FOREST OF THE GODS
Once famous for its decorative Baroque style
Under the motives of Balys Sruoga's novel "Forest of the Gods"
in the middle of the 20th century Germany
could boast of its barracks.
To understand the internal state
of a concentration camp resident
we'd have to change our whole thinking.
First of all, common sense needs
to be sent on limitless vacation.
At least for a while
our mind should be replaced
with the primitive instincts of starvation, self-preservation.
A clear line should be drawn
between a man and a beast,
between life and death.
Mother of God!
What are you doing here?
What are you doing here, sir?!
Maria!
Maria, who's that man?
Maria!
What's going on?
Who, sir, would you be?
Who would you be, sir?
Take your documents, Professor.
You're coming with us.
- What documents? - A passport.
It's a misunderstanding.
I'll be right back.
I'll make herring with hot potatoes for dinner.
Okay.
I'll be right back.
What have you been doing for the past two weeks, Professor?
- The past two weeks, I... - Sit down.
I've been very busy,
I've been translating a play in verse...
Please sit.
...in verse, in iamb, for the theatre.
I've been also writing a study
on the Renaissance of Florence.
You give lectures at the university.
You should have noticed there were
less and less students till finally none left.
What are you talking about?
Yesterday I gave a lecture on the German romanticism
- and there were enough students. - Enough? - Yes, enough!
Latvians and Estonians responded
to our invitation to mobilize.
But this country?
Two invalids and a lunatic turned up
at the recruitment office.
What theatre is this?
You are popular among the students.
They don't come because of your influence.
I'm not popular in my country.
I don't read newspapers,
I'm not interested in politics, I'm just a professor.
If you wish write down I'm a poet as well.
- Yes, a poet. - A poet can also be dangerous.
How can I be dangerous?
How?
You give lectures.
Your ironic comments, your nipping remarks.
This you know how to do.
Everything happened so quickly.
A trip in a crammed train to Tilsit,
a drive by truck from Tilsit to Gdansk.
Swamp, forest and then
in front of our eyes
a sign on the gates of the concentration camp:
"Everyone gets what one deserves".
Attention! Caps on! Caps off!
Attention!
Fresh air.
A resort.
- What do you mean a resort? - A seaside resort, pine trees.
Hello, Lithuanians.
We knew you're coming.
We've been waiting.
And earlier on, we've been waiting
for the Lithuanian sausage.
Pork fat.
You'll put your suitcases and coats into the cart.
Golden teeth, watches, rings,
all gold
you must give to the Reich.
Have a watch?
Get in line, you morons.
Faster.
How many of you stinking pigs are there?
A watch?
One. Two. Three.
I said stand still.
Asshole.
I'm here to see Commissar Hinkst.
I was at the educational administration.
I was told my husband should be here.
Madame, I can't help you.
Please.
I don't know if he's alive.
When they took the Professor,
they said not for long.
It's been two weeks.
You are the Professor's wife?
Yes.
I was his student.
He's safe and sound.
Can I see him?
Unfortunately, the Professor is not in Lithuania. They took him away.
Took him away? Where?
I don't know. The Gestapo doesn't give answers.
Forgive me, Madame.
Christ...
Sir...
Please look, officer, how they've dressed me.
See?
Sir, sir officer, sir officer...
Look...
Be kind, could you find anything better?
Christ, just look how they've dressed me, huh?
Could you find anything?
You think this is a store? It's a concentration camp,
you fucking dead meat! Mouth!
Do you have golden teeth?
Of what use are you to the Third Reich?
What can you do?
I can write poems.
I can write plays.
I can type.
I could teach theatre history in the camp,
lecture on Stansilavky method...
Shut up, piece of shit.
Mouth!
You don't have golden teeth either?
What can you do?
I can build a house.
I can make good beer.
- I can make schnapps. - Schnapps?
The entire neighbourhood knows Tadas' schnapps.
Schnapps good.
Yes, good.
You have syphilis?
Mouth!
Eh, sure you have syphilis.
What can you do?
I can herd cows.
That means nothing. Son of a bitch.
Andrzej Germinski. Polish.
A former boxer. A former officer of the Polish Army.
Arranged boxing matches in the camp.
Andrzej had an exemplary fist
while the teeth of the prisoners weren't that strong.
Bruno Monschtet. A German from Gdansk.
Head of the camp's political division.
A bookkeeper by profession.
Acting corporal.
To me, a new convict, he advised to put
my conscience in order:
to get rid of my intellectual past
and start the life of a criminal.
- Why were you arrested? - I don't know.
Doesn't know why he was arrested.
Are we here for long?
Till the end of the war.
What? Do you want to ask me something?
This is your passport.
You may lose your head but never this number.
Red triangle. "Schutzahft - politisch".
"Schutzahft - politisch"?
Warning political safety arrest.
You're in the camp for your own safety.
- Our own safety? - Yes, for your own safety.
You're such kind of criminals
that if you were free, fair Lithuanians, the society,
outraged by your behaviour would tear you to pieces.
The German government, worried...
- about your welfare, put you. - We... into the camp.
We're the intelligentsia.
