On 1 September 1939, GermanyinvadesPoland and after which the regulation was promulgated that all Polish Jews should move to the newly created Warsaw Ghetto. As in all the ghettos, a Judenrat was appointed and was responsible for the administration of the ghetto. The film tells the moral dilemmas faced by Adam Czerniaków, head of the Judenrat in the Warsaw Ghetto, who was ordered to carry out orders of the German authorities, including sending Jews to the Treblinka Concentration Camp. A group of Polish Jews decide to rebel against the Germans and not to lend a hand to the murder of their brethren. They begin to organize their people in order to protect the honor of the Jewish people, but Czerniaków as the leader of the Judenrat objects to this activity, fearing violent German retaliation against the Jewsin the ghetto. By the close of 1942, people living in the ghetto realize they are doomed as the deportations to Treblinka began. The rudiments of resistance are planned by Mordechai Anielewicz together with Yitzhak Zuckerman and laid the foundation for the Jewish Combat Organization, Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa. The film illustrates the moral dilemmas of members of the Jewish Combat Organization during the preparations for the revolt: "How to remain moral, in an immoral society?" On January 18, 1943, Nazis raid the ghetto again, but this time the Jews resist. The Jewish Combat Organization stops the Nazi raids into the ghetto. Germans return on 18 April 1943, and the uprising in the ghetto breaks out. In the intervening time, many of the ghetto residents construct hidden shelters or bunkers in the basements and cellars of the buildings, often with tunnels leading to other buildings. The handful of fighters who have weapons take to these shelters, giving the uprising the advantage of defensive positions. The fighters hold out for more than a month. In the more than three hours mini-series, we see a realistic and docu-like representation of what happened at the Warsaw ghetto.
The French title for the film is 1943, l'ultime révolte. The German title for the film is Uprising: Der Aufstand. The Polish title for the film is Powstanie.
Reception
The film has a score of 7.4 out of 10 on IMdb, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Controversy
The film aroused controversy in Poland due to historical shortcomings and the way in which the attitude of Polish people to the Holocaust was shown. Most of the people of Polish nationality appearing in the film are depicted as anti-Semites who look indifferently or approving of the extermination of Jews. The film omits the fact that the Poles were also repressed and sentenced to extermination by the Nazis. In contrast to the occupied countries of western Europe, Poles were threatened to be executed on the spot, instead of being sent to prison for helping the Jews.
