A Catholic Pole, determined to heal a historical wound, launches a crusade to reconcile Poles and Jews over a massacre that happened 69 years ago.
Kielce, Poland, was the site of Europes last Jewish pogrom. It occurred in 1946, a year after WWII ended. Townspeople killed forty Holocaust survivors seeking shelter in a downtown building, and injured 80 more around the city.
As news of the pogrom spreads across Poland, Jews fled the country. It was a clarion call from settlers in Palestine to those remaining in Poland to come and help create the state of Israel. The Kielce pogrom became a symbol of Polish post-war anti-Semitism in the Jewish world. For 35 years, under communism, the pogrom was a forbidden subject.
In a free Poland, Bogdan Biaek, a Catholic Pole, journalist, editor and trained psychologist, begins talking publicly about the issue. Over time and with great effort, he persuades the people of Kielce to confront a painful piece of hidden history in their town. Beginning as solitary figure, attracting a community of like-minded individuals along the way, he cuts through the fog of repression and denial. He tackles years of lasting, mutual animosity, dissolves conspiracy theories and confronts the deepest prejudices in the hearts of his fellow citizens. Step by step he reconnects Kielce with the international Jewish community, but the effort comes at a great personal price.
Filming in Poland, Israel and the United States for almost a decade, the filmmakersa Polish Catholic and a Jewish American have a unique perspective on how one individual confronts the religious hatred that poisons his town; how it devastates his personal life, and how he and the town emerge focused on the future.