You want to protect us from the society?
How? To protect us from the society?
No, no, no, for such criminals
there's another paragraph - a warning arrest -
so they wouldn't commit more crimes.
Those are criminals, thieves and murders.
They wear green triangles.
We protect the society from them.
And we protect political ones from the society.
There must be order. Understand?
Photographer of the camp.
Commandant Hoppe's nephew Friedrich Lege.
He dedicated himself to Stutthof town's widows
and grass-widows, not only in photographic matters.
For kleptomaniac tendencies he was reduced to a sergeant.
Only because of the uncle he was sent from the marine
to the concentration camp for rehabilitation.
Concentration camp is a complex mill of the Reaper.
In the camp you have to be both
a psychologist and prophet.
In the camp no one ever tells you what to do,
you have to understand it yourself.
A stick helps to understand.
Your worst enemy in the camp is not the SS, not a Capo,
not the lice. Not even a crematorium.
Your worst enemy is yourself.
If for an instant you give in to your lower instincts,
forget who you are,
and who you are supposed to be, you're dead.
Get up!
Crawl!
Get up!
Crawl!
Ah, lawyers, advocates, prosecutors,
your rule is over, eh?
Now you're in my hands.
You shaved asses.
I assign punishments here.
Your new life will begin here, huh?
Wacek Kazlowski. Polish.
Amateur executor.
A celebrity of the camp.
Did away with several dozen prisoners.
The old prisoners told that Kazlowski
killed his own brother in the camp.
Everyone had to go through Kazlowski's hell.
It was like quarantine of the newcomers.
The ones who didn't go to Abraham during
these first few months
could consider themselves to be experienced prisoners.
The Poles hung Wacek after the war.
Who wants to eat?
You're the Professor?
Franz Bloy. From Cologne.
A thief. The green triangle.
Do you want to eat?
I have cutlets, want some?
- Want some cutlets? - I do. - Come.
Come, I'll give you some.
Hurry, hurry.
Wait here.
Waiting for cutlets, aren't you?
Shit! Shit! Shit!
Franciszek Rozinski. Polish.
Son of the Zakopane mountains.
He was a musician before the war,
played the pipe.
He got into the camp because of a misunderstanding.
Before the war he was shy, gentle,
wouldn't hurt a fly.
In the camp he became famous for
sadism and alcoholism.
Franz Bloy. A German from Cologne.
Kind hearted and gifted with various talents.
A tailor by profession, thief by vocation.
Ah, the Professor!
Well, did you eat the cutlets?
Were they good?
Shit, I didn't eat any cutlets.
Didn't give any?
That's how, but I told them to.
So the gutters ate them, huh?
Can't trust anyone.
Come to me tomorrow,
- I'll give you some myself. - Tomorrow is tomorrow.
We have to live till tomorrow or see it in a dream.
Listen, what kind of creatures are biting us, huh?
Pediculus humanus vestimenti.
Bed bugs, you book rat.
But they bite just like the pubic lice.
Once I brought pubic lice from the city.
Tirus pubis.
What?
The pubic lice. Tirus pubis.
Ah, Lithuanians!
Caps off, caps on.
Good day.
Look who's come to visit us.
Good day.
Here you go, we're trying bit by bit,
will they permit it or not...
- Good day. - Good day, it's nice to see you.
Well, what do you think, Professor?
I think you stand wrong at "attention", you see.
Have you ever seen a samovar, a kettle?
Attention!
Caps off!
Caps on!
March!
You see, the common sense rules
do not exist in the concentration camp.
Everything that we've learned in life
has to be tossed away, has to be erased.
Common sense is replaced by the instincts of starvation,
cold, physical pain,
self-preservation.
The most important thing in the camp is to adjust.
To adjust, to adjust, to adjust! A human dies.
A beast is born.
A beast. Who doesn't understand this,
does not last long in the camp,
goes up in smoke through the chimney of the crematorium.
You can kill a man in the camp.
There will be no questions, no responsibility,
no court, no consideration.
You can kill a man for your pleasure.
Most importantly, you see,
the fear of death disappears.
The fear of cold,
the fear of physical pain remains.
But not of death.
You today, me tomorrow, what's the difference?
Everything goes away, everything goes by.
Yes, but somewhere deep in the subconscious
there is a whisper that
it's better that you today and me tomorrow.
I realize that a camp on the stage
and a camp in reality are two different things.
On the stage you need to find some artistic
form to unify the whole performance.
But please, refuse all these "Heil Hitler",
these exaggerated moans.
A stick.
It is the most important tool in the camp.
Use the stick wherever it lands.
Wherever it lands, you see.
Turn off the light!
That's why I think there should be
no props in the play.
...no property.
Property on the stage is like a live mouse
in the teeth of a painted cat.
Let's reject it, let's not eviscerate the subject,
let's refuse all these clich茅s. Let in some fresh air.
What were you?
Who, me?
A professor. A professor at Munich University.
I was a poet.
Now, as you see, I'm uprooting a stump.
Uprooting a stump.
Want an easier job?
Who, me?
Martin. A criminal by profession.
Sweat out like this and you won't last a week.
And remember,
moving is what matters in the camp.
Take branches from here and bring there.
Take branches from there and bring here.
The same tomorrow. And the day after tomorrow.
Forest of the Gods.
That's how people called this place from the ancient times.
Once upon a time,
Gods live in this forest,
not of the German origin
but Lithuanian Gods,
descendants of Perkunas, Patrimpas.
Forest of the Gods, a little known recess
near the Baltic Sea.
After the war between Poland and Germany,
in the fall of 1939,
the SS men moved into the swamps
together with several hundred ragged prisoners in stripes.
Most of them were Poles from Gdansk
doomed to death.
Felling of the forest began,
uprooting of the stumps,
flattening of the surface.
Forest of the Gods turned into a concentration camp.
The highest authority in "Forest of the Gods"
was held by Rudolf Hoppe,
Commandant of the Stutthof camp.
He was a typical head of the German family.
Maybe at home he wasn't
a bad daddy at all.
The Commandant was very proud
of his extraordinary position and his SS uniform.
The prisoners nicknamed him
Graf von Stutthof because of his pride.
Commandant Hoppe wasn't a thug after all.
He never hit prisoners himself.
I'd like to have this sakura's branch for a gift.
How beautiful...
Let me call you
sakura's branch.
The highest priest accused them,
"We forbid you..."
Jehovah's Witnesses, researches of the Bible.
A German sect refusing to join the army.
This was also a crime.
The representative of Jehovah's Witnesses in women barracks
was Frau Belenke.
A woman of great energy, very brave.
Commandant Hoppe was less hard
on the German prisoners
Frau Belenke was well aware of that.
Frau Belenke, you're in the prime of your life.
But you're here in the camp.
You are free,
just put a signature.
Think of your home.
A woman should bring up her kids.
Just sign
that you refuse this
Jehovah's Witnesses nonsense.
And off you go.
You Nazis, what right do you have to put
innocent people into concentration camps?
You should be the ones to go up in smoke
through the crematorium chimney.
I'll wait for the day
when you Nazis all get shot.
I'll leave the camp myself.
Without any signature.
Out of here, you old witch!
Out!
Nazi pigs.
Fugitives were one of the greatest misfortunes for the whole camp.
Both the SS and prisoners despised them.
There were reasons for that.
The whole camp had to stand still
till a fugitive was found,
beaten, bloody, ripped by dogs.
One would be returned to the camp, dead or alive.
The prisoners stand for long hours.
What names could a crowd of thousand prisoners
call such a fugitive?
The entire surrounding of the camp
was full of police and the SS agents.
It wasn't a bright idea to run away from the camp.
And yet people did.
The Ukrainian Stepan was an incomparable fugitive.
A circus acrobat from Lvov.
Three times escaped,
three times was caught.
For one such a loser
thousands of people had to suffer.
So then...
How did you climb over the fence?
With rubber shoes.
Yes, like that, but
what about electricity?
Of course, you wore galoshes.
And your hands?
I wrapped them in rubber
and climbed over.
And the guards? Didn't they see you?
Where were the guards?
Maybe in a women barrack?
Good... very good.
So that's our fences now? Shit!
So that's our guard! Shit!
Do you want to the front?!
Do you?!
A cigarette? Do you smoke?
Good boy. Why shouldn't you run?
Especially
if these idiots
don't guard you. So run.
Yes! Good. Run, run.
Walter Sauer. A German.
According to his documents,
he was sentenced seventeen times for children torture.
He ended up in the camp for an innocent thing,
for hopeless alcoholism.
After an attempt on Hitler strange audience turned up in the camp.
All of them were nice specimens.
One better than the other.
Psychopathologists of most interest.
Oskar Belanau, owner of several hotels in Munich,
a member of the Nazi party.
He stole the whole truck of meat.
He didn't work in the camp,
was busy organizing things to eat.
Rainer Nietzsche, a garden architecture.
He loved to say that he got into the camp
because of intimate relations with the Polish girls.
It was rather cocaine than the Polish girls.
Then this perverted crooked looking citizen
was brought in.
His documents said neither this nor that,
some indefinite relations with a cow.
At the beginning prostitutes
were described as the elements avoiding work.
They protested against saying they
weren't avoiding work.
They were working, all the time!
Later on the Commandant listed the prostitutes in a political group.
They were given the right to wear red triangle.
Women with children also got here, some still breast feeding.
An infant is also a human, so the infants
were given red triangles of the political criminals.
Prisoners were killed slowly in "Forest of the Gods".
Hard labour drained out their health.
Several dozen prisoners managed to survive
from the very first day of the camp.
Those were extraordinary people,
people of great physical strength and will,
protected by the very destiny.
Through the hard work, cruelty,
and desire to live they managed
to get into the authorities.
So the true power of the camp was
in the hands of the prisoners.
Hey, shitheads!
Take the corpses from the block to the hospital!
One, two, three...
Franciszek! Franciszek!
What?
Why did you give me the papers to sign that nine died today?
There's only eight! Can't you count, you pig?
Eight? I counted nine myself.
You go ahead and count how many are there.
Listen, if you don't find the ninth corpse, beware, I'll put you in its place.
Now where are you hanging about, shithead?
Where's your place, huh?
Sir Straffurer, Sir Straffurer...
What are you saying there?
My stomach aches.
What are you saying there, fuck face?
Where's your place?
Lie down, I tell you! Lie down!
Well? What did I tell you?
How many? Nine.
Nine.
Professor, I wake up in the morning
and I see that my foot is in Andrzej's mouth.
I try to pull it out but it's fast in his teeth.
I pull it out and I see that he's dead.
Could it be I suffocated the poor thing with my foot?
See how things happen.
Well that's some poetry, huh?
Momento tu more, momento tu more...
Rainer Kliauge. A German.
Capo of the belt weaving workshop. Slimy character.
The prisoners called him Fraulein Capo.
Before the war he sang, danced in an operetta
and was considered for a man.
Before the Easter he caught the spotted typhus
and gave his sole to the Lord God.
Fraulein Capo,
would it be possible to smoke?
Where do you think you are,
in a resort, you book rat?
A resort? What are you staring at, huh?
Does it hurt?
- Does it hurt? - It does.
Aha. It does...
Attention!
- This one? - A professor from Munich University.
You!
Into the office!
Change his clothes.
Martin Fott. A German from D眉sseldorf, Capo.
Got into the camp for a murder.
The prisoners called him Capo the Benefactor. Too bad he hanged himself.
- Do you have golden teeth? - No.
Open your mouth.
It's good you don't.
After I record your teeth in the book of registration,
you'll have to look after them, property of the German Treasury.
- Do you have golden teeth? - Ne. - Open your mouth.
It's good you don't.
After I record your teeth in the book of registration,
you'll have to look after them, property of the German Treasury.
What the fuck are you doing in the camp if you're ill?
- Surname? Nationality? - Ukrainian.
- What's your nationality, swine? - Orthodox.
Your nationality, not religion!
- Russian. - Repeat.
Russian!
Good boy! So then say you're a Russian.
Where was your Ukraine before the war, asshole?
There is no Ukraine and there won't be!
Poland!
So, shithead,
how do you know
there is meat in the soup?
There has to be meat in the soup, Herr Commandant.
So you refuse to eat the soup?
I do, Herr Commandant.
I can't eat meat because of my religion.
Okay...
I was told you read English books
in the camp, correct?
Yes, Herr Commandant, I do.
So you think England will win this war
and you tell this to everyone?
Yes, Herr Commandant.
I'm convinced the Germans have already lost the war.
Out!
Shithead!
Out!
Pigs!
Mr. Germinski! Mr. Germinski!
Mr. Germinski, the banker of Liubek
went to Abraham but he's still on the list.
- What should I do? - Cross him out.
Why did you beat that Ukrainian?
Give me the soap.
You asked him to tell the truth and he did.
Why to beat him?
Do you know, Mr. Professor,
what these Ukrainians did to us, Polish soldiers, when the war started?
They shot at us from the ambush.
Not this one. He's too stupid.
Can't tell a gun from cannon.
And why then do you beat the Poles?
It's necessary to beat them. I do good beating them.
I teach them life. Most importantly,
beat them while they're well. If you don't, they'll weaken and die.
Your theory is very gloomy, Mr. Germinski.
So what, no one beat you Lithuanians at the beginning?
How many of you will be left after a year?
In the best case maybe five.
You know, Mr. Professor,
from the whole group of Polish prisoners
I came to camp with I am the sole survivor.
Do you understand what that means?
Son of a whore, you're so naive, Professor.
You learn from books but not from life.
It's not people' fault, it's the system.
The Germans created the system.
We execute it.
Try uniting the prisoners
and you won't be able to talk to them.
Everybody is hungry in here.
I broke the bones of one slimeball, you know why?
Because he ripped out the liver of a recently dead man
and stodged it raw!
Now you tell me, Mr. Professor,
was that prisoner born a cannibal?
No, he was born like a normal person,
had a father, mother, a motherland.
The camp turned him into a cannibal, understand?
When you go up in smoke through the crematorium chimney,
maybe then you'll understand that I was telling the truth!
Book rat, get the fuck out of here!
Son of a bitch, fucking hell!
Piece of shit! You fucking swine...
Arno Pliac. A German sergeant.
Head of the camp's post office.
Before the war in Gdansk he scraped horse manure
with an iron stick from the tracks of a trolley-car.
The most pedantic creature in the whole camp.
"Only devil knows
how long I'll be cooped up in the camp".
No!
You can't use devil's name in a letter.
In a letter you can write,
"I received the letter and a package well."
"Thank you very much, please send more".
"I'm safe and sound".
"I feel great, kisses to all".
Sir Statf眉hrer,
but then I shouldn't bother writing at all, you see.
You'll rubber-stamp papers like that, we'll sign and everything will be fine.
Out!
"It's a terribly boring business to sit behind the rusty wires".
How dare you write "behind the rusty wires"?
Don't you see anything else in the camp?
Don't you see the birches growing?
I told you what to write, you are well.
Sir Statf眉hrer,
how can I write I'm well when I'm truly sick?
- Look at my... - Out.
Sir, take pity, be merciful,
send this letter.
Look, we'll fix everything, look, here,
I'm crossing out this sentence, right?
And this one.
Here, send this letter, sir Statf眉hrer.
And in the next one I'll definitely write
that our electric wire shines like silver,
that, as you say, there are three birches,
two stumps, and two mushrooms.
Send this letter and in the next one
I will definitely write that I'm well according
to all the existing rules of the camp.
Be so kind, send this letter.
Out.
Thrash him so that water boils in his ass.
How many?
Thirty.
Mr. Professor, you're a wise man,
help me get rid of my doubts.
What doubts?
Is my surname, Klawan, truly Germanic?
Are there no Jewish letters in it?
Klawan.
Now I could be wrong.
According to the theory of racism,
all names ending in "an" are Mongolian.
What do you mean?
Kaftan, sarafan, hooligan, sultan, moron.
That's Mongolian names and nouns.
But Professor, what you've just named
are the names of things
while my surname is a person's last name. Klawan.
But there are plenty of last names.
For example, Kazakhstan, Yerevan,
Afganistan, Gengis Khan. All Mongolian.
Professor, my last name is purely Germanic.
Inflection "an" is a pure inflection of Germanic language.
German, Norman, Japan.
So the Japanese also belong to the Northern Germanic race?
Of course! How else the F眉hrer
could make a union with them?
Okay then.
If the Japanese are Germanic,
then in your case the theory of racism doesn't apply.
So, in other words, my last name is Germanic.
Yes. Klawan.
Yes, Klawan.
Thank you, Professor.
Peter Klawan. Sergeant.
A total idiot.
Was born and grew up in Estonia.
Served some German baron.
Klawan's heart was wide as the sea.
All kind of garbage could fit in.
In the camp he became interested in his family tree.
He never really realised
whether he's Estonian, Mongolian or German.
Oh fuck.
Wacek!
Shit. Come here.
You swine.
Come here.
Fuck yourself.
We'll hang Wacek Kazlowski after the war.
Mr. Professor.
The numbers of two people
need to be changed in the book.
You won't be scared, will you?
August Zagorski.
A Pole from Gdansk, used to be a barber.
One of the leaders of the Polish underground in the camp.
Very honest and respectable man.
Registration book of the prisoners,
piece of shit, not a book! None of the ends meet!
What's that?!
- Wife? - Yes.
This is my family.
A son?
A daughter.
Prisoners are not allowed to have photographs.
Zagorski, twenty five,
so that water boils in his ass.
Fucking hell!
Hang both!
What do you think, Professor?
You see, that phrase has to be said very...
...very indifferently, very simply. You hang every day.
By the way, you are similar to...
...to Corporal Traugot Mayer.
He had right here, under his lashes, two letters SS.
In other words, I won't sell my beliefs.
My play is a creative presumption.
Alas, everything works differently in life.
You won't be neither hanged nor killed on the stage.
What I've gone through, believe me,
I remember perfectly.
And what I've written is imperfect.
The dialogues are too long,
they lose their strength.
Remarks. They have to be shortened. I don't know.
I don't know.
Excuse me, can I help?
Friend, what's the matter? Stand up, you'll freeze.
You don't feel well?
Let go, let me go...
What did I spit out?
What?
- Maybe it's your tongue. - What?
My tongue is okay.
Maybe teeth?
Teeth are also fine.
It's better to leave your teeth at home
when going to the camp.
Listen, what did I spit out?
Maybe my tonsillitis?
That's right, tonsillitis.
Good, I won't suffer from tonsillitis.
Zygfrid Heidel.
A pure Bavarian. Obersht眉rmbamf眉hrer,
the chief doctor of the camp.
He was a veterinarian in civilian life.
The prisoners called him "Bocian Bawarski",
"Bavarian stork".
He used to fake death certificates.
He would write "frei Tot",
meaning the prisoner died his own death.
No, my eye. My eye, kaput.
Caps on. Show your tongue.
What's with the book rat?
Probably pneumonia.
I told him he'd go up in smoke
through the chimney of the crematorium.
God damned fleas.
And take him to the barrack.
Christmas is soon.
Tomorrow is Thursday.
The day after tomorrow is Friday.
A letter day.
My wife stopped writing for some reasons.
Here, Professor, take the beet.
It improves blood.
Tadas Dailide. A brewer from Birzai.
Arrested because of a misunderstanding.
He made homebrew in the camp
what helped him to survive.
After the war he emigrated to America.
Son of a whore!
Love was strictly forbidden in the camp.
But what is wired fence to love?
Lovers communicated mostly
through intermediates, the postmen.
The authorities always caught the letters.
Usually they were in Polish or Russian.
Our office had to translate them into German.
We would swear translating those letters.
No one else on earth but the camp prisoners
would ever write such stupid letters.
I, Kristina, take you, Krzysztof, for my husband.
I swear to love you forever,
to be faithful and honest in marriage.
I swear to stay with you,
in sadness and joy, in health and sickness,
in wealth and poverty.
Help me God and all the Saints.
Hang both.
The priest as well.
To Wacek's health!
"I still remember, Wacek, your face..."
"...your eyes, your lips, your chin..."
"It's been ages since I saw you".
"Maybe it's not much left to wait,
maybe I'll see you soon?"
"I need no one but you, Wacek!"
"When will I see your blue eyes again?"
So that's how my wife writes.
Once I was enlisted in the Polish Army.
And wife loved me.
The camp ruined everything.
I lost my health here.
My nerves are completely eaten.
When did you get the letter?
Three years ago.
Three years.
To Wacek's health!
And, Wacek,
my wife wrote to me
that she went to the Gestapo
and asked about me.
And they said I was shot.
As if I were a criminal.
Poor thing.
Lord, oh Lord, how she's suffered.
The newcomers said that Vilnius has been bombed.
"I need no one but you, Wacek".
If I return to freedom
they'll put me right back into the camp.
I refused to register as a German.
So my wife, little fool,
went and registered herself.
She was trying to help.
If I return to freedom I'll end up back in the camp
for contamination of the race.
"I need no one but you, Wacek,
no one but you".
To Wacek's health!
Thank you very much, thank you.
Let me introduce myself. I am Franz Bloy from Cologne.
A prisoner like you.
This concentration camp was built in 1939
not far from Gdansk, for the Poles to sizzle.
As a part of evacuation plan
on their way to Abraham.
There, a chimney.
That's a crematorium.
This is the chimney through which
sooner or later we'll all go up in smoke.
If you have golden watches you can give them to me...
- Wacek, don't touch the Lithuanians, understand? - Yes, Mr. Zagorski!
And don't overload them with work.
Give them more soup, they're hungry, do you understand me?
- I'm warning you, Wacek. - I know Mr. Zagorski, I know.
Fucking hell!
Do you have syphilis?
Do you have feeble-minded relatives?
Do you have a tendency to a suicide?
Do you smoke?
I do.
Sir, you'll have to cut down.
The cigarette situation is poor in the camp.
Do you drink?
Excuse me, what did you say?
Sir, do you drink vodka?
Do you like drinking?
Well yes, a little.
You'll have to quit.
You'll have to lead a sober life in the camp.
Remember three things:
Don't drink water from the well,
you'll get cholera.
Watch your legs, illnesses will start.
And thirdly, don't get your kidneys beaten.
On the whole...
...it's possible to live in the camp.
Out! Out! Out!
Attention!
Who are they?
Lithuanians.
Lithuanians are our biggest enemies.
We'll find a mine for each of our enemy.
Yes, here and now!
Out! Out! Shit...
Do you have what I've asked for?
No.
Two stamps and an envelope.
We don't have stamps.
We have envelopes. Want some?
Maybe not.
- Franciszek... - Well?
I need a carrot. But...
...not a frozen carrot.
We don't have carrots.
Want a beet, you old pervert?
Do you?
Then out, go away, get out of here!
- Mr. Superior. - Well?
- I bought tooth powder from you. - So be happy!
- But it's not usable. - What do you mean not usable?
You don't know how to use that's why, go away.
It hardened, turned into a piece of chalk.
- I'm asking you to exchange it. - We change nothing here!
So what I'm supposed to do now?
What do I care! Eat it!
Give back my money.
Listen you, fucking book rat,
It's not a Gdansk market!
It's a camp store!
For fuck's sake, give back my money!
Motherfucker, I'll show you your teeth,
I'll knock your teeth out, asshole!
I'm closing! Everybody out!
I'm open only to the officers, out! Shit!
Yesterday I took my mother to hospital,
so, I'd like to buy her fresh cottage cheese.
But everything is so expensive.
Cut it into pieces, the hell with you.
Otherwise you fool me
and I won't know whose mug to hit.
- Good day, Professor. - Hello.
How are you?
- How is your wife and daughter? - They're away.
For long?
Yes, but they'll come back.
Then buy some dresses. New, pretty. For your daughter.
Maybe I will.
You know what, I'll buy this one.
And that one.
Yes, yes, editor, yes.
That sentence in red must remain.
What are you saying? A drastic sentence?
But we're not talking about sentimental things here.
It's about a concentration camp. Such was the reality.
No point to bullshit,
no point to throw dust in the eyes.
Yes, dear editor, yes, I'm aware of what I write.
Editor, I can't stand clich茅s.
What's wrong with that sentence?
What?
What's wrong with the sentence
"They rushed along to Abraham"?
Yes, they were killed!
This is getting disgusting.
You can't poison people with such clich茅s.
Be kind, my angel,
leave that sentence, it's absolutely innocent.
My style will be ruined if you take it out.
Yes, yes, the Germans appointed a Pole
to be the chief of the barrack, that's correct.
Who? You don't like the pregnant Polish woman?
Well yes, a pregnant Polish woman participated
in the Warsaw revolt and arrived
to the camp in uniform.
But this episode only highlights
the heroism of the Polish nation.
I know you're the editor in charge.
Yes, you have the final word, I know.
I'm tired of defending every sentence.
Cross out the entire chapter, if you want!
But I won't let you cross out separate sentences! Understand?
Fucking asshole.
Shit.
Lithuanians!
We received an order saying
that from this day on
all you become prisoners of honour.
From this moment
I, Commandant Hoppe,
am your direct chief.
You don't have to get your hair cut
as required in prison.
If it's still growing!
From now on
work is not obligatory
but if you wish, you can work.
As a volunteer.
You can write letters and receive packages every week.
But not a word about politics
nor camp life in your letters. You're still prisoners.
Even though prisoners of honour, yet prisoners.
You are free within the territory of the camp.
Only with my permission you can walk around,
you can sing,
you can pray, you can laugh.
You're even allowed to dance!
S, steward Vladas. The soul of steward Vladas.
Maybe cheating?
We invited Julius Caesar.
Ask.
Soul of steward Vladas,
tell us, when will the war end?
You'd better ask when we get out of here.
We'll get out of here when the war ends.
One...
...nine...
You know, I also had a suit in Vilnius.
Of good English wool.
The Jew Levin made it for me.
I wonder who's wearing it now?
- Here? - Yes, here.
Sir, shall we?
We knew the war was coming to an end.
The authorities changed their position towards the prisoners.
The camp had no eye doctor so Commandant Hoppe
allowed me to go to Gdansk for a specialist to examine.
The head of Gdansk eye clinics, a professor,
having found who I was
examined my eyes for the whole hour.
Talked friendly as if with a colleague
and ignored the fact that Germans were waiting
outside the door for their turn.
I'd let you walk alone in the town
but you know, they'll stop you,
ask for your documents.
Will suspect you escaped from the camp,
both you and me would get into trouble.
Let's better walk together.
Donate to Hitler.
Karl Janke, a German from Gdansk.
Who knows why he ended up in the Gestapo.
Poor Janke, ended his life in a Siberian camp.
Could we listen to the radio?
You know, they often tell news
from the front on the radio.
No, no, no, it's politics.
We fear politics like death.
You eat, eat.
Thank you.
Don't worry, we won't starve.
- Mother, Gertruda and I will consider your offer. - Professor.
Father, are you going to eat?
How is my son-in-law?
Doesn't harm you too much, does he?
Karl? A wonderful soldier.
Are you really a professor from Munich University?
I was.
Ah, you're a convict now.
That is life.
To everybody one's own.
The irony of fate,
from the letters of my wife I found out
that when I was at the eye clinics
she and my daughter came to Gdansk at the same time.
They wanted to go to Stutthof.
But the Germans forbade it.
The roads were blocked.
We lived hoping the meet again.
I received her last letter after Christmas.
What happened, sir corporal?
Why aren't the prisoners going to work?
Sunday, a choir, a symphony.
Is it a seaside resort or a concentration camp?
It was my idea.
- Your idea? - Yes.
I convinced the Commandant
that at least every second Sunday prisoners need to have a day off.
They are criminals, yet humans.
And Commandant perfectly understood me.
He says, "Wonderful idea, so from now on
you'll be on duty each Sunday without exception".
He trusts me, Professor.
You know, last Christmas
he gave me a watch, look.
Pure silver.
And then I say to him,
I grew up in a culturally different country, Estonia.
And, well, I'm against physical punishments.
Our Commandant
is a very well educated man, so he says,
"I'm also against physical punishments".
Well, but...
To decorate the gibbet,
it was also your idea, wasn't it?
No, this is Commandant's idea.
You remember, Professor,
you said to me once...
"Memento mori" - remember you might be hanged.
So today we'll perfectly mark this Commandant's idea.
We've decided to hang a Russian pilot, a woman.
Right, if it's such a holiday,
maybe the war is already over?
Yes. The Germans will end the war.
What are you talking about?
The Russians are already by Vysla, sir corporal.
No, the Russians won't win the war.
And so won't the English. Even the Americans.
Yes, maybe we, the Germans, will lose the war.
Maybe... Maybe the Russians
will take over the entire Europe.
Maybe Europe will be communistic.
But we, the Germans, her Professor,
are the nation of talent and we'll rule Europe.
Maybe via foreign hands, but we will.
After the war, when a human
gets out of blood and starvation,
when he looks around and shakes off the ashes,
when he feels a wish to be reborn, theatre will help him.
A human full of blood, dirt and death
will want to see light in the theatre, poetry and love.
The new post-war theatre should be
a theatre of emotions, beauty and love.
It should portray the truth that we so much long for.
Okay.
And here I finish my lecture on the theatre.
If God wishes and one day we all meet here again
then I'll tell you about the great German romantic
Ernest Teodor Amadeus Hoffman.
It's been a hundred years since his death
but he remains a mystery up to this day.
A phenomenon.
Literature studies...
Men, let's split up or we get sticks.
You know, at the end of my life
I'll probably start going to the theatre.
How are the rehearsals going?
- Where are the actors? - Having lunch. - Sorry?
Lunch break.
It's cold here.
I'll ask to bring some firewood.
You know, my eyes are getting weak.
Go to a doctor.
I want to talk to you.
Tomorrow is a conference of the Writers' Union.
They will consider the manuscript of "Forest of the Gods".
They'll consider you, do you understand?
I don't know if they permit to print it.
It's not up to me.
I know it's not up to you.
They've been considering it for twelve months.
The editor has latched onto the Polish word "vypirdaliaj".
"Vypirdaliaj" is a common word in the camp,
just like "scheisse",
like "kurwamac". "Vypirdaliaj litru samogona",
"Vszhyski zemby vypirdaliaj".
You have to understand - it's not the words.
You have your truth. It's your truth, keep it.
But you have to admit that an artist's truth
might be subjective.
There is another truth. It is categorical.
It's almost a warning or maybe even a judgment.
Your friends from Stutthof have been sent to Siberia.
By mistake.
You also might be such a mistake.
Do you understand?
- Let's talk in the car. - What?
We'll talk in the car.
Let's go.
Friends, during the Great War of Motherland
the talent of the United Nations' writers
became a conception weapon
to defeat fascism that instigates national hatred.
Friends, I'm amazed at the position
of the author of "Forest of the Gods".
He survived the hell of fascism concentration camp
but not a word is mentioned about the resistance fight
which, as we all know, went on in there.
No smoking here.
It can be claimed that the author cynically mocks the German victims.
The impression is that
the very prisoners are guilty for all the sufferings
but not the fascist butchers.
The author hides behind the apolitical mask,
the so called humour of a hangman.
This book is dangerous, good for nothing, my friends!
We would do a favour to our enemy if printed!
Hanged himself...
Son of a cunt.
Shoot all the Jews.
Then kill Russians and Poles, as soon as possible.
You have twenty four hours to eliminate the camp.
Yes sir Standarterf眉hrer!
I wonder who comes first, Russians or Americans.
If the Russians, I have to pin in the red star.
If the Americans, then red doesn't fit.
Everything's all right.
Welcome home.
I'm sorry, this is a front joke.
- Who's there? - The neighbour.
Hello!
Electricity frequently goes off in this building.
I want to give you an oil lamp, Professor.
It could be useful.
- You probably work a lot. - Thank you.
Sign.
I respect all beliefs and disbeliefs.
I just don't believe in sudden rebaptism.
Do you know how many change-overs
I saw in the camp?
You've announced the crusade to your past.
Yes, you're the power people.
I understand.
You have to agree, fawn upon and no one will touch you.
Argue, go against and hell knows what might happen.
But I don't believe all these enthusiastic approvals.
What's the essence of all these speakers?
Began with clich茅s and finished with clich茅s.
I believe and let it be!
A conference of the Writers' Union!
Not a single creative thought,
no communication, no creative discussions!
Creators have always created
and always destroyed theories from the essence.
Why am I telling you all this?
You understand it yourself.
Every creator creates what he saw,
how he perceived the world. One's own way!
"Forest of the Gods", it's such an innocent subject!
I wrote it in two months.
The discussion took twelve months!
Discussion, discussion, discussion!
And it's not the end yet!
It's clear for me though.
I'm starting to hate this piece.
I don't want to see it, I don't want to hear about it.
"Forest of the Gods".
You are all looking for politics
and get angry when you don't find it.
I didn't write any.
If all these people stayed in the camp
for as long as I'd been,
with legs swollen, kidneys beaten,
heads smashed, starving,
scrambling for a piece of bread,
they'd understand that a person in a camp no longer thinks of politics.
The most important thing is to survive.
To survive, to survive, to survive!
To write what never was...
What I never saw,
to brag about my sufferings. ...I don't want this.
I don't want to and don't know how.
When the firewood arrives, give them this note.
Good people!
Let this old bison die.
You're an influential man.
I should be afraid of you.
You know what, from this same office
I was sent to the camp, only by a German officer.
Who's there?
Me.
Who's "me"?
Me, me.
Ah, Professor.
Good day. Came to say goodbye?
Yes, yes, they closed your camp.
Completely closed.
We'll keep performing, but...
Will perform something.
Maybe it's good they've closed it.
Who needs a performance?
About a live mouse in the teeth of a painted cat?
I don't know if it's even possible to perform.
Who is he?
I know him.
That's Manfred Freiwald. From Lauenburg.
A German, the researcher of the Bible.
Worked in the library of the SS.
Yes, that's Manferd Freiwald.
Later transferred to the sawmill.
Was terribly afraid of death.
He hid in the hospital when he found out
he was to be shot.
He died when he fell off the scaffolding
while building a boiler.
No, that's a Russian from the sixth block.
He wanted to escape.
He tried to escape in spring, they caught and shot him.
So that's life.
So why is he walking here if he was shot?
Gentlemen, this is Mr. Professor, a Lithuanian.
A book rat from the administrative office.
They say he wrote a book about the camp after the war.
But nobody would print it.
Too bad.
The world would have learned funny stuff about us.
In memory of the writer Balys Sruoga.
In 1957, ten years after the writer's death,
the Soviet censorship gave permission to print the novel "Forest of the Gods".