Die letzte Etappe

Though rarely shown and hardly available this is one of the most remarkable films about the concentration camp of Auschwitz ever made. Shot as early as 1947, partly on location at the camp, even featuring former inmates among the actors, and using original languages, OSTATNI ETAP is a kind of first-hand re-enactment and gives for the most part a very convincing, gripping and realistic portrait of what life was like at the camp. The film is well directed and staged,occasionally using dramatic compositions and lightning to a striking effect. It is actually no less impressive as any then-contemporary film by Roberto Rossellini and other of the "neo-realist" school. The whole now-familiar iconography of Holocaust cinema is already there, probably for the first time, copied in hundreds of movies to come. Andrzej Munk's more stylized PASAZERKA is clearly influenced by the OSTATNI ETAP as both films are set in a woman's camp and feature sadistic female SS-guards.

However, due to historical circumstances there are many aspects in the film which have later been more or less dropped or at least received lesser attention. The role of women as both victims and perpetrators is at the center of the film, and large space is given to show the cruelty of Kapos, block elders (women with a black triangle, implicating "Anti-socials" and criminals) and SS-collaborating and egoistic inmates as well. The concept of primary Jewish suffering at Auschwitz now at the core of the narrative is de-emphasized, and the Jews are presented as just one of many peoples (f.e. Russians and French are shown) interned and murdered there. There is a more explicit focus on communists and Poles being victimized, as well as a clear sympathy for Stalin and the Red Army, which also shows in the rather unconvincing melodramatic final scene, when the heroine, facing execution, holds an accusing speech against their henchmen while soviet planes appear in the sky like in a last-minute-rescue. A final title claims the highly exaggerated number of 4.5 Mio victims at Auschwitz, a number that was corrected only decades later, in 1990.

The portrayal of the SS is effective but pretty cliché-ridden, and the stereotypes presented here have become stock ingredients of the genre - such as fat, ugly, stupid and vain Nazis with scars on their faces and Iron Crosses on their fancy uniforms, cynically dancing waltzes and drinking champagne in their "free" time, stiff cigarette-smoking-"we-have-ways-to-make-you-talk"-torture-officers, and Ilse-Koch-like SS women.

Overall OSTATNI ETAP is both an exceptionable document and a well-made film, which beats SCHINDLER'S LIST by far. It is a pity that this film has become so obscure.

The Last Stage (Ostatni Etap) is about the women who were interned at Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp. Although men were also imprisoned there, this story is mostly about the women. People from all over Europe (including France, Hungry, Poland and Russia) were caged and killed at this camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. Some were imprisoned for political reasons and others for simply being a Pole or a Jew. The story is based on the actual experiences of the director (Wanda Jakubowska) and was shot on location just three years after the war, which gives it a feeling of practically being a recreation of the atrocity.

Although we get to know a group of women, one that stands out is Martha Weiss. She is a young Jewish woman that is spared the same fate as her family because she ends up working for the Germans as an interpreter. Those who have a skill useful to the Nazis are spared leaving the camp though the smoke of the chimney. Martha and her friends make the best of their grim situation and are courageous in their acts of defiance.

With their survival threatened, not all of the prisoners are quite so noble. Some of the prisoners work as assistants for the guards to help them do their dirty work. In return, they get a few extra comforts and their own deaths are delayed.

The Last Stage captures the feeling of what it was like at Auschwitz, which is at times surreal with an orchestra of prisoners playing classical music out in the open air while the other prisoners are abused and degraded by their captors.

Ostatni Etap is a classic Polish movie; in Poland, it is in the top 20 of all time box office hits of Polish cinema. The Last Stage depicts a disturbing part of history, but it is better to know what really happened during World War II than it is to pretend it never did, which is why I would recommend everyone to watch this movie.

In common with Donskoi's 'The Rainbow' and Rossellini's 'Rome, open City', the effectiveness of Wanda Jakubowska's film lies in its sheer immediacy. Its power to shock has been somewhat diluted by later and more graphic depictions of the Holocaust but it nonetheless remains the blueprint.

Some critics have unfairly referred to it as a 'Hollywoodised' version of life in Auschwitz but the director has understandably chosen to sanitise events so as to make her film more palatable to post-war audiences.

Although Jakubowska and her fellow writer Gerda Schneider, a former 'blocksenior', have based the material on the personal stories of prisoners, many of whom appear in the film, the main female protagonists are all professional actresses. Extremely popular and photogenic Barbara Drapinska as the interpreter, Tatyana Guretskaya as the doctor and the nurse of Antonia Górecka are symbols of resistance whilst the banality of evil is portrayed by Aleksandra Slaska as the overseer, which made her inspired casting in Munk's 'Passenger' fifteen years later.

Filmed in the remains of Auschwitz, individual scenes haunt and no more heartrending use has been made in film of La Marseillaise. It is both a grim reminder of the depths of cruelty to which humans can sink and a testament to the triumph of the human spirit. On a purely technical level, the camerawork, editing and score are exemplary.

In contrast to the film's neo-realistic treatment, the overtly propogandist climax has naturally dated the film immeasurably but must be viewed in its historical context.

The film has rightly been called 'a courageous act of remembrance' but as an unreformed Communist, Jakubowska's subsequently blinkered adherence to a brutally oppressive and discredited ideology does her little credit.

Jakubowska uses documentary techniques that are quite remarkable - location shots, use of actual participants speaking their own languages to build up the experience of women being sent to Auschwitz, the death camp. A great film for Poland, for the Holocaust, for women, for resistance against fascism - but it is not quite clear where the place of the Jews in this is. There is the slogan "You must not allow Auschwitz to be repeated" and the role of the Russians as liberators is emphasised with shots of their planes overhead. Amusing to compare with Wyler's 1942 "Mrs.Miniver" - but "The Last Stage" alas is unavailable.

I guess that there were not that many movies about Auschwitz, so this one is an absolute must see, though this is a rather ankward feature, with a score not at all in the mood of this atmosphere and many other clumsy details that interfere a bit with the purpose of the film. But it is really important to see it. I prefered KAPO however, around the same topic.