IN DARKNESS SHEDS LIGHT IN LWÓW’S SEWERS DURING WORLD WAR II
For 14 months a group of Jews who had dug their way into the sewers of Lwów, Poland (now Lviv, Ukraine), hid from the Nazis until 1945, when Russian troops liberated the city, Simon Wiesenthal’s hometown. Leopold Socha (played by Robert Wieçkiewicz), whose job is to manage the sewer system, at first sees an opportunity to drain them of their wealth by bringing food and keeping them secret. In time, however, he bonds with them and even pretends to receive money when their cash and jewels are exhausted. The film, which is dedicated to the survivors, is based on the book In the Sewers of Lvov: A Heroic Story of Survival from the Holocaust (1991) by Robert Marshal. But to see how they lived and the perils they faced, filmviewers must be prepared to experience 145 minutes of filthy bodies, rats, and plenty of suspense as crises emerge and emotions surge. Perhaps that is the only way to have any vicarious feeling for the ordeal, and the film editor indeed admits that was the reason for the gruesomeness. One fascinating fact is that Socha could have obtained 500 zlotys for each Jew if he turned them in to the Nazis (reminding us, if we care, of the bounties paid to Afghans and Pakistanis for each Arabic-speaking captive who was entrusted to the Americans as a supposed terrorist who might have ended up at Guantánamo). But the Jews paid the same 500 zlotys daily for at least one year. Had Socha, a devout Catholic, played ball with the Nazis, the Jews would have been either sent to the Janowska forced labor camp or the Belzec deathcamp. (Wiesenthal, who began the war at forced labor in Lwów, had been transferred to Chemnitz and later Mauthausen forced labor camps while his fellow Jews were trapped in the sewer.) Agnieszka Holland, the director, previously shocked filmviewers with the Political Film Society-nominated Europa Europa (1990), which portrays another oddity of World War II horrors. Now her In Darkness, has been nominated by the Political Film Society for best film exposé and best film on human rights of 2011. MH