. Marta, the camp translator, together with an activist from the men's camp, takes the documentation of Nazi crimes outside of Auschwitz. Captured, she stands under the gallows. Allied planes appear in the sky. Marta appeals: "Don't let Auschwitz repeat itself" and dies at the hands of Helena. The film, directed by Wanda Jakubowska, went down in the history of world cinema as the first feature film about a concentration camp, additionally shot at the site of the former Auschwitz-Birkenau camp.

Director: Wanda Jakubowska
Screenplay: Gerda Schneider , Wanda Jakubowska
DOP: Borys Monastyrski
Editing: Róża Pstrokońska
Sound: Jan Radlicz
Music: Roman Palester
Conductor: Zdzisław Górzyński
Production Design: Roman Mann , Czesław Piaskowski
Make up: Kazimiera Narkiewicz
Main Cast: Wanda Bartówna (Helena), Huguette Faget (Michele, Tatjana Gureckaya (Eugenia)

Production:
Film Polski

World Sales:
Documentary and Feature Film Studios