In Stille gefangen

I enjoyed the movie and Kellie Martins performance immensely. It's the kind of movie I can show my family and has an example of a young woman placed in extraordinary circumstances finding the courage to do the right thing in the face of extreme danger.

This movie deserves much better reviews. I've watched many holocaust movies and read many books about survivors of the holocaust. This is an excellent movie. I have watched it twice in one week. This movie, more than most I've seen, portrays the power of God. It is a real story about real people who survived to live successful lives. It is a story of God's love for all His people, Jew and Gentile. It is a story of their love for Him and for one another.

Perhaps, having spent a month in Poland just west of the town where this happened...perhaps because I married a Polish man once....perhaps because I celebrated a Messianic Passover Seder when I was in Poland.... perhaps because my heart cried out for the hearts of the Polish people, most of whom did not do what Fusia and Helena did, when I was there...perhaps because my heart cries for the thousands upon thousands of Jews who were murdered by the Nazis...perhaps because I rode the train through the beautiful Polish country side from Katowice to Kracow and visited the ghetto area and the small museum in Kracow...perhaps because I rode the train into the mountains to the south... perhaps because the Polish people are beautiful and precious in God's sight. I don't know why, but this movie has really touched my heart.

The Podgorski sisters have my undying love and appreciation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podgórski_sisters

"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".

Kellie Martin does an outstanding job in this movie... She is quite the underrated actress. This movie was well written and portrays the atrocities that people can do to one another. It also exposes the kindness that I like to think we all have as well.

This movie just screened on Channel Seven - Australian TV - today.

In my opinion, it was a very interesting take on how the Nazi's treated the Russian Jews as mercilessly as everywhere else.

Kellie Martin did a really great job, and her tears and frustration as "Frusia" were quite convincing.

The Holocaust is a part of our history that WE MUST NOT FORGET. Schindlers List wasn't the first - and it wont be the last - account of survival and courage in that five year nightmare. My family is Dutch, and I will always applaud any movie makers who want to keep the candlelight alive by telling of someone's courage to stand up and help those who were being abused, violated and murdered for being "A Jew."